Dean Webber case exemplifies everything that’s wrong with defending yourself in Australia

It looks like a Queensland teenager may fall victim to Australia’s archaic view on self-defence:

“A teenager who put his life on the line for a terrified young woman desperately fought off three men with a small kitchen knife “in pitch-black darkness” but did not realise he had ­fatally stabbed two of them, sources close to the investigation have revealed.

Despite two desperate calls for police help, a source says local police at first refused to come because they were understaffed and only arrived up to 50 minutes later to discover the two men dead, one of them on the street in the fishing hamlet of Alva Beach in north Queensland.

Dean Webber, 19, had been asleep on the couch of his family’s Topton Street home in the early hours of Monday morning when he heard a woman banging on his front door, screaming: “Don’t let them get me. They are very bad people.”

Once inside the house, 29-year-old Candice Locke told Mr Webber some men were chasing her and she feared for her life after she had been thrown out of a moving four-wheel buggy, badly injuring her shoulder.

Mr Webber hid Ms Locke on the floor in the kitchen as a car, carrying as many as four men, drew up to the house. He immediately called the triple-0 emergency number, asking for police and an ambulance. The operator put him through to the closest police ­station at Ayr, a 15-minute drive away, but the ­officer told Mr Webber he could not leave because there were people in custody and advised him to “just see how it went”. The source told The Aus­tralian the triple-0 operator could hear Ms Locke screaming in terror after three of the men approached the house and began banging on the glass sliding doors and windows, trying to break in.

He was advised by the operator to keep the lights off.

The car then drove off with the men, but reappeared a few minutes later with up to seven men in the car. Mr Webber dialled triple-0 again — and this call would remain open for another 40 minutes until police arrived. Within seconds of his making the call, the three men had again gone to his front door, “ripping it off its tracks” and storming into the house.

The Australian understands Mr Webber later told police that while Ms Locke remained hidden behind the kitchen bench, one of the three men grabbed him “round the throat, lifted him off the ground and then threw him to the floor where all three men set upon him”. Mr Webber, a slight man weighing about 60kg, had grabbed a small knife from the kitchen bench as he was lifted off the ground, and began blindly thrashing it around in the dark, “fighting for his life”.

“He couldn’t see anything, so he didn’t know he had even stabbed anybody, let alone killed them, until he saw the blood on his hands later,” the source said. “The fact that lives were taken has just destroyed him. He is totally devastated.” One of the men is believed to have died inside the house. The second staggered from the home, leaving a trail of blood splashed from the front door, weaving across the driveway and ending in the gutter, where a pool of blood still remains.

The dead men are a local ­father of three young children, Corey Christensen, 37, and Tom Davy, 27, an aircraft mechanic from Tea Gardens, north of Newcastle in NSW.

Mr Christensen’s widow, Jaye, broke down yesterday at the Ayr police station as she delivered a statement, telling media her husband was a kind man who would “never hurt anyone”.

Going to have to disagree on that last one.

Sure, more information may come out about this ongoing investigation that sheds more light on what was happening. However, if we take it on face value, Webber has acted appropriately – what else was he or a reasonable person supposed to do in that situation?

A female comes asking for help because she’s being pursued by three men already with obvious signs of violence. These men then break into the house, and attack you and the female – you’re in fear for your life. There is definite justification for what he did – outnumbered, outmuscled and already under attack. And all the while Police were unable to attend and just gave it the “see how it goes.” It went south very quickly as you can see.

The “just call the Police” crowd and Ian Stewart are pretty silent on this one for obvious reasons.

Australia’s overall attitude on self-defence is quite frankly, pathetic. We saw this last year with the case against David Dunstan. The fact also that 46 Senators, 19 of them female, voted against a recent motion to allow women to carry non-lethal self-defence items exemplifies what the ruling class think of the plebs in this country being able to protect themselves – while they surround themselves with M4-wielding, taxpayer-funded armed guards in Canberra.

If Webber had been allowed to carry a pepper spray or have a firearm on hand, he could have ended the situation non-lethally or deterred it by presentation of a firearm, two men might still be alive and behind bars instead of in a casket and Webber might not be a psychological wreck.

Indeed, if Ms Locke had been carrying something she may have prevented the entire situation before it had started.

Australia’s ridiculous attitude and laws on self-defence facilitate situations like this. The legal right to self-defence means absolutely nothing when you are denied access to the legal means. Yes, the normal factors of training, situational awareness, etc apply however, unarmed in a situation like Ms Locke’s puts you right on the backfoot.

Slow clap Australia – incidents like this will keep happening because a large segment of the population have been so indoctrinated to embrace victimhood as normal, instead of taking responsibility for their own safety and having the chance to prevail over the criminal element and protect themselves and their families.

Dean Webber doesn’t deserve to be the next David Dunstan. Let’s hope Queensland Police show some common sense on this one.