Santa wouldn't survive this law -Dec 15, 2004

By Jonathan Bartley

The future is looking dodgy for Father Christmas. He is left perhaps with only two options: take a small, armed cohort of elves with him on his rounds; or give householders a warning before he drops in for milk and biscuits.

Tony Blair has indicated that he might support a change in the law to give homeowners greater freedom to tackle intruders — whether they drop down the chimney, or take the more usual route of breaking in.

The comment was not directed at Santa Claus, when the Prime Minister said he wanted to send “a very, very clear signal” that the Government was “on the side of the victim, not the offender”. But the implications for Santa’s operation are clear.

If the daily newspapers are delivered to the North Pole, it will have been observed that, like a good Christmas dessert, the issue has been around for a while. The public outcry after the Norfolk farmer Tony Martin was imprisoned for shooting a young burglar merely put the pudding on the table.

The spark of the murder of the financier John Monckton in his home in Chelsea has now been fanned by the intervention of the outgoing Metropolitan Police Commissioner, Sir John Stevens. The Shadow Minister for Homeland Security, Patrick Mercer, has poured brandy over the mixture by calling for the threshold to be raised to “grossly disproportionate force”, before householders face prosecution.

Yet the question of how violent homeowners should be predates even St Nicholas. The book of Exodus seeks to address precisely this point. If someone comes unexpectedly into your house at night, the Torah suggests, it is understandable if a death results (Exodus 22.2-3).

A closer inspection of the text brings some qualifications. If the incident happens during the day, then such behaviour is deemed unacceptable. The implication is that the benefit of the doubt should be extended to a householder (tent- holder?) who, because of the confusion in darkness, may have made a mistake. In the cold light of day, such behaviour is not on.

As such, it fits with the rest of Hebrew law. The “eye for an eye” injunction has often been taken to mean that you should reap what you sow. The Lex Talionis can, however, be interpreted not as a prescription for how justice is obtained, but rather as an invitation to proportionality, which limits a spiral of violence. “An eye for an eye, but no more” would be a better paraphrase. Jesus, in his fulfilment of the law, appears more generous, and even suggests such spirals can be reversed. “You have heard it said ‘an eye for an eye’, but, I tell you, do not resist the evildoer” (Matthew 5.38).

Such approaches are not, in the words of Mr Blair, on the side of the victim rather than the offender. This justice is on the side of both, recognising that each party needs the gift of grace, so that what has gone wrong can be put right.

Yet, before being too critical of the PM, perhaps Santa needs to put his own grotto in order. The problems that he faces are, to a certain extent, of his own making. The ideology that underpins the Prime Minister’s position is the same as that of Lapland’s supremo: “Those who are bad don’t get any presents.”

Yet both must recognise that their conceptions of justice contradict the idea behind the ultimate Christmas gift, which was given to all, whether they be naughty or nice, victim or offender.