Tony Martin and the homeowners' rights debate

Yahoo

25-02-2025

For 25 years, Tony Martin has divided opinion. The farmer shot dead a teenage intruder in his home and was jailed in 2000. The 80-year-old died earlier this month and his funeral took place on Tuesday. How did the case end up causing a national debate over homeowners' rights?
In the late 1990s, Martin lived on his own at a sprawling, semi-derelict farmhouse in Emneth Hungate near Wisbech on the Norfolk-Cambridgeshire border.
On the night of 20 August 1999, 16-year-old Fred Barras and 29-year-old Brendon Fearon travelled from Newark, Nottinghamshire, to raid the house where Martin stored antiques.
Once in the house, Martin heard them and came down from an upstairs bedroom before firing a pump-action shotgun.
Fred died from his injuries at the farm and Brendon was injured and treated in hospital.
Martin was arrested and charged with murder of the boy, and claimed to have been acting in self-defence, but prosecutors argued he had anticipated the pair and lay in wait for them.
He was convicted and jailed for life in April 2000 with 10 years to run concurrently for a wounding offence and a further 12 months for possession of an illegal firearm.
After his sentence, Fred's family spoke to reporters and said they "cannot and do not condone" the 16-year-old's actions.
However, they added he was "fun-loving and always happy" and they urged people to "please remember that he was just 16".
Martin's sentence was later downgraded to manslaughter on the grounds of diminished responsibility after a diagnosis of paranoid personality disorder and Martin was released in 2003.
The case immediately attracted huge public attention.
"Was he defending his home from intruders or simply a vigilante taking the law into his own hands?" said Prof David Wilson, emeritus professor of criminology at Birmingham City University, who was speaking in 2019.
"I don't think any journalist missed the opportunity to frame that story in the way that suited their readership."
Former Daily Mirror reporter Aidan McGurran lived with Martin for two weeks after he was released from his three-year prison sentence.
"I never once heard Tony Martin in all the interviews I conducted with him ever, ever express any remorse," he said.
Martin himself said several years later he did not "have to excuse myself for anything" and maintained he acted in self-defence.
In 2013, the Crime & Courts Act gave people a "householder's defence" if they used "reasonable" force against an intruder that was not "grossly disproportionate" - a change in the law that was influenced by Martin's trial and other similar cases.
However, prior to his death, Martin still felt the law fell short.
For some time after the shooting, Martin refused to return to Bleak House and instead stayed with friends and within other properties he owned in west Norfolk.
His friend Malcolm Starr said Martin became "quite depressed" and also lived in cars, a barn and a rented house before his health declined.
He continued to hit the headlines including in 2013 when he said two men attempted to steal a pair of £90 batteries from his barn.
In 2017, Martin visited the grave of Fred in Newark and said he "just stood there and looked at it".
Martin died on 2 February in hospital in Wisbech, Cambridgeshire, and was surrounded by friends. He had suffered a stroke.
His funeral was held at Mintlyn Crematorium in King's Lynn, Norfolk, with a teddy bear and framed photo of Martin placed beside the coffin during the service.
Reverend Sandra Gardner read a tribute from an older cousin, named only as Tish, who had been close to Martin growing up.
In it, she described how he did not enjoy boarding school life, and was "very lonely", despite winning various sports trophies.
"Nowadays he would have received help on how to cope and would have had the part of the Asperger's side of his character explained to him," she said.
"Unfortunately he never recovered from the horrendous attacks he, his dogs and his property were subjected to over many years.
"And because of his somewhat odd behaviour and people not understanding what he was going through.
"But he did his best to survive."
On the back page of the order of service, Martin's family asked that any donations in his memory be made to the Welney Wildfowl Trust.
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