The lords confirmed that the threshold for a plea of self-defence 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.

Ashley's death has been compared to other mistaken police shootings in the United Kingdom, including those of Stephen Waldorf, John Shorthouse, Harry Stanley, and Jean Charles de Menezes.

James "Jimmy" Ashley was a 39-year-old man from Liverpool living in St Leonards-on-Sea, East Sussex, on the south coast of England.

[1] On 7 January 1998, Ashley was present when Thomas "Tosh" McCrudden, a friend he had been drinking with, stabbed and seriously wounded another man in an argument outside a pub in Hastings town centre.

The technique was known to be high-risk as it involved lone officers rapidly entering an assigned room before calling in backup if a threat was found, and had previously been criticised in the media, while other police forces had discontinued its use.

[b][5][6][7][8] On the day of the raid, Sussex Police's chief constable, Paul Whitehouse, held a press conference at which he announced that Ashley had been wanted for attempted murder.

Two police constables (including PC Christopher Sherwood, the officer who shot Ashley) were suspended,[c] along with three more senior officers—a superintendent and two inspectors.

[1] The inquiry revealed that neither the police officer in charge of the manhunt for McCrudden (the incident commander) nor the intelligence commander on the operation were adequately trained for their roles and that they had been warned against the use of the "Bermuda" tactic by national experts because it presented too high a risk for the stated objectives, and that the police had failed to prepare for the operation by obtaining plans for the building and details of other occupants.

Hoddinott interviewed Whitehouse, Jordan, and Sussex's two assistant chief constables, Nigel Yeo and Maria Wallis, over allegations that they had misled the original inquiry by claiming that they could not recall key details and that they had misrepresented the intelligence that led to the raid.

[9] His report suggested there was "evidence of collusion between some or all of the chief officers" of Sussex Police to conceal what they already knew at the time of the press conference (that Ashley was unarmed, that no significant quantity of drugs had been found, and that McCrudden was not present), and that "an arguable case of attempting to pervert the course of justice might be made out", though he concluded that a charge of misconduct in public office was more credible.

[16] Sherwood was charged with murder and tried at the Old Bailey in London in 2001, but was acquitted after the trial judge, Mrs Justice Anne Rafferty, directed the jury to find him not guilty.

Sherwood claimed self-defence, telling the court that he feared for his life, believing—based on the briefing for the operation—that Ashley's outstretched arm was holding a firearm and was about to shoot.

Nigel Sweeney, prosecuting, told the court that the depth of "corporate failing" within Sussex Police made it impossible to place criminal liability with individual officers.

[24][25][26][27] Jordan was also suspended after the report and faced internal disciplinary proceedings following the CPS's decision not to pursue criminal charges, but was allowed to retire on medical grounds in 2001.

The officers, along with two others involved in Ashley's death, sued the force the following year, claiming it had been negligent in failing to train them properly and that they had suffered psychiatric injury as a result of the shooting and subsequent criminal and disciplinary proceedings.

[29][30] Their case was thrown out at the High Court and an appeal in 2006 was dismissed on the grounds that the damages suffered were too remote from the alleged negligence to be reasonably foreseeable.

[31][32] The local coroner opened an inquest in the immediate aftermath of Ashley's death but it was adjourned pending the outcome of the police investigations and criminal proceedings.

[33] Whitehouse's successor as chief constable, Ken Jones, almost immediately introduced changes to the force's policies on conducting armed operations.

[34] Ashley's family welcomed the apology but, with the backing of their local MP, Louise Ellman, continued to campaign for a public inquiry.

[34] Ashley's son and father sued Sussex Police for the torts of negligence (in respect of the planning of the operation and the shooting itself), battery, false imprisonment, and misfeasance in public office.

The case was first heard by Mrs Justice Linda Dobbs in the High Court in 2004 as Ashley v Chief Constable of Sussex Police.

[13][43] According to Nick Davies, in an investigation for The Guardian newspaper in 2001, Ashley's death was one of 41 incidents in the preceding decade in which police in England and Wales shot a person who turned out not to have a firearm.

In 28 of the 41 cases, the person shot had a replica firearm or some other kind of weapon, and another six were accidental discharges, leaving seven (including Ashley) which Davies described as "disturbing".

Menezes was a Brazilian electrician who was wrongly identified as a fugitive terrorist involved in a failed suicide bombing the day before and was shot by counter-terrorism officers when he boarded a London Underground train.

[47] Maurice Punch, an academic specialising in policing issues, described the ramifications of the Ashley case as "profound" in that an individual police officer was charged with murder for actions taken "in the course of his duty and under the command of superiors" and for Mrs Justice Rafferty's comments regarding upward accountability, a theme Punch compared to the shooting of three Provisional IRA members by the Special Air Service in Gibraltar in 1988 (Operation Flavius).