THE KILLING OF JAMES ASHLEY
By the British Sussex County Police
A RUDE AWAKENING
Caroline Courtland Smith awoke around 4.20 am on Jan 15, 1998 to
the sound of loud noises and voices. Concerned, she shook the shoulder of Jimmy,
her boyfriend. Jimmy got out of bed and was on the way to their bedroom door when
it swung open and a black figure stepped in, a beam of light was switched on illuminating
Jimmy standing there, and a shot rang out. Jimmy (James) Ashley knew no more, he
was dead, the bullet went into his chest, glanced off his collar bone and entered
his heart. Caroline screamed and screamed and screamed. The man who had just killed
James was police constable Chris Sherwood. Licensed to kill, he was wearing night
clothing and body armour and he was armed with a pistol, 60 rounds of ammunition
and a Heckler and Köch sub machine gun. Did the sight of a completely naked and unarmed
man frighten him?
PC Chris Sherwood was not alone, he was accompanied by 24 similarly
dressed and armed policemen, all part of a raiding squad that had been assembled
the previous afternoon. The biggest armed operation in the history of the Sussex
police force. The operation was run by Det Chief Inspector Kevin French, who had
never been trained for this job. Intelligence for the operation had been gathered
by Det Inspector Chris Siggs who had no training for his job either. The target of
the raid was a house that had been converted into five flats in Western Road, St.
Leonards, East Sussex. They had no idea who occupied which flat and most of the 25
officers involved, including PC Sherwood, had no experience of rapid intervention
tactics at all. They had no internal plan of the house but they did know that there
should be six occupants, four of which they were interested in arresting.
They set
out for Western Road having been told that the street lights were out and the subjects
would be taken by surprise. At around 4.10 am a long line of heavily armed men were
standing in an alleyway alongside the house illuminated by a security light that
kept switching on and off as its motion detector sensed their presence. Two men had
got into the house using a key but they had then found there was a communal door
to the top two flats which was locked. At 4.15 am ten men were either standing on
the upper landing outside this door or backed up down the stairs. One of the first
officers that had entered the building pushed past them to descend the stairs, his
equipment rattled on the iron bannister. The landing was small, so one policeman
stepped back to make room for a colleague to use a battering ram, and knocked over
an ironing board. A dog barked. Over the radio they got the command to strike and
the door was battered open. (Some surprise!)
The first five men went through and turned
to the right. The second five entered and needed to close the communal door to reveal
one it covered, the door to James’ and Caroline’s room. The last man into the hallway
had been Chris Sherwood and he ended up outside this particular door. Another man
pushed the door open, Sherwood entered and the rest we already know.
After the botched
raid Caroline was taken to the police station and later questioned in the presence
of her mother. (Quite some experience after her boy friend had just been killed).
Four hours after the killing of Jimmy Ashley the chief constable of Sussex, Paul
Whitehouse, arrogantly issued a statement saying, “I am satisfied from all the information
available to me that the operation was professionally and competently executed and
that all of the officers involved behaved properly”. (Executed! That was a good choice
of a word). No enquiry had yet been started and yet Whitehouse had already decided
its conclusion. What’s more, Whitehouse also told the press that James had been wanted
for murder, which was completely untrue.
At the time of the armed raid three other
men were arrested in two of the other flats, all were released without charge. Tosh
was later arrested elsewhere and at his trial was sentenced to five and half years
for the stabbing (read on).
BACKGROUND
The Sussex police had become interested in James
Ashley some months before when an informer had claimed that he and some friends were
intent on taking over the drug trade in the area (hotly denied by his family; was
this a tall story in return for money?). Covert surveillance had been set up in October
1997 of the house in Western Road where Ashley and two friends had moved into three
of the flats but this was later abandoned after nothing was discovered. On Wednesday,
Jan 7 1998 however there was an incident outside a bar on the Hastings seafront.
A Scotsman had pulled a knife and stabbed another man three or four times in the
groin after an argument. A man with the Scotsman had pulled him away from the victim
stopping further injury and the pair had left the scene together. The police were
later to learn that the man with the knife was called Tosh and the man who had stopped
the fight was Jimmy Ashley. The police re-opened the observation point overlooking
the Western Road flats the following day.
During the week that followed the Sussex
police took to the streets armed with guns, sometimes without any legal authority
and sometimes with authorisation that should not have been granted. They linked Tosh
with three addresses and despatched armed police to each of these locations, they
also staked out a car which they believed belonged to Tosh, but to no avail. On January
14 half a dozen officers set up an ambush at a post office while customers came and
went. They expected Tosh to collect his giro but were called away to another job
and missed a friend of his who turned up in his place.
On January 13 a search warrant
had been obtained for the Western Road flats and on the evening of the 14th they
decided to go for a mass raid. This warrant was technically defective because it
failed to specify which of the flats were to be searched and so was probably illegal.
Those in charge asked their deputy chief constable, Mark Jordan, to authorise the
raid claiming three objectives as legitimate grounds – to retrieve a kilo of cocaine,
to seize a firearm and to arrest Tosh. A later enquiry into this affair was to come
to the conclusion that they lied to persuade their deputy chief constable to give
his authorisation and that three detectives, Burton, French and Siggs, knew that
there was no cocaine, no firearm and no Tosh. They claimed that a regional crime
squad officer had told them that a car carrying drugs was on its way to Western Road
and they had seen three boxes taken in there. All the RCS officer had done was to
ask them to look out for two suspect cars at two other addresses - not Western Road.
