Almost 10 years ago in 1998 aged 18 I was working night shift at a factory (my first proper job!) - left the house at 9.45pm to go to work and found some scrote with the driver's door of my car open and fiddling about with the ignition.
Now I'm the least suspected person ever to get in a confrontation of any kind - in fact, I think the phrase "he wouldn't say boo to a goose" was written for me, but sometimes the red mist comes down and you get taken over by an unknown force!
I dragged this guy halfway out of the car and as he was hanging on to the door pillar I slammed the car door on his fingers as hard as I could. Back to the topic(!), at this point I would have loved to have made a citizens arrest and kept him there until the police arrived. Sadly, when I opened the door for another go, he ran away (hopefully with several broken fingers).
When I phoned the police and told them exactly (honestly) what had just occured, they were spot on and said if they happened to pick up any of their "regular offenders" (in Grantham mostly heroin addicts known to the police) with finger issues they'd be able to link them to the crime.
Nothing came of it, by the way.
Can you begin to imagine what would have happened now, 10 years later? I'd be the one in court - probably on assault charges. The law is no longer in favour of us law-abiding citizens......
I wouldnt have bothered with the ol bill back then..justice was half done..(stamping on his legs would have completed job nicely!!)
He got some of what he deserved, you got to keep your car..the ol bill didnt have any paperwork to do..the courts didnt have to waste time and resources on giving him a massive caution.
Everyones a winner baby, thats the truth...
These days however you just have to do 'the right thing'..or youll end up in even more trouble than the criminal as its quite obvious the law (not the police) seems to come down on the victim hard in many cases.