CAMERON Harrison, if I wore a hat I’d take it off to you.

This gutsy schoolboy from Blackpole, Worcester, aged just 13, armed himself with a saw and chased off a burglar.

There’s not many grown men let alone lads his age would show such raw courage. He earned the praise of judge Richard Rundell who sentenced the burglar Darren Dowie to two years in prison.

It’s easy to say what you’d do in Cameron’s shoes but the truth is you never really know until you’re there, in the thick of it.

I was around Cameron’s age when a burglar was trying to kick in the back door of my parents’ house and I ran at him with a carving knife. Fortunately he ran away but as you get older you begin to lose that feeling of invincibility and start to think of all the things that could go wrong.

Does he have a knife? How many are with him? Is he off his face on drugs?

The most satisfying justice is when the victims are involved in the punishment (or rehabilitation) of the perpetrator.

One of the best examples was when Frank Corti, a 72-year-old retired boxer, beat a knife-wielding burglar (Gregory McCalium) black and blue in his home in Botley, Oxford a few years ago.

A burglar who tried to raid the home of retired footballer Duncan Ferguson ended up needing two days of hospital treatment.

Burglars should take note. Your intended victim could be an ex-boxer – or Scottish. Earlier this month we ran the story of Charles Moyle, the Worcester businessman who is to give the man who burgled his business a job. His offer comes from a genuine kindness and a conviction that people can turn their lives around – if they’re given the chance. Everyone makes mistakes.

There are people languishing in suburbia or in some palatial country home who have little experience of the darkness and desperation which can be the engine of crime.

Yet while this may provide mitigation it is not an excuse for crime. It is depressing as a journalist covering the courts (and no doubt for the court’s excellent clerks, ushers, solicitors and security staff) seeing the same old faces, day-in and day-out.

These repeat offenders have been given chance after chance and throw it back in the faces of well-meaning magistrates. Crime thrives on the indulgence of society so we must give criminals no quarter.

People may talk about restorative justice but, for me, there’s no better restorative justice than a burglar getting a meaty right hook from the man he’s hell-bent on robbing.

  • The law says only “proportionate” and “reasonable” force can be used by home owners and tenants who confront criminals. Click here for more information.