Their claim that there was a firearm at the address was only speculation and the
presence of Tosh was a distortion of a tentative report of an unidentified man entering
the building.
Shortly before 1 am on the morning of Jan 15 twenty-five officers were
each fitted out with night clothing, body armour, a pistol, 60 rounds of ammunition,
and a sub machine gun which had a torchlight fitted onto the top of its barrel. At
1.10 am the team assembled to be briefed. One of the least experienced was PC Chris
Sherwood. Although he had been a firearms officer for almost five years he had never
fired a shot in anger and he had no training for what he was about to take part in.
He had also had his gun licence withdrawn for a short spell after a girl friend accused
him of violence. The team were shown photographs of James, Tosh, and two friends.
They were told that Tosh was in the flats, there was a gun and that James Ashley
was wanted in Eastbourne for shooting a man in the stomach and that James had previously
been convicted of attempted murder. All this was untrue. James had however served
a prison term of 2 years for manslaughter, a comparatively short sentence, so we
can presume that there must have been mitigating circumstances. This though made
him a target.
ENQUIRY
The Kent police force were appointed to investigate this whole
affair. They found systemic failure in the Sussex force and that there was a plan
to deceive and intelligence concocted. They discovered that there had been meetings
between senior officers and some of those involved in the shooting and this had been
kept quiet. The Kent enquiry stopped cooperation with the chief constable of Sussex,
and fearing a break-in they moved their base to Kent, informing the Police Complaints
authority that they suspected a cover-up. Sussex counter claimed that Kent were bullying
and incompetent. As a result of this verbal punch-up the Hampshire police force took
over.
Sir John Hoddinott, the chief constable of Hampshire was later to find, “suggestive
evidence of collusion between some or all of the chief officers of the Sussex force
to conceal what they already knew, and that an arguable case of attempting to pervert
the course of justice might be made out”. Sir John also said that there was evidence
of criminal malfeasance and falsehood against the deputy chief constable of Sussex,
Mark Jordan, along with neglect of duty, discreditable conduct, and aiding and abetting
the false statements of his chief, Paul Whitehouse.
A review of the armed raid by
a superintendent from the National Firearms School said that there had been no need
for firearms to be used. Another superintendent, with responsibility for the guidelines
for the use of firearms, said that this case had not met the requirements.
THEY CAN
DO NO WRONG
PC Chris Sherwood was charged with the murder of James Ashley. Four other
officers were charged with malfeasance. They were Superintendent Burton, Chief Inspector
French, Inspector Siggs and PC Shoesmith. The charges carried a maximum sentence
of life imprisonment. On Wednesday, 2 May 2001 Chris Sherwood was cleared of any
blame at the Old Bailey in London when the judge, Mrs Justice Rafferty, instructed
the jury to find him not guilty saying that there was no evidence other than that
he had fired in self-defence. It did not matter that Ashley was unarmed [and naked].
At
Wolverhampton Crown Court on Tuesday 22 May 2001 Mrs Justice Rafferty directed that
Burton, French, Siggs and Shoesmith should be found not guilty after the Crown Prosecution
offered no evidence against the men.
Mr Whitehouse was suspended for three weeks.
Sussex Police Authority supported Paul Whitehouse by only issuing him with “words
of advice”, the lowest form of admonishment. Mark Jordan was suspended to await an
internal police disciplinary hearing.
Paul Whitehouse insisted that there had been
nothing wrong with his press release and that it was dishonourable in trying to make
something of the fact that PC Sherwood had once lost his firearms permit. Whitehouse
expressed regret for the death of James Ashley but said, “there was no criminal intent
on the part of any officer involved in the operation. Five Sussex officers have had
criminal charges hanging over them for far too long, I feel for them and their families.”
A statement issued on behalf of officers Siggs, French, Burton, and Shoesmith stated,
“the investigation into our conduct was wholly unfounded. Any suggestion of dishonesty
on our part has finally been withdrawn”.
Little real concern has been shown for the
family of James or for his girlfriend Caroline. James Ashley’s brother, Tony, an
insolvency officer for the Customs and Excise, said that his family are angry and
frustrated. “The police officers got off”. “We have been fighting this for three
and a half years and we have not got justice”. Pauline, the sister of James said,
“we still mourn the unacceptable and unnecessary loss of a much loved son and brother.”
Caroline Courtland Smith said, “the collapse of the trial of PC Sherwood showed the
police were entitled to shoot innocent people in their homes.”
Paul Whitehouse later
resigned after the home secretary, David Blunkett, ordered his local police authority
to consider sacking him in order to restore public confidence in the Sussex Police
Force. So that is alright then. This was obviously a case of unintentional manslaughter
but there is one law for them and another for the rest of us.
POLICE RECORD
In the
previous 10 years, police in England and Wales had shot 41 unarmed people killing
15 of them. No police officer has ever been convicted of any criminal offence, most
involved have not even been prosecuted. The hate, spite and vengeance industry certainly
look after their own. They can kill with impunity, but God help you, if YOU injure
someone while protecting yourself in Britain.
Source: articles in The Guardian and
various media web sites.
Compare this case with that of the American pilot, Stafford Freeborn. He defended himself against an assailant who broke open the door to his room in a lodging house in order to do him harm. Stafford was sentenced to seven years imprisonment. It was the same British Sussex police force that arrested him, just five weeks before they killed James Ashley, it was the same British prosecution service that got him convicted, it was a member of the same British judiciary that gave him seven years in prison. Obviously Stafford Freeborn had no friends amongst the British establishment. Americans beware.
www.slimeylimeyjustice.org