How to defend yourself against burglars

Lawyers today advised homeowners how they can strike back against burglars and remain within the law.

However, some critics have said it has left homeowners unsure of exactly what they can do.

Legal experts today issued their own advice. They said:

The debate on householders' rights to defend themselves in their homes follows the murder of financier John Monckton and the stabbing of his wife Homeyra at their Chelsea home.

Mark Stephens, of law firm Finer Stephens Innocent, said the more mundane the household object a homeowner uses to defend against a burglar the easier the job of the lawyer who might be called to defend him.

He said it would be easier to defend a person who had injured or killed an intruder with objects such as a poker or baseball bat rather than a gun. "Before Hungerford and Dunblane a burglar could never be sure that he might face a householder armed with the gun. Now, at a time when more criminals than ever are armed, they can break into a house in the virtual certainty that the law-abiding homeowner will not have a gun," he said.

"My first advice would be to get the hell out and not to engage the burglar if at all possible.

"It is obviously unreasonable to shoot someone just because he is walking out of the door with your ?40 DVD player.

"The law has always allowed the householder to make a proportionate response to an intruder; but how are they to know, when they creep downstairs at 2am, how much of a threat they pose?" But Martin Beale, the managing director of Praetorian Associates, a team of former military personnel who provide security to prominent individuals, said he favoured the right of householders to respond "hard and fast" when confronted with a burglar.

"The burglar has time to choose his weapon while you are asleep before you even hear him. Simply by showing your determination to throw everything you have in the kitchen at the criminal may well make him decide to make a quick escape," he said.

However, the Association of Chief Police Officers recently advised householders not to confront intruders but to call 999 and lock themselves in safely until help arrives.

The debate follows outgoing Met Commissioner Sir John Stevens saying that householders should only face prosecution where they are shown to have used " gratuitous violence".

The Director of Public Prosecutions Ken Macdonald this week moved to reassure the public by indicating that he would give his backing to the right of homeowners to fight back.

"What could be more frightening than going downstairs and finding some man in a balaclava in your kitchen?" he said.

"We are not saying that if someone is burgling your house, you had better stop and think hard, because the law does not expect that and we are not calling for that."