Each of is is supposed to be unique, but each of us also has certain experiences and characteristics in common with other sentient beings. For example I once lived in the same road as Cardinal Winning of Scotland and some thirteen years ago enjoyed a gin and tonic with him in the red light area of Hong Kong - don't ask, it's a long story.
You may not realize it, but at least three of the columnists in "The World's Greatest Martial Arts Magazine" are ex-police officers. Michael Tse of Qi Gong fame served in the Royal Hong Kong Police Force as I did, while Michael Finn, who for many years has written for Combat about his experiences in Japanese martial arts, served in the Police Force in London.
However, although I share with my esteemed colleagues considerable experience in both martial arts and police work I consider that in other respects I am unique. Firstly, I graduated LL. B from Glasgow University in 1974 and secondly my last job in the police force was as a police prosecutor in North Kowloon Magistracy.
This unique background has given me a rather different insight than the usual (or should that be the normal ?) to some questions relating to self defence and the use of force.
For several years now I've been teaching security guard trainees and hospital personnel in self defence, although these sessions are now being re-titled "Management of Aggression". One of the first things I like to do is to question the trainees as to when they belief they are entitled to use force and as to how much force they are entitled to use. Their ignorance on these matters is similar to that exhibited by most martial artists.
This ignorance is entirely understandable given the absurd posturing of a number of candidates for the male menopause who seem to favour dressing in combat gear and writing articles in which the only answer given to any self defence scenario is the maiming or worse of the adversary.
For example when attacked by a friend or relative at a party the same level of violence that one might use on an armed mugger would not normally be justified. Indeed this was one of the reasons that I gave up karate for Tai Chi Chuan. In Tai Chi Chuan it is much easier to control the amount of force used, and there is the choice of striking and inflicting pain or simply controlling and restraining the opponent.
There are two conflicting questions in all this; not only should we be considering what is legal, but also what is moral.
Some of my learned friends have written that in law you are entitled to use reasonable force to defend yourself and these denizens of what are laughingly referred to as the courts of justice are undoubtedly correct in their exposition of what is written in the weighty tomes which litter their desks. However, the reality is somewhat different.
Let us for example consider the old scenario of the pub fight. Someone accuses you of looking at his girl or even worse spilling his pint. He attacks you. A fight starts. You give him a bleeding nose. You wait for the constabulary to arrive and after listening to your explanation that you were using reasonable force to defend yourself, they charge you with assault occasioning actual bodily harm or, if the fight is still going on when they arrive, they charge everyone with fighting in a public place. It is then a matter for the court to decide whose version of the truth sounds more plausible after being picked at by my learned friends.
Whether as a police witness or as a prosecutor, I found that most prosecutors and most defence counsel were neither particularly good nor particularly bad as they played their essentially parasitical games. It is very easy to make even the most minor details seem incriminating. For example I once secured a conviction for indecent assault largely on the basis that on the fatal morning the defendant testified that he had made his own breakfast while his ever-loving wife said that she had prepared it. On the other hand, despite my best efforts at sabotaging the police case, other individuals of whose innocence I was convinced were convicted.
Indeed what if the person who attacks you is a police officer ? Doesn't happen ? I can think of many incidents in Hong Kong where I had to prevent officers working with me from assaulting arrested persons.
At what point are you allowed to use force ? On the one hand some people believe that it is enough for the other person to shout or swear at them on the other hand others believe that there must be a physical assault. Both are wrong.
It is important to make a distinction here between provocation and self defence. Provocation is never a defence to a charge of assault, but can only be pleaded in mitigation thereby leading to a less severe sentence. An example of provocation would be racist abuse and this is often an offence in itself.
It is obvious from a number of conflicting decisions that neither the police nor my learned friends are always very sure where the line should be drawn. Let me relate to you the cautionary tale of a large rugby playing gentleman from West London who suspected his ever-loving wife of extra curricular activities.
One Saturday he made to drive off to rugby as usual, but instead parked out of sight and waited. His spouse soon emerged in the other car. He followed. She picked up a male passenger. He followed. They drove to some park land and walked off into the trees. When he reached the happy couple it was obvious that picnicking was not the activity uppermost in their minds. A dispute arose. The male passenger who was also a judo practitioner advanced on the husband with arms outstretched to take a grip of his clothing. However, our rugby player pole-axed the exponent of the gentle way with a punch between the eyes. Subsequently he was charged with assault.
He pleaded self defence saying that he had no knowledge of martial arts and was found not guilty. This was despite the fact that the judoka had not laid a finger on him.
There are other grey areas. If a large person attacks a small person, or a man a woman or a young person an old person, then even if the assault is without a weapon the use of a weapon could in certain instances be justified, but as my learned friends will tell you, this depends on the merits of the individual case as seen by judge and/or jury.
Unfortunately the law like politicians is often a stranger to morality. Often what is legal is morally wrong, what is morally right is not always legal. This has led to a degree of support for certain actions by members of the public who have fought back against criminals and even to a degree of support for what amounts to vigilante type action. Like many of you both as a police officer and as a martial artist I have on occasions done what I believed to be right rather than what I believed to be legal; on occasion circumstances have forced me to do what is legal rather than what was right.
In a perverse way, the more laws we have the more criminals we create - certainly it helps to produce more lawyers, yet without law society is unworkable. If we accept the need to follow our own code, then we accept the possibility of being punished when that code comes into conflict with the law. In the end we all play God to a degree and even the decision not to break the law is playing God.
So what is the solution? Some of my learned friends state that if people are allowed to break some laws then they will feel free to break all laws. This argument is patently absurd. The reality is inevitably that if you do not wish to obey the strictures of a particular law, you risk the chance of being caught, of being charged and of being convicted. If this happens there can be no complaint as you have made your choice.
I realise that I have raised more questions than I have answered. Of course my learned friends, for a modest fee, can make it all sound so simple, but then it has been well said that some people rob you with a fountain pen and in such circumstances there is little opportunity for self defence.