MARK JORDAN

HOME  |   CASE STUDIES   |   HISTORY  |   LAW   |   MPs  |  POLITICS    |    RIGHTS   |   SITE INDEX

SUSPENSION - Deputy Chief Constable of Sussex Mark Jordan was suspended following a report on the shooting of James Ashley, 39, at his home in St Leonards, Sussex.

Mr Ashley, who had a conviction for manslaughter, was in bed with his girlfriend when armed police burst into his flat. The raid was part of an investigation into an attempted murder and alleged drugs trafficking.

Five officers were suspended pending the outcome of an investigation by the Police Complaints Authority.

Sussex Chief Constable Paul Whitehouse said: "We deeply regret the shooting of James Ashley.

"This is a difficult time for Sussex Police and for all the individuals concerned.

"We hope of course that all the outstanding matters will be resolved as quickly as possible."

It was alleged during the inquest into Mr Ashley's death that police officers had hampered inquiries because they were "unable to remember" key facts from the case.

Senior police officers were also accused of "misrepresenting" intelligence used to justify the raid.

Mr Whitehouse was called for questioning by the inquiry into Mr Ashley's death last year.

With a second report is due from Hampshire Police next month on the shooting, the chief constable

Mark Jordan was the deputy chief constable of Sussex Police during the bungled raid on James Ashley's flat in Hastings when Chris Sherwood shot and killed the naked and unarmed man. Chris Sherwood and others were charged with murder but the Judge in the case stopped the trial. No British policeman accused of shooting a suspect has ever been prosecuted, that is how corrupt the justice system is in Britain.

The chief constable of Sussex police in 2018 was Giles York. Mr York had been asked to look at organised crime in the planning department at Wealden District Council. He'd also been asked to look at gun crime and the issue of a receipt for guns to a known criminal. Finally, Katy Bourne the them crime commissioner and former dance instructor, was asked to look at the inaction of Mr York to investigate these serious allegations, but her response was to ignore such complaints and seek injunctions against anyone who pressed such matters, including Matt Taylor and John Hoath. That is how pathetic the attempts to stifle political opposition were in 2018.

THE GUARDIAN 2001

The shooting of Jimmy Ashley provoked an extraordinary three-way punch up in which the neighbouring police forces of Sussex, Kent and Hampshire accused each other variously of incompetence, unprofessional behaviour, conspiracy and crime.

Kent were called in to investigate the shooting, believed they were being obstructed and accused Sussex of conspiring to pervert the course of justice. Sussex complained that Kent were bullying, dishonest, incompetent and simply not used to dealing with honest police officers. Hampshire were then called in to sort out the squabble and ended up being drawn in to the fight, rejecting Kent’s fear of conspiracy but pouring scalding criticism on the three most senior officers in Sussex, which in turn provoked Sussex into accusing Hampshire of producing conclusions without evidence and simply not understanding how a decent force is run.

In the middle of all this was the chief constable of Sussex, Paul Whitehouse, probably the most liberal chief officer in the country, a man who tries to stay in touch with the job by going out on night patrol with junior officers, who deliberately made a point by advertising for new recruits in Gay News and turned down a bonus of £12,000 because he disapproved of the concept of performance-related pay. He is also a Quaker, committed to non violence, and the last chief constable who might have been expected to end up with one of his officers killing an unarmed man.

But it is Whitehouse who is accused of throwing the first punch by issuing a press release four hours after Jimmy Ashley’s death in which he declared: “I am satisfied from all the information available to me that the operation was professionally and competently executed and that all of the officers involved behaved