A father who caught a home invader rifling through his baby daughter’s bedroom at 3:30AM has been charged with murder after he broke his neck while trying to make a citizen’s arrest.

33-year-old Ben Batterham found 34-year-old James Slater looking through his young daughter’s room after the intruder broke into his home in Hamilton, a central suburb in Newcastle, on the New South Wales mid-coast in Australia.

A fight broke out and Ben, who also had a mate with him to assist, apparently put the wannabe burglar in a choke hold to detain him until police arrived. When police arrived they found him unconscious with a broken neck.

This is Slater (the burglar):

Well, I don’t know about anyone else, but if I find a burglar in my baby daughter’s bedroom at 3:30AM, then putting him in a chokehold and calling the police is the very least of what I’d do. Sounds like Ben Batterham played this like most people would, except he ‘accidentally’ broke the guy’s neck in the process. It happens.

Check out this quote from the burglar’s mum afterwards:

I want my baby’s killer found and brought to justice.

He was my eldest baby and now I got to bury him for a reason I don’t know.

(My three grandchildren) have lost their father, their beautiful father that they haven’t seen for years because he was in jail, which has nothing to do with this case.

Just to think those little kids are going to grow up without a dad now.

How about because he was caught sneaking around a stranger’s child’s bedroom at 3AM? I mean sorry for their loss and all but I think that answers “for a reason I don’t know”.

Over in America, this guy who caught a man molesting his son and beat him black and blue (NSFL) went free. Come on Australia, don’t tell me the Americans have a better justice system than you.