On 07/02/2012 18:36, Cynic wrote:
On Sat, 04 Feb 2012 02:21:27 +0000, Steve Walker
wrote:

On 01/02/2012 13:37, Cynic wrote:
On Mon, 30 Jan 2012 19:32:34 +0000, Steve Walker
wrote:

Wrong. Taking the property of an innocent man because you are acting on
*rumour* is still theft. In your scenario, the *thief* is still a thief,
even if by mistake, while my uncle was quite clearly an innocent victim.

Similarly, beating up an innocent person because you *think* he is a
thief is still GBH.

"Think" is not the right word and neither is "innocent". There's a big
difference between "suspecting" that someone has your stolen tools and
having actually seen him take them from your vehicle and make off with them!

There is also a similar difference between "suspecting" that someone
has committed GBH, and actually seeing him beating up a youngster in
the street.

In the theft case the "thief" may believe that he has the moral right
to take the tools, and in the second case the pugalist believes he has
the moral right to inflict GBH. Can you not see that the two
situations are exactly the same - a person acting outside the law
because he thinks he has the right to do so?

No they are not the same situations, despite the law being broken in
both cases.

In one someone is stealing an innocent person's tools of his trade. He
has no right to do so and no right to think that he can - even if he
thinks that they are his relative's tools, he has nothing to confirm
(even to himself) that that is the case.

In the other case, the victim of the theft, has actually seen the person
taking the tools and therefore there is no doubt about the guilt of the
thief, however he has no way to prove to the authorities that that is
the case and therefore no recompense or punishment will follow.

i.e. In one case, a person punished an innocent person by taking the
tools of his trade, while in the other a person punished a guilty person
for taking his tools, when the authorities were unwilling to commit any
resources to gathering sufficient evidence for a prosecution - and of
course even if they had, the thief would likely have had to pay a fine
to the state, while paying no recompence to his victim (who would likely
have had to lose even more money by taking time off for the court case!

SteveW