David Cameron instructed Mr Clarke to put the matter “beyond doubt” and the Justice Secretary has confirmed that homeowners will also be legally entitled to murder Jehovah’s Witnesses, energy company sales people or people who’ve befriended you on holiday and then show up on your doorstep unexpectedly, years later.

He told journalists, people were entitled to use “necessary force” to protect their homes, and that he hoped a wall full of medieval weaponry such as maces, clubs and broadswords would once again become a familiar sight in the nation’s households. “Every man’s home is his castle,” said Mr Clarke, “and if he wants arrow slits then that has to be a huge improvement over all that ghastly stone-cladding and satellite dishes.”

He said that self-defence in the home had become an area of doubt, and added: “You wake up suddenly and hear a noise. Now, what should you do? Lie there and be murdered in your bed, because you don’t want a costly legal battle over whether you’ve infringed the burglar’s rights? No of course not, what you need to do is grab something solid and batter their face off.”

He went on to say: “Should the person you’ve clubbed to death turn out to be an elderly relative returning from the lavatory, who in the darkness resembled a 22-year old hoodie then I think the law should be able to say, oh well never mind, better luck next time.”

Under the terms of the new Criminal Justice and Immigration Act, homeowners who use a nine-iron to rearrange the cranium of a spotty young offender will have no fear of prosecution when they putt his eyes into the back of his skull.

“It’s a matter of ‘reasonable force’,” explained Mr Clarke, “and to me it seems perfectly reasonable that the victims of crime should want to bury the hatchet. Assuming of course that they keep the hatchet close at hand.” Mr Clarke said legal protection would not extend to anyone shooting a burglar in the back when they were fleeing. He said: “It’s just not sportsmanlike. Let them arm themselves with a chair leg or something and invite them to come at you. Then you can blast away, safe in the knowledge that it was you or them.”

Mr Clarke said that he was committed to reducing indeterminate prison sentences despite opposition from within his own party. He said one way to do this was to let homeowners “off the buggers” with an assortment of household objects including hammers, pokers and bits pulled off the wardrobe.

Mr Clarke has said he plans to defend his criminal justice agenda in the House, and then produced a large kitchen knife which he began waving indiscriminately.

‘He should really have known better,’ said his wife Abigail, today. ‘It’s not as if they don’t stand out the way they dress up especially to go door-to-door, and there’s always at least two of them, though only one ever does the talking. Poor Mark thought he might be able to talk them out of a few of their misguided beliefs, but his ‘Have you heard the good news about our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ’ was no match for their dogmatic chanting of ‘trick or treat’.’

Abigail tearfully relayed that as the conversation progressed, her husband cautiously suggested that the callers’ shortage of confectionery may be a sign of God’s disapproval at their way of life. ‘But they simply threatened to egg him and smash the car windows,’ she said of the two nine-year-olds. ‘They had an answer for everything, but then I don’t suppose you go out walking the streets in the dark and the cold unless you passionately believe in the truth of what you’re doing.’

After several hours, the discussion finally began to take its toll on Mark. ‘I could see him thinking, ‘This is my house. I shouldn’t be a prisoner in my own home, afraid to open the front door,’ all the while smiling patiently and periodically checking his watch. He even tried to give them a copy of The Watchtower, anything to get rid of them, but they just wouldn’t take the hint.’ The siege finally ended with Mark agreeing to buy the trick-or-treaters two giant packets of Haribo each from the all-night garage, but by the time he returned the boys had been collected by their parents and grounded for staying out way past their bedtime.

But the experience proved to have a lasting effect on Mark. ‘As he sat there eating his way through those sweets instead of the dinner that had gone cold,’ recalled Abigail, ‘he began to think that maybe the encounter was a test, and only the 144,000 bound for Christ’s kingdom would pass. And by the end of the fourth bag of Haribo, his face filled with a heavenly glow, he was certain that the ghouls and witches openly walking the earth and buying rizla and crisps from the Texaco must be the coming of Armageddon.’ Sadly the heavenly glow proved to be glucose poisoning, and Mark died shortly afterwards when his wife refused to allow him a blood transfusion.