>Chris
>
>>>That is like saying that you see that your neighbor is beating his wife, but it's not your right to intervene.
>
>As opposed to insisting without proof that he is beating his wife, and bursting in to protect yourself?
>
>These analogies can cut any way you like ;-)

Isn't it more appropriate in this case to say that the police have warned him 18 times not to beat his wife, he days that he doesn't, and the police get evidence over 12 years that he does?