Why do they not just change the law on squatting in England?
Some good points. If we can change the law to criminalise previously respectable personal choices (smoking, driving unbelted, the sport of target shooting) we can change it to allow intruders to be removed by force and if necessary by the police. Squatters can be seriously menacing. A pupil of mine woke up one morning to see from his bedroom window that two men (he describes them as ‘hobos’) had, overnight, built (out of scrap wood and plastic sheeting) a shack in the back garden. He could see the occupants sitting on the lawn, breakfasting out of two-litre cider bottles. His father called the police. It was a civil trespass, and the police would not move in the matter: they advised a court order. To move the trespassers by force, moreover, would be a serious assault – which the police would take notice of. The family asked the men to move: the answer would transgress the YA guidelines. Apparent deadlock. It was the 12-y-o boy who finally shifted them. Trading on his youth and the prob
