Chamber and committees

Petitioner submission of 30 September 2021

PE1898/B - Make entering someone’s home without their permission or warrant a crime

Scottish Government statement 1:

“The Scottish Government recognises how important it is to feel safe and secure in your own home and community”

Scottish Government statement 2:

“While entering someone’s home without their permission is NOT a crime in and of itself, housebreaking with intent to steal is an aggravated form of the common law offence of theft in Scots Law. The essential elements of this crime are that a person

1. Overcomes the security of the premises AND
2. Does so with the INTENT of stealing.

The housebreaking MUST be with the intention of stealing, not for some other purpose, such as finding a place to sleep.”

I ask the committee to consider these two statements made by the Scottish Government and consider how EITHER elements of the crime can leave a person feeling “safe and secure in their own home.” A further example given by the police is “it is not a crime to break into someone’s home, sit on their sofa and turn on the TV.”

The police also informed me that it is impossible to prove intent unless something is actually stolen. There could be intent but the intruder was spooked by an alarm, confronted by the home owner or simply nothing of value to steal. Intent is a thought process and no one can know what someone’s intent truly was. In Scotland it is currently perfectly legal to overcome someone’s home security simply to watch their children sleep or play, to watch their TV, to simply stare at the occupants.

I ask the committee to consider how leaving someone traumatised unable to sleep alone in their own home in order that a stranger can watch TV or sleep is keeping them “safe & secure”.

Why must there be an intent to steal? Is a watch or a bottle of wine more valuable than someone’s mental health? I ask you to consider changing AND to OR.

It cannot be right that someone in Scotland can overcome your security simply to watch TV or watch your child sleep or simply stare at you – all of this confirmed by the Police. We do not live in Syria or The Yemen we have Police, Hospitals, Hostels, Hotels. We can knock and request help but surely not just overcoming security on a whim. If this was widely known surely every homeless person in the country could simply break into your home and sleep there?

In my personal circumstances the intruder did not steal a £10 bottle of wine or a watch, he stole my holiday - £1500 (I had to travel home from London to secure my property). He stole my husband and I attending our son’s engagement party. He stole us attending my best friend’s wedding (her husband is dying and we have not seen them since Covid). He stole my ability to sleep alone in my own home. He stole my ability to sleep without imagining him encountering my three year old grandchild in the hallway. He stole the £1200 it cost to fix my door and this denied me donating my current £80 per month to Big Hearts Charity for the next year. He stole my right to “feel safe and secure in my own home” but he did not commit a crime. He had no reason to be in my home he had simply walked down a lane with no through path – he had the choice to walk back 200m to the main road or break in my back door and leave by the front for his convenience – this is not a crime. I have to suffer the cost of his convenience. The alarm was activated when he breached the external door, he had to negotiate 4 further doors to reach the front door, passing the bedroom where on another occasion my grandchild would have been asleep. He could do all of this because it is perfectly legal to do so. He had no thought of who might be sleeping there.

I urge the committee to support my petition that we cannot make our communities “feel safe and secure” by allowing individuals to break into our homes for any purpose so long as they do not intend to steal. I urge them to consider that mental trauma and loss of experiences (such as missing the wedding of a dying friend) are more important than stealing a bottle of wine. We have very secure doors, the garden has security lights, we have CCTV and pay for a security company to monitor the home we love. What is the point of even locking our doors if anyone can break in without consequence? I would like an opportunity to give evidence to the Committee to explain the full impact of having an intruder in your home.