Mylene Klaas and the knife

Altered?

Well spotted, that man! Duly amended. 😮

If this article is to be believed, then Ms Klass appears to have altered her agent and/or publicist about the intruders before she alerted the police.

Altered?

This popped up in my local news today, which suggests that you can be held responsible if you don’t clear it ‘properly’…

http://www.getwokingham.co.uk/news/s/2064040_legal_threat_for_good_neighbours_who_clear_snow

I notice that’s a generalist solicitor. The BBC got specialists from legal firms that specialise in personal injury claims. I remember hearing two different ones, on different Radio 4 programmes, within a couple of hours (doh!) both say that if someone came to them asking for advice on whether his claim had a chance, they’d only say yes if confident that they could prove that the snow clearance had actually made it more, rather than less, slippery. And it’d be up to the claimant to prove that, not the defendant to prove that he or she hadn’t cleared it ‘properly’. One of them said he’d shovelled the snow from the path outside his own house, & had no fear of being sued.

Apparently, both law & precedent favour those who clear snow, not those who claim against them. As long as you make an honest attempt to improve the situation, & don’t do anything stupid like the aforementioned hot water trick, they reckoned you’d be in the clear. One did state that he’d only advise the use of mechanical snow clearance (e.g. a shovel), or the putting down of grit or ashes to improve grip.

If this article is to be believed, then Ms Klass appears to have alerted her agent and/or publicist about the intruders before she alerted the police.

“….the initial call to police was not placed by Myleene but by a man believed to be her agent or publicist, to whom she was naturally on the phone at the time. Truly, the fourth emergency service. It was one or other of these men who called the Met in London, who then passed the matter on to the Hertfordshire force who attended Myleene’s address in the small hours of Friday, by which time she had also been in touch with police. As for the story’s appearance in the Sun the very next day, Hertfordshire police state: “We believe the media found out about the incident following a phone call from Ms Klass’s publicist to Emma Cox from the Sun.”

She wasn’t joking, just badly informed. You are liable only if you make it worse. E.g. if you pour hot water on snow to melt it, leaving a puddle which promptly freezes into a sheet of ice. Shovelling it away, scattering grit, etc. will not make you liable.

This has been repeated ad nauseam by every personal injury & accident specialist lawyer who’s been on the TV & radio in the last few weeks.

It’s a convenient excuse for not bothering.

This popped up in my local news today, which suggests that you can be held responsible if you don’t clear it ‘properly’…

http://www.getwokingham.co.uk/news/s/2064040_legal_threat_for_good_neighbours_who_clear_snow

I only ever called the Police twice since I lived out in the country, their reaction time on both occasions was about 55 minutes. After being lectured that swinging a pick-axe handle at 3 guys whilst protecting myself and my property was illegal, I never bothered them after that.:rolleyes:

And who remembers the IAT at Greenham Common that was ‘protected’ by military personnel carrying…. pick axe handles?

I think that was the year that a Landrover of them wrote off the Sea Vixen by driving into it in the middle of the night.

Ridiculous, I agree.

When I was back in the UK at Christmas, I expressed concern at the state of my local Asda car park. Nobody had made any effort to shift the snow or the ice from the car park after the snow had stopped falling. When the woman on the store’s customer service desk told me that if they cleared it, they became liable for any injuries sustained, I didn’t know if she was joking or not. Obviously she wasn’t.

She wasn’t joking, just badly informed. You are liable only if you make it worse. E.g. if you pour hot water on snow to melt it, leaving a puddle which promptly freezes into a sheet of ice. Shovelling it away, scattering grit, etc. will not make you liable.

This has been repeated ad nauseam by every personal injury & accident specialist lawyer who’s been on the TV & radio in the last few weeks.

It’s a convenient excuse for not bothering.

Unheralded among the media frenzy and the resonant echoes of righteous indignation, buried away at the foot of a page on the BBC News website is the following quote from Hertfordshire Police:

“Officers spoke to reassure the home owner, talked through security and gave advice in relation to the importance of reporting suspicious activity immediately to allow officers to act appropriately.

For clarification, at no point were any official warnings or words of advice given to the home owner in relation to the use of a knife or offensive weapon in their home.”

So there you go……

If I could back-peddle that fast I’d be in the Olympics.

Yahoo news reporting the people or BBC news reporting the Police statement.

You decide, it should of course be a no-brainer but much as I applaud the BBC and the Police, they do a lot of lying.

You only just realised? 😉

Paul

haha. No, i’ve known for years. I could list the things that annoy me about the UK but i’d be sitting here typing for about 100yrs.

Unheralded among the media frenzy and the resonant echoes of righteous indignation, buried away at the foot of a page on the BBC News website is the following quote from Hertfordshire Police:

“Officers spoke to reassure the home owner, talked through security and gave advice in relation to the importance of reporting suspicious activity immediately to allow officers to act appropriately.

For clarification, at no point were any official warnings or words of advice given to the home owner in relation to the use of a knife or offensive weapon in their home.”

So there you go……

Yeees, maybe, but it wouldn’t be the first time that the police account differed from the account of the member of the public. As some of us can testify!

Unheralded among the media frenzy and the resonant echoes of righteous indignation, buried away at the foot of a page on the BBC News website is the following quote from Hertfordshire Police:

“Officers spoke to reassure the home owner, talked through security and gave advice in relation to the importance of reporting suspicious activity immediately to allow officers to act appropriately.

For clarification, at no point were any official warnings or words of advice given to the home owner in relation to the use of a knife or offensive weapon in their home.”

So there you go……

My understanding about clearing the carpark scenario is as follows:-

If the car park isn’t cleared from snow, then anyone walking on can see there is a risk and has to take that risk into consideration if they wish to walk across.

If the car park has been cleared, then anyone walking on it can assume that it is safe to do so. If they then slip on some ice etc, then the responsibilty has fallen onto the person/company doing the clearing (ie. they didn’t do the job properly) and as such can then be sued.

This isn’t a health and safety issue more an ambulance chasing lawyer one :rolleyes:

Just my interpretation

Matt

Do nasty things to lawyers..(for any lawyers reading this this is something called humour.)

That they do not have !

The UK is completely messed up.

You only just realised? 😉

Paul

The asda close to me hasnt cleared their carpark either. Considering its their carpark I assumed they had a duty to clear it when it snowed. So does the rule stand that if it snows and they dont clear it and someone falls over and breaks their leg asda cannot be sued? Sounds pretty rediculous and dangerous to me.

The UK is completely messed up.

Same reason the Council didn’t clear the car parks. Scared of being held liable.
Morrisons near me cleared the car park properly, then salted it. They had a good business day on Saturday!

Anything! as someone has already said, governments should be scared of the people not people scared of the government!

Well, that’s helpful. Yes we all agree but you still haven’t come up with anything. Shouting from the rooftops is fine but if you can’t back it up with action it is no better than p*****g in the wind.

Like what??:confused:

Anything! as someone has already said, governments should be scared of the people not people scared of the government!

Like what??:confused:

Do nasty things to lawyers..(for any lawyers reading this this is something called humour.)

SO WHY DOES NO ONE DO ANYTHING ABOUT IT?!?!?!

Like what??:confused:

Anyone over there remember the Magna Carta? Seems it needs to be applied a bit differently, but based on the same principles. The government is there to protect the people, not tyrannize them.
At least over here in the former colonies we can still defend ourselves. In Texas, your home IS your castle!

Ryan