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While they let the woman go after public outcry, I think the original arrest was outrageous. She was defending her property against pillagers who were standing there after having vandalized her son's car. The police came and arrested her, not the criminals.
What is wrong with Britain?
"A special needs teacher who fired an air pistol at youths gathered outside her home was yesterday freed from jail by the appeal court.
Linda Walker, 48, from Urmston, Greater Manchester, was given a conditional discharge but refused permission to challenge her conviction.
She was jailed for six months in March this year after she was convicted of affray and possessing a firearm in an incident which occurred last August. Mrs Walker said she fired the gun after youths had terrorised her. She described the gang as "yobs".
Mrs Walker, who has 25 years' experience working with special needs children, had served about five weeks of her sentence in Styal women's prison, Cheshire. A petition demanding she should be freed from prison attracted 10,000 signatures.
In prison, she briefly went on hunger strike after learning that an appeal court judge had refused to allow her to go home on bail pending appeal against conviction. She said she felt let down by the police and criminal justice system.
Mrs Walker, a mother of three children, and her family had telephoned police on 15 occasions after seeing their garden shed burgled, their garden trashed, and damage caused to a car and security light. But they allegedly got no response.
At midnight on August 14 last year, she looked out of her window and saw her son's car in the drive covered in washing up liquid. The empty bottle had been placed on the bonnet. She took a gas-powered Walther CP88 pellet pistol, belonging to her partner, John Cavanagh, from a drawer and went outside to confront three youths. When they goaded her, shouting: "Come on then, are you going to shoot?", she fired up to six rounds at the ground.
Her counsel, Farrhat Arshad, argued that the jail term was wrong in principle. Although she accepted firearms offences were serious and usually punished by imprisonment, she argued that Walker's case was exceptional.
A pre-sentence report had recommended a community rehabilitation order. She had been of previous exemplary character, and "stressful circumstances had come to a head".
Walker had sought at the appeal to use fresh evidence from a milkman, David Matthews, that one of the youths had been seen on her property. However, the judges said the evidence did not relate to what happened on the day she confronted the youths.
A spokesman for Salford city council said Walker was suspended from her teaching post pending the police investigation and court action. "Now legal proceedings are ended, this formal disciplinary action will be completed as quickly as possible."
Lisa Davies, of the Justice for Linda Campaign, said: "It is fantastic that she is out and able to return home. But this matter should never have gone to court in the first place."
Norman Brennan, director of the Victims of Crime Trust, welcomed the decision to free Mrs Walker. What she had done was wrong, "but so was the sentence".
Outside the Royal Courts of Justice in London yesterday, Walker thanked everyone who had backed her campaign."
What is wrong with Britain?
"A special needs teacher who fired an air pistol at youths gathered outside her home was yesterday freed from jail by the appeal court.
Linda Walker, 48, from Urmston, Greater Manchester, was given a conditional discharge but refused permission to challenge her conviction.
She was jailed for six months in March this year after she was convicted of affray and possessing a firearm in an incident which occurred last August. Mrs Walker said she fired the gun after youths had terrorised her. She described the gang as "yobs".
Mrs Walker, who has 25 years' experience working with special needs children, had served about five weeks of her sentence in Styal women's prison, Cheshire. A petition demanding she should be freed from prison attracted 10,000 signatures.
In prison, she briefly went on hunger strike after learning that an appeal court judge had refused to allow her to go home on bail pending appeal against conviction. She said she felt let down by the police and criminal justice system.
Mrs Walker, a mother of three children, and her family had telephoned police on 15 occasions after seeing their garden shed burgled, their garden trashed, and damage caused to a car and security light. But they allegedly got no response.
At midnight on August 14 last year, she looked out of her window and saw her son's car in the drive covered in washing up liquid. The empty bottle had been placed on the bonnet. She took a gas-powered Walther CP88 pellet pistol, belonging to her partner, John Cavanagh, from a drawer and went outside to confront three youths. When they goaded her, shouting: "Come on then, are you going to shoot?", she fired up to six rounds at the ground.
Her counsel, Farrhat Arshad, argued that the jail term was wrong in principle. Although she accepted firearms offences were serious and usually punished by imprisonment, she argued that Walker's case was exceptional.
A pre-sentence report had recommended a community rehabilitation order. She had been of previous exemplary character, and "stressful circumstances had come to a head".
Walker had sought at the appeal to use fresh evidence from a milkman, David Matthews, that one of the youths had been seen on her property. However, the judges said the evidence did not relate to what happened on the day she confronted the youths.
A spokesman for Salford city council said Walker was suspended from her teaching post pending the police investigation and court action. "Now legal proceedings are ended, this formal disciplinary action will be completed as quickly as possible."
Lisa Davies, of the Justice for Linda Campaign, said: "It is fantastic that she is out and able to return home. But this matter should never have gone to court in the first place."
Norman Brennan, director of the Victims of Crime Trust, welcomed the decision to free Mrs Walker. What she had done was wrong, "but so was the sentence".
Outside the Royal Courts of Justice in London yesterday, Walker thanked everyone who had backed her campaign."
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