What do you think of this legal case involving self-defense?

Question

What do you make of the following case?

A person moves into the city and rents a room after obtaining a job at a restaurant. The landlady allows her niece to move in without notice after she decides to leave her home town to finish school. She comes down and forces herself on the landlady. The woman begins beating and verbally abusing the three-year-old daughter immediately. There are twenty-one incidents counted in less than two weeks. The matter is mentioned to the landlady by the new resident, who has been there less than one month and did not expect this lady to move in.

The landlady sides with her niece and insists that she'd 'cut off the child's hands herself' if she keeps going into items at the grocery store. One late afternoon the new resident comes home and goes downstairs to avoid the chain-smoking, verbally abusive, -oriented and Internet crazy woman yelling at her child. She goes downstairs and begins to work on an art project, with the radio on full blast to drown out the sounds of the yelling. The niece starts to beat the three-year-old. The new resident runs upstairs and tells her to stop doing it, to distract attention. Her cell phone is upstairs along with her uniform and her keys, shoes and purse are downstairs. There are no locks on any inside doors, no way out of the basement and she'd have to return downstairs to get her things.

The niece begins slapping and pushing the new resident after an exchange of words, mostly insults with no meaning. She yells, pushes and gangs up on the new resident, not allowing her to leave. They are located in the front living room. The niece has the phone by the computer, which is behind her. She pushes the new resident twice against a loose shoe rack against the wall, which nearly falls on her. The niece slaps and threatens to kill the new resident.

She gets away and grabs a glass. She tells the niece to get away from her or she will hit her with the glass. The niece jumps her, pushes her head into the hardwood cement floor (which leads later on to a concussion), busts her knees open and it starts bleeding and after a struggle with the niece on top, the new resident gets up and gets away and strikes the niece on the head three times after she (the niece) lunges at her. There is little difference in the strength, body size and physical makeup between the two as described.

The niece grabs a towel and the phone. She is bleeding. The child screams. The new resident tells her she is going to the police and goes upstairs and then downstairs to get her things and then leaves, walking two kilometres to the police station. She reports the matter to the police who tell her to return to the resident, wait outside and then they will come. They agree that it was necessary and they are worried for the child because of the niece's actions towards her. The new resident returns after a quick stop at a convenience store and is unarmed. The police arrest her and take her in, charging her with assault with a weapon.

The defense counsel agrees that it is self-defense but that is 'was excessive'. The crown prosecutor pays to have the woman brought down, but has no idea what the 'weapon' was, believing it to be a beer mug or a tea cup. There is no motive. The defense concludes that they have little evidence and no motive. There is no presentation of physical evidence, no doctor's reports, no eyewitness accounts, no samples, no pictures, no police present at court, etc. just the niece who has healed completely with no damage or physical scarring. The crown prosecutor is convinced she was struck ten times but there is no evidence to support this claim. What do you make of this case?

Answer 1

It sounds like two crazy women who are both involved in assault and battery without just cause. However, I'd say that the first victim of the assault is the landlady, and the one who fought back was doing so in self-defense. It sounds as though each barrister has done an ineffective job of convincing the judge who was principally at fault, although from your lengthy description, it sounds like the niece is the one who started it all. I can't see much prospect for a truce on either side, and I think for the sake of the child, further investigation is needed. Meanwhile, the niece should find another place to live. I'd suggest the jail. Have the welfare system put the child in protective custody, so that she doesn't have to be the battering ram between these two crazies.