In 2018, Martyna Ogonowska stabbed a man to death. The man, Filip Jaskiewicz, had throttled her so violently that it drove her to her knees. He then molested her. In fear and desperation, she reached for the knife she had begun carrying after a previous rape and struck back. For that, the Crown prosecuted her. The judge accepted the sexual assault, accepted the trauma, accepted the PTSD from an earlier rape that the State refused to prosecute. But he could not accept that she had brought a knife. That, he ruled, precluded self-defence. She was sentenced to life, with a minimum term of 17 years. On Friday, the Court of Appeal upheld that sentence.

That Britain punishes this is not merely unjust. It is a warning. In modern England, resistance is itself a crime.

The core lie in this system is the so-called “reasonable force” test. Judges and lawyers speak of it as if it were the apex of civilised restraint—force, yes, but measured and sensible. The law expects the victim to weigh her response as if she were a Crown prosecutor, armed with hindsight and paperwork. In practice, this means the defender must not only survive an attack, but survive it with poise and proportionality. The moment she uses more force than a courtroom later deems “reasonable,” she ceases to be a victim and becomes a criminal.

This test is insane.

Violence is not rational. It is not tidy. It happens quickly, chaotically, and usually in darkness or isolation. Most people have no experience of it. They do not know what level of force is “reasonable.” They cannot gauge how strong the attacker is, what weapons he might have, how serious his intentions are, or whether escape is possible. When the blow comes, it is not a law exam—it is a matter of blood and terror. To demand judicial clarity from someone being raped or strangled is not just absurd—it is wicked.

The claim that “reasonable force” protects the public is a polite fraud. It protects only the attacker. It punishes those who do not wait to be victimised. It reverses the moral order, placing more scrutiny on the means of survival than on the original act of violence. A law that functions this way is not the friend of liberty. It is the jailer of self-respect.

Why does the British State, more than almost any other, punish self-defence with such grim zeal? Other regimes are authoritarian, but even China allows wider scope for personal retaliation. Russia permits lethal defence in one’s home. Yet in Britain, you may not carry pepper spray. You may not legally own a stun gun. You may not even possess a sharp instrument in public if it might be used to protect yourself. The underlying logic is not safety—it is submission.

Alan Bickley’s theory explains why. Britain, he argues, is ruled not by the people, or even by Parliament, but by a monied interest—a financial and bureaucratic class that took power after the Great War and consolidated it after 1945. This class sacrificed the old empire and British industry for an informal empire of banking, consultancy, and military subcontracting. Since the 1970s, it has grown more decadent and more morally bankrupt. It has empowered a stupid but loyal managerial class. It has promoted mass immigration and racial division to prevent solidarity. It has wrecked education and culture. And it has disarmed the public—both legally and morally—to ensure no threat to its rule arises from below.

Self-defence, in this view, is not merely problematic. It is subversive. To defend yourself is to assert that the State cannot, or will not, do it for you. That assertion is an offence against the prevailing ideology, in which every dependency is deliberate and every citizen is, above all, a subject.

Weapon bans are not about crime prevention. They are about victim disarmament, about psychological transformation. A people who are told, from birth, that they may not defend themselves, will eventually internalise the lesson that they should not defend themselves. They will become submissive. They will freeze when attacked. They will outsource their own survival to police who arrive after the fact. And when that fails, they will be told it was their fault—but that had they fought back, it would have been worse.

The case of Martyna Ogonowska makes this clear. Had she submitted, she might have survived. She might have been raped, but she might not have been imprisoned. Because she fought back, and did so successfully, she became the one judged. Not the man who assaulted her. He is dead. She is in prison.

And so the lesson continues: be passive, be afraid, and never, ever take your safety into your own hands.

The right to self-defence must be reclaimed as a basic civil right. That means:

• Replacing the “reasonable force” test with a standard of not grossly disproportionate;
• A presumption of innocence for anyone defending himself against violence;
• Legal protection for carrying weapons for defensive purposes;
• Repeal of the Firearms Act 1968 and later acts and the Prevention of Crime Act 1953;
• And judicial deference to the realities of fear and confusion in live situations.

Anything less is complicity in victimisation.

Martyna Ogonowska did what most people dream they would do in the same situation. She refused to be raped. She defended herself. Her reward was a cell and a life sentence. That sentence is not just hers. It is ours—if we let it stand without challenge.

To punish her is to say that no one has the right to survive without permission. To lock her away is to tell every woman: next time, don’t fight.

No. The next time someone attacks an innocent, he should be the one who fears the law. Not the defender. Not the survivor. Not the girl with the knife.

• R v Clegg [1995] 1 AC 482
• R v Martin (Anthony) [2002] 1 Cr App R 27
• Beckford v R [1988] AC 130
• A-G’s Reference (No.2 of 1983) [1984] QB 456
• Firearms Act 1968
• Prevention of Crime Act 1953
• Crime and Courts Act 2013: Guidance Notes on Self-Defence
• Alan Bickley, Britain: A Post-Liberal State
• John Hasnas, The Myth of the Rule of Law