A suspected burglar fell 30 feet from a top-storey window of a London hotel after being disturbed by guests.
He is fighting for his life after plunging face first on to the pavement from the second-floor window of the building in Victoria.
Five men, all of whom are believed to be tourists and guests at the hotel, are being interviewed by police. "Two men have been arrested and are being held at a central London police station," a Scotland Yard spokeswoman said.
Witnesses heard shouting and smashing noises from the top floor of the building just before the man fell at 6pm last night.
The man is believed to have been disturbed by two Italian guests returning to their room at the Cedar Guest House in Hugh Street.
Detectives are trying to establish if the intruder fell trying to escape or was pushed during a struggle. The police spokeswoman would not confirm the man was a burglar but said it was one of several lines of inquiry.
Because there are so very many alternative explanations for why he was poking through someone else's hotel room.
As with the similar case of Patrick Walsh, my sympathies are firmly with the two arrested men. While Mr Walsh's situation was somewhat worse - he was one-on-one with the burglar, who disturbed him as he slept in his flat, while these two tourists were two against one, and appear to have disturbed the burglar in the practice of his trade - I support the right of all law-abiding people to use whatever force is necessary to defend their property, no matter how little. From the information that we have at this point, this appears to be precisely what has happened here. And if the burglar gets injured, and if he dies, then that's just his hard luck. He chose to go out and break the law, and he must take whatever negative consequences accrue to him as a result of that decision.
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