As I remember the 'silly young kids' were 17 and 29 or thereabouts and had previous convictions for burglary. The farmer was woken in the middle of the night by them breaking in. He had been burgled the previous year and had little faith in the police, apart from the fact that he lived quite a way from the nearest police station so any response time would have been quite slow. I don't think him shooting them is acceptable but neither do I think they were innocent lads just having a lark, they knew what they were doing.