Sussex Police’s tactical firearms unit was sent out roughly 11 times a day between July and October this year in response to calls where no guns were being used. Here PAULINE ASHLEY, sister of the late Jimmy Ashley, argues why deadly force should not be a routine option for police on patrol.

On January 15, 1998, 25 armed police raided the St Leonards home of Jimmy Ashley, who they wrongly thought had a kilogram of cocaine and a gun in his flat.

When an officer burst into his room he got out of bed, naked, and raised his arms.

The 39-year-old was shot through the heart and died instantly.

The series of reviews, trials and legal battles that followed led in part to the resignation of then-Chief Constable Paul Whitehouse.

Even now, the Ashley family and the force are still at legal loggerheads.

Ten years after the disastrous St Leonards raid, the force’s tactical firearms unit is deployed on average about 11 times a day to incidents where no firearm has been reported.

Since April this year, armed officers have been involved in about 650 arrests. A spokesman for Sussex Police said most of these were not firearms-related.

The force said the use of the tactical firearms unit to support officers going to routine emergencies is now normal.

Pauline Ashley, 45, from Dingle, Liverpool, said the death of her brother was argument enough against the routine arming of police.

She said: “How can they justify it?

“Eleven callouts per day is unbelievable. It is alarming.

“When the next person dies, what is going to happen?”

Each year the Ashley family sends a bunch of roses to the incumbent chief constable of Sussex Police.

Jimmy was a well known feature of East Sussex nightlife, a hard man who was convicted of manslaughter in 1993 after killing David Hitchmough, 41, with one punch in a brawl at a Pevensey pub in 1993. But when police raided his flat they had been told a gun was in the flat along with a kilogram of cocaine and an associate of Mr Ashley’s who was wanted for a stabbing.

Instead, when police burst in, Mr Ashley was unarmed and naked in bed with his teenage girlfriend.

Ms Ashley told The Argus guns leave too much room for human error.

She said: “I’m not saying don’t have armed police at all.

“You need them in certain situations.

“To arm every police officer would be particularly alarming.”

No one was ever convicted of a crime in her brother’s case.

She said: “If you arm officers, there is no room for error.

She pointed to the US as an example of the dangers of routinely arming the police.

She said: “You only have to look at the likes of America to see it doesn’t work.

“The criminals feel they need to be armed against the police officers.

“If you look at America, they fight fire with fire.

“It is as if life is so cheap. It is a death and it is a brutal death.”

Ms Ashley said police forces should not be allowed to slowly increase the number of armed police being called out without some sort of public debate.

She said: “My other brother predicted they would arm officers by stealth.

“Like a lot of other things in this country, it is sneaked in through the back door. Before you know it, all of a sudden the police are armed.

“They can’t become a law unto themselves. They are public servants. They need to be under the scrutiny of the public.

“I think they need to put more effort into the prevention of crime, with detective work and policing strategy.

“People should be arrested and investigated to see whether they are guilty or not.

“We are all innocent until proven guilty.”

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