James Ashley was shot dead by police at his flat in St Leonards-on-Sea, East Sussex, on 15 January 1998, while unarmed and naked. Armed officers had been sent to raid the flat based on reports that Ashley kept a firearm and a quantity of cocaine there. The officer who shot Ashley was charged with murder in 2001 but acquitted on the grounds of self-defence. The officers who led the operation were charged with misconduct in public office and were also acquitted.
About Shooting of James Ashley in brief
James Ashley was shot dead by police at his flat in St Leonards-on-Sea, East Sussex, on 15 January 1998, while unarmed and naked. Armed officers had been sent to raid the flat based on reports that Ashley kept a firearm and a quantity of cocaine there, and to arrest Ashley and another man in connection with a stabbing. No firearm or significant quantity of drugs was found, the other man was not present, and it later emerged that Ashley was not implicated in the stabbing. Ashley’s death has been compared to other mistaken police shootings, including those of Stephen Waldorf, John Shorthouse, Harry Stanley, and Jean Charles de Menezes. The officer who shot Ashley was charged with murder in 2001 but acquitted on the grounds of self-defence. The officers who led the operation were charged with misconduct in public office and were also acquitted. It was one of the cases considered in a 2003 report by the PCA which recommended stronger control of armed operations and equipping armed officers with non-lethal alternatives such as tasers. The police offered to settle all damages under the action for negligence and the other claims were struck out at the High Court, which the family appealed. The case reached the House of Lords, where the appeal was successful. Ashley was a 39-year-old man from Liverpool living in East Sussex. He was suspected by Sussex Police of being involved in the distribution of heroin, and the police had heard unsubstantiated rumours that he owned a gun.
Ashley and a group of friends occupied three of the six flats in a converted house in Western Road. Officers believed Thomas McCrudden was staying in the Western Road house and formulated a plan to raid it. Detectives obtained a search warrant based on a tip-off from an officer in the regional crime squad a large quantity had been delivered to the house. The plan to use armed officers was authorised by the deputy chief constable, Mark Jordan, based on the rumour that Ashley had a firearm. The operation was the largest firearms operation in the force’s history, using 25 armed officers, and was conducted on January 30, 1998, at approximately 04:30pm. Ashley, likely woken by the noise of the raid, was out of bed when an officer entered his bedroom. On seeing the officer, Ashley raised one arm and the officer reacted by firing a single shot. No criminal charges were brought against the chief officers, but Jordan and Whitehouse both faced disciplinary proceedings. Jordan was suspended and allowed to retire in 2001. Whitehouse resigned in the same year under pressure from the Home Secretary, David Blunkett, and his successor publicly apologised to Ashley’s family in 2003. The threshold for a plea of selfdefence in a civil case was higher than in a criminal one and that it was for the litigants, not the judge, to decide which causes of action to pursue, even where no further damages were available. The chief constables were cleared of any wrongdoing.
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