Private Defence and Public Defence in the Criminal Law and in the Law of Tort—A Comparison
| Author | Benjamin Andoh,Simon Parsons |
| DOI | 10.1350/jcla.2012.76.1.748 |
| Published date | 01 February 2012 |
| Date | 01 February 2012 |
| Subject Matter | Comment |
COMMENT
Private Defence and Public Defence in the
Criminal Law and in the Law of Tort—
A Comparison
Simon Parsons and Benjamin Andoh*
Keywords Self-defence; Prevention of crime; Honest belief; Reasonable
belief; Reasonable force
On 15 January 1998 James Ashley was shot dead by Police Constable
Christopher Sherwood of the Sussex Police Special Operations Unit
(‘SOU’) during an armed raid by the SOU on Ashley’s home in Hastings.
The armed raid had been authorised by police authorities, and a search
warrant had been obtained. The raid was part of police investigation into
drug trafficking in Hastings and into the stabbing of a man in a bar in
Hastings by an associate of Ashley. At 4.20 am police officers, one of
whom was Sherwood, made a forcible entry into Ashley’s home. Upon
entry Sherwood and another police officer went to the bedroom. Ashley
and his girlfriend had been asleep in the bedroom, but she, having been
woken by the noise of the police entry, had woken him up and he was
out of bed by the time the police entered the bedroom. Ashley was
naked and no light was on. Sherwood entered the bedroom with his
handgun in the ‘aim’ position and his finger on the trigger, and he shot
Ashley dead with a single bullet to the side of the neck. It was not alleged
that Ashley had any weapon in his hand at the time.
Police inquiries into the shooting were started and on 31 March 1999
Sherwood was charged with murder. At his trial on 2 May 2001,
following a submission of no case to answer at the close of the prosecu-
tion case, Sherwood was, on the direction of Rafferty J, acquitted of
murder and manslaughter. Rafferty J told the jury that ‘there is no
evidence to negative the assertion of self-defence in all the circum-
stances . . .’. Rafferty J’s direction was given on the basis that in a
criminal trial for murder the burden was on the prosecution to prove to
the requisite standard of proof that the defendant did not act in self-
defence. That was the end of the criminal proceedings against PC
Sherwood. This is baffling as it difficult to see how shooting a naked man
without giving him an opportunity to surrender can be a shooting in
self-defence.
The father and son of the deceased brought civil actions as depend-
ants under the Fatal Accidents Act 1976 and for the benefit of the
deceased’s estate under s. 1(1) of the Law Reform (Miscellaneous Provi-
sions) Act 1934 against the Chief Constable of Sussex Police for damages
* Senior Lecturer in Law, School of Law, Southampton Solent University; e-mail:
Simon.Parsons@solent.ac.uk; Senior Lecturer in Law, School of Law, Southampton
Solent University; e-mail: benjamin.andoh@solent.ac.uk.
22 The Journal of Criminal Law (2012) 76 JCL 22–28
doi:10.1350/jcla.2012.76.1.748
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