The Offences Against The Person Act of 1861 only allows use of deadly force against an attacker similarly armed. Otherwise a firearm can only be used with the intent of frightening an attacker -- even if the warning shot accidentally hits the attacker.

For practical purposes, guns are seldom used defensively in Britain because there are so few circumstances where it is legal to do so. I doubt that a rape victim could use a gun against a rapist in Britain unless he had a knife or a gun.

As a source for this claim he gave:

Source: J.B. Hill, _Weapons Law_, (London: Waterlow Publishers, 1989), p. 60.

I have scanned in the relevant pages from the book "Weapons Law". Hill's book does not support Clayton's claim, in fact it contradicts him. Click on the thumbnails below to see each page at full size.

Internet Explorer 6's stupid auto-image resizing bug err feature makes the pages unreadable. See here for instructions on how to turn it off.