Don't Overdo It

This case is one that I make no apology for lifting from the Daily Mail because it is the Mail's analysis that will remain embedded in the public consciousness, following journalism's Gresham's Law that bad reporting drives out good. On the face of it, it must be wrong for a victim to have to compensate the man who stole from him, but this was one of those cases, like the one a year or so ago where a householder pursued a burglar down the street and battered him into brain damage in which the reaction to being a victim was disproportionate and excessive. English law is perfectly capable of dealing with legitimate self defence, and even makes allowances for the heat of the moment, but the reaction has to be in proportion to the crime.
I feel sorry for the man who was robbed, (I am reminded that he wasn't robbed in the legal sense, rather cheated) but he has to understand that he just went too far, and that has cost him a lot of money. It sticks in one's craw to see a low-life thief rewarded, but it doesn't take much to turn a criminal into a victim.
Mind how you go, now.