Pubdate: Tue, 26 Jun 2001
Source: Guardian, The (UK)
Copyright: 2001 Guardian Newspapers Limited
Contact:  http://www.guardian.co.uk/guardian/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/175
Author:  Rebecca Allison
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/raids.htm (Drug Raids)

BLUNKETT URGES SACK FOR CHIEF CONSTABLE

Home Secretary Demands Urgent Steps To Restore Confidence After Fatal 
Shooting In Bungled Operation

The home secretary, David Blunkett, yesterday invited a police 
authority to sack its chief constable after a bungled operation in 
which a naked and unarmed man was shot dead during a drugs raid.

In an unusually pointed letter to Sussex police authority, Mr 
Blunkett called for urgent steps to be taken to restore public 
confidence in the force and ensure that lessons had been learned from 
the death of James Ashley.

He urged the authority to use its full range of powers to this end, 
including considering whether it should ask Chief Constable Paul 
Whitehouse to step down "in the interests of efficiency and 
effectiveness".

Mr Blunkett also confirmed that the family of Mr Ashley had been 
invited to meet Home Office minister John Denham to express their 
concerns and calls for a public inquiry into the affair.

Mr Ashley, 39, was shot dead at point-blank range in front of his 
18-year-old girlfriend by a police marksman during a drugs raid on 
his flat in St Leonard's on Sea, East Sussex, in January 1998.

Kent police and Hampshire police were called in to investigate the 
shooting. Five officers who were charged in connection with death 
were cleared last month of any criminal offence.

Since the collapse of their trial, two senior officers have been 
promoted to the rank of chief inspector, prompting more anger from Mr 
Ashley's family.

Inspectors Kevin French, 47, and Christopher Siggs, 42, are to return 
to duty in Sussex as chief inspectors and their pay increase will be 
backdated to January 1998, when they were suspended. They are 
currently on leave.

The pair and Superintendent Christopher Burton were accused of 
deliberately failing to make a true assessment of the intelligence 
that led to the armed raid on Mr Ashley's flat.

During a hearing at Wolverhampton crown court last month, Nigel 
Sweeney, QC, said it would be impossible to pursue cases against 
individual officers because evidence was lacking that there had been 
a deliberate intent to damage the public interest, and because there 
had been a "corporate failure" in the Sussex force.

An independent report by Hampshire police on the shooting and its 
aftermath accused Chief Constable Whitehouse of "wilfully failing to 
tell the truth" about what he knew of the botched operation.

Soon after the shooting, Mr Whitehouse told a press conference his 
men had acted properly before and during the raid.

After the report, Mr Ashley's relatives called for Mr Whitehouse's resignation.

The extent of the incompetence that led to the raid was exposed by 
Kent police, who were instructed to conduct a separate investigation 
into the death of Mr Ashley.

Kent police concluded that the raid had been authorised on 
intelligence that was "not merely exaggerated, it was determinably 
false there was a plan to deceive and the intelligence concocted".

Mr Blunkett said in his letter yesterday: "The shooting incident, the 
issues which emerged during subsequent investigations and criminal 
proceedings, the reasons for the discontinuance of the trial and the 
promotion of two officers who may yet face disciplinary action have 
given rise to grave public concern.

"I expect the police authority to take whatever steps are necessary 
to restore public confidence and to ensure the force has learned 
lessons from this incident."

Mr Ashley's brother Tony, 32, welcomed news of the home secretary's 
intervention. He said: "We will be very interested to hear how the 
Sussex police authority responds."

The family had been demanding an apology for three years. "It's about 
time action was taken." Mr Ashley added.
- ---
MAP posted-by: Josh Sutcliffe