Kyle Aaron

From the daily mail. A knife-wielding burglar had a shock when he attacked a pensioner in his home - and discovered his victim was a retired boxer.





Battered and caught out: Gregory McCalium before his encounter with Frank Corti and after, looking ever-so-slightly the worse-for-wear


Reluctant hero: Frank Corti, pictured here with his boxing trophies, is pleased with the sentence and has insisted that 'most people would have acted the same way'

Senior citizen Frank Corti, 72, a former junior boxing champion is still a bit handy with his dukes.

And when he spotted the aforementioned intruder, Gregory McCalium, in his hallway he sprang into action and delivered two right hooks.

The blows were so powerful that McCalium, who had just lunged at Mr Corti with the knife, was left looking like he had been in 'a car accident'.

The pensioner then restrained him until police arrived. He was jailed for four and a half years yesterday after a judge told him he had 'got what he deserved'.

After sentencing, Mr Corti said: 'I was scared when he first drew the knife but most people would have acted in the same way. If you can't defend what's yours, where are we at?'

Oxford Crown Court heard the break-in was the culmination of a long-running dispute over noise between the neighbours, who live in Botley, Oxford.

McCalium, a barman, was having a rowdy party at his house on August 18 last year when police turned up after a complaint from a neighbour.
McCalium assumed it had been made by Mr Corti - who won the National Association of Boys' Clubs Championship in Birmingham when he was 16 - and broke into his neighbour's home at 8am the following day.

Mr Corti, who was with his wife Margaret at the time, dodged out of the way of his attacker's lunge and punched him, giving him a black eye and a split lip, before subduing him.

McCalium was found guilty of aggravated burglary at a trial in March, during which he had claimed he could not remember the incident.
John Simmons, defending, said Mr Corti, who served with the Royal Engineers in North Africa from 1956-58, had received minor injuries during the confrontation.

He added: ' Photographs of the defendant showed what looked like a car accident and photos of the scene looked more like a murder scene.'

Recorder Angela Morris said: 'Luckily, Mr Corti was an able-bodied 72-year-old who was able to defend himself. The jury might well have concluded you got what you deserved when you entered that property and took a swipe at him with that weapon.

'The elderly and vulnerable people are entitled to demand the protection of courts from people like you who decide to take matters into your own hands and enter a property with a weapon.'

Mr Corti, a retired car worker, added: 'If needed to, I would do it again.'

During sentencing at Oxford Crown Court, Brian Payne, prosecuting, said: 'There was a struggle and it was clear Mr McCalium was intoxicated because his reactions were slow.

'It seems Mr McCalium ended up with far more serious injuries.'


Jailed: McCalium pictured partying on his Facebook page

After the sentencing, Detective Constable Jon Shaw said: 'Fortunately no-one was more injured in this incident but this was still a terrifying situation and McCalium must now pay for his actions.

'I hope that the victim, and his wife, might now be able to put this ordeal behind them and get on with their lives.'

During the trial, Mr Corti described how he had been woken during the night by noise from next door for several months before the incident.

He told the court: 'They would slam the doors, then they would start partying. You could hear shouting, screaming and music.'

Mr Corti said he called police when he found McCalium banging on the front door of his house at about 6.30am.

Two hours later, he said, he came downstairs and saw bar worker McCalium in his hallway.

Mr Corti said: 'The accused produced a knife. It was no ordinary knife, it was more like a six-bladed knuckle duster.

'He made a slashing movement at me. I stepped back. He missed me, fortunately.'

Mr Corti said that while McCalium was off balance, he grabbed both of his wrists and managed to pin his arms against the wall.

He added he asked McCalium to drop the knife but he wouldn’t.

Mr Corti said: 'I shouted to my wife to ring the police.

'I was absolutely petrified.

'As I saw it, it was a matter of do or die so I let his wrists go. Fortunately the element of surprise was with me, so I adjusted my position and hit him with my right hand. It was just below the eye.

'I did not knock him out, but he was stunned. I heard the knife drop. We grappled. I was trying to drag him out of the back door. We both fell to the floor. I had to subdue him by punching him, which I did not take a great deal of pleasure in.”

