Home is castle defence shot down

The Dominion POst

CONVICTED: Jeremy Graves at his Taupo home where the firearms incident with police took place.

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A judge has ruled that a Taupo man's home was not his castle and he had no legal right to aim a firearm at police officers who entered his home suspecting a burglary.

When the two officers entered the house, an airgun, with a laser sight attached, was aimed at one of them.

The homeowner, Jeremy Graves, thought he was being burgled when he awoke to intruders and sought to protect himself.

Graves, 34, was convicted yesterday of assaulting a policeman and unlawfully presenting a firearm at police on March 13. He received a deferred sentence.

The judge said the case highlighted two important legal principles – a homeowner's right to protect property, and the police's ability to investigate a suspected crime.

"A man's home is his castle is more than a glib saying ... it underpins two powerful and competing principles of common law," Judge Chris McGuire said in the Taupo District Court.

Graves was unjustified in pointing a pistol at one of the officers inside the house.

Judge McGuire said Graves was faced with the dilemma of all homeowners who find an intruder in their home and arm themselves "either with a firearm, a bat, or even a glass vase".

"Mr Graves would not have been convicted if he had chosen a baseball bat."

Outside court Graves said he was unhappy with the decision. Graves, a restaurant manager, had come home late at night and used a 100-kilogram statue to smash a double-glazed window when he could not find his spare keys.

Unknown to him, a neighbour, an off-duty policeman, had heard the glass smashing and other loud thumping and banging, and called police, thinking it was a break-in.

Two unarmed police officers responded to the call. They each yelled out identifying themselves as police but received no response

One told the court he heard "rustling and scuffling" upstairs and saw a red dot laser beam dart across the ceiling and then on his chest, despite him identifying himself.

"I braced myself to be shot," he said.

Graves said that when he heard noises he panicked and grabbed an unloaded air pistol beside his bed.

He stood at the top of the stairs and pointed it at a dark figure standing at the front door and was not sure who had called out.

- © Fairfax NZ News