James Ashley was a British man shot dead by police at his flat in St Leonards-on-Sea, East Sussex, on 15 January 1998, while unarmed and naked. Armed officers had been sent to raid the flat based on reports that Ashley kept a firearm and a quantity of cocaine there, and to arrest Ashley and another man in connection with a stabbing. No firearm or significant quantity of drugs was found, the other man was not present, and it later emerged that Ashley was not implicated in the stabbing. Ashley, likely woken by the noise of the raid, was out of bed when an officer entered his bedroom. On seeing the officer, Ashley raised one arm and the officer reacted by firing a single shot. Later that morning Sussex Police's chief constable, Paul Whitehouse, held a press conference in which he praised the