The jury heard he then lay on top of McCalium until the police arrived.

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Shrek

Messed him up good...lOL

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Morgan

If that happened in Australia the old bloke would have done 2 years himself I reakon.

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Kyle Aaron

Not at all, Morgan. He was assaulted with a deadly weapon.

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Morgan

I'm not on the young guys side or anything I just thought it was all about reasonable force, and him being semi-pro at Boxing in his day, that's like if I'm a blackbelt and kick someone in the face in a pub fight, if the cops/judge find out I did it... They throw the book at you saying you should know better, thats what I was getting at.

Edit- Having said that, I have a baseball bat next to my bed and a metal pole in my car... I guess I shouldn't be preaching about right / wrong hahahahaha.

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Flea

what a champ, bet that kid didnt know wtf was going on ahahah

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kindred

Your right. Its sad when the wrong people have so many rights and can harm you even after the event using the laws of the society that is supposed to protect you.

If i was a god the first thing id do is go on a killing spree lightning bolts up the ass for all the wicked!

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Kyle Aaron

Amazingly, the courts are reasonable about this sort of thing. That's the benefit of common law - the judge gets to use common sense.

"Self-defence" in the law means,

• There were no police available
• You could not run away, or were in your home
• You used force proportionate to the threat

In this case, he called the police at 0630 when the bloke first showed up; the article doesn't tell us if the cops came, or if they came what they did. The bloke showed up two hours later in the old guy's house with a deadly weapon. He restrained the man, who still wanted to stab him. He then struck and disarmed him, and restrained him again, while telling his wife to call the cops again.

His use of force was proportionate to the threat; he would have been justified in heading to his kitchen for a blade of his own, but he used only his fists. He was in his home, and thus was not expected to flee, especially since the bloke had already shown himself able to kick in doors; so if for example the old fellah had fled to his bedroom with his wife and locked the door, he only would have had to defend himself there. In any case, could he outrun the young bloke? Should he turn his back on him?

In no court in the common law world would old Frank have got in trouble for what he did, based on the facts as presented in the article.

The whole business of boxers or karatekas or whatever "registered as a deadly weapon" is an urban myth. The truth is simply that if you're trained, you're expected to have a better idea about the use of force.

If I'm a small young or old person who's never been in a fight and someone comes at me violently in a dark alley somewhere, I strike, they fall down, then I kick them when they're down - well, I didn't need to kick them while they were down, but the court will understand I wasn't sure what I was doing, as frightened and so on.

If I'm a healthy adult person with a decade of ju-jitsu behind me, they'll look at that kicking differently.

Common law uses common sense.

People always talk about how you could get charged for defending yourself, but they never seem to be able to come up with anything other than urban myths to prove this. And when they do present a story, when you look into it it turns out not to be as they present it. One story sometimes mentioned by gun nuts is that of Tony Martin.

Martin's is a story about an old bloke who used lethal force on intruders, and was imprisoned for it. It sounds really unjust until you realise that he had a history of violence with firearms which he'd been prohibited from owning but got them anyway, had previously shot at a family in a car stopped by his property, was associated with racist hate groups, had said he wanted to kill some Gypsies (which is what the burglars were), the intruders were unarmed, he was not directly threatened, and he shot them in the back while they were running away.

This is not murder - they were robbing him, after all - but it is not fully self-defence, either. He was defending his home, but using excessive force in doing so. The right charge was manslaughter, which is what he got in the end.

Again: common law uses common sense. A particular court may not always get it right, but that's what we have appeals for.
It would be sad if it were true. But since it's not, it's not.

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Zarkov

I disagree.Circumstames - the guy may be a former boxer but he is 72.The young dude went him with a deadly weapon in the old guys home.The old guy held back and when the young prick wouldn`t yield he slugged him.
Given all that he would get off scott free - maybe even in America!

kindred

Your right there is nothing wrong with the legal system. Everything works logically and the way it should. The Government is never wrong and always does things perfectly... I thought i was drunk last night haha.

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