Russell Harrison knew something was wrong when he and his children heard chilling screams coming from their neighbour’s house in outer Melbourne. Concerned, he immediately went to see if he could help.
“I looked through the door, opened the door and there was a man that had my neighbour actually pushed up against the wall with his hands around her throat,” he told Insight.
A member of the US military’s special forces for five years before moving to Australia, Mr Harrison’s training immediately kicked in and he chased the intruder through the house.
“We fell against the wall in the living room, which ended up busting the plaster,” he recalled. “Then he ended up getting on top of me and actually putting his hands around my throat.”
The intruder’s actions triggered an automatic response in Russell as he tried to gain control of the situation.
“The very first thing I did was take my thumb and try to put it right through his eye which caused him to release, which gave me the upper hand,” he told Insight.
What happened next would change the lives of everyone there. The 49-year-old put the intruder into what’s known as a ‘sleeper hold’ in an effort to subdue him, but he stopped breathing.
“We struggled back and forth, I guess, for a couple of minutes or so and then eventually, he succumbed to the sleeper hold. And by that time, I could hear the police at the front door,” he said.
Russell put him in the recovery position before police and paramedics started CPR. He was then escorted out of the house and later told the intruder, named as Adam Slomczewski, had died. The 49-year-old father of three was taken to the police station and thought he’d just be making a statement but was surprised by what police told him.
“When they went and took my fingerprints, when they put down what the charge was, the charge was murder. And I said, ‘Okay, that wasn't murder, it was self-defence,’” he told Insight.
It would be seven months before police cleared him and another year until Russell’s name was completely exonerated by a coroner.
“The coroner stated that, due to the drugs that he was on at the time, it caused a heart attack, but was compounded by the compression of his neck in this struggle with me,” he said.
Ian Dobinson, from the University of Technology Sydney, did a study on home invasion laws in Australia and found Western Australia has the clearest and strongest legislation for home-owners who use force against an intruder.
“There's an allowance for…disproportionate or excessive force to be used,” he told Insight.
“Given the circumstances of home invasion, they're not rational circumstances at all. They involve extreme fear, high emotion and all of these things need to be considered. So if someone does kill and even where that may be seen to be excessive, in a home invasion situation, they are still entitled to a full defence.
Other states are more ambiguous. Mr Dobinson’s research found no other states, besides South Australia, specifically mentioned ‘home invasion’ in their self-defence laws.
“Queensland, for example, talks about the defence of a dwelling, but again, no mention of home invasion,” he said.
James Frangos was the victim of a home invasion in 2010.
“I was upstairs and when I came down, I was struck from behind and I'd heard screams,” he told Insight. “I was struck from beyond and when I got up, I realised that there was people there, all dressed in like military squad uniform, black balaclavas with iron bars.”
At one point, James was taken back upstairs by one of the men and saw a knife on a table but decided against using it.
James Frangos declined to use force after four people broke into his home in Ballarat.
“I contemplated using it, grabbing it and using it but I just couldn't bring myself to do it,” he said.
“I just felt, you know, realizing that to do it, it'd be blood and God knows what and then you'd have to go downstairs and confront your family. Who knows what would have resulted through my actions.”
Three people were later jailed for the home invasion at James Frangos’ home, their
