SELF DEFENCE LAW

All of our concepts you will learn keep you well within the laws of the UK which many don't.

Understanding Self Defence Law

Before we consider any legal ramifications of any actions you make to defend yourself on the street, it is important to consider the legal consequence as a strategic proactive consideration and not one while you are in the midst of a confrontation as this will lead to hesitation and probably getting hurt. However unless you know your rights and know the law pertaining to them you could place yourself in jail just by saying the wrong things. Even when individuals have defended themselves within the law, in their statements to the police and subsequent court appearance they have been prosecuted for a technicality of what they said and not on what they did and happened.

I remember a student that was confronted by a group of guys, 5 to be exact after a night out, he said that he tried to de-escalate the situation and look for an exit point but one of the guys became more aggressive and moved in on him. Now if you consider this? If he was attacked he would most probably be in a world of pain. So he pre-empted any attack and palmed the guy in the face and made his exit at speed. Did he commit a crime? Well it depends on how you look at it and what you would say; here are two examples from this scenario;

1. I THOUGHT HE WAS GOING TO ATTACK SO I THOUGHT I’D GET THE FIRST ONE IN AND SMASHED HIM IN THE FACE.

2. HE LUNGED AT ME AND I INSTINCTIVELY BROUGHT MY ARM UP TO DEFEND MY SELF I PUSHED HIM AWAY AS I HAD THE HONEST BELIEF THAT THEY WERE GOING TO ATTACK ME AND THAT MY LIFE WAS IN DANGER. BY PUSHING HIM AWAY I USED ENOUGH REASONABLE FORCE AS TO MAKE MY ESCAPE FROM THE VOLATILE SITUATION THEY PLACED ME IN.

By these two examples you can see how one sounds more aggressive than the other and that in the second example the crucial parts are “I had an honest belief” and “reasonable force”. So even after a confrontation the defence process is still on going and you need to be able to defend yourself from possible prosecution. As well as the fore mentioned when or if you go to court there are other factors that will be considered, for example if you were regularly attending traditional arts classes but the system you were learning was for example called combat karate, the mere word of combat lends itself to misinterpretation and can be associated with aggression, warfare, attack, etc. So even though you attend the classes for personal protection, a court may see this as you are trained to attack and cause harm which may affect your defence. This is why Rapid Action Initiated Defence is an acronym and no mention to combat even the H2H defence is passive, not to mention the process of the 5D’s and how they work on avoidance and de-escalation strategies.

Many martial arts systems do not teach the legal aspects of defence as they have no reason to as they are based on technical sporting applications. This can be potentially dangerous on the street as the commensurate level of force and the way it is delivered will not match the aggression being shown and will place you outside of the law.

The two main laws we need to consider are;

1. Section 3 of the criminal law act 1967 – which refers to using reasonable force.

2. The human rights act 1998 – which refers to proportionate force.

Both of which pertain to personal defence and the amount and use of force within defence covered within the courtroom survival package of the RAID System.

“To know the law is to know how you can protect yourself”.

How to contact us

If you require further information or would like details of training that would benefit you. Contact us at info@h2hdefence.co.uk or fill out the contact form below to the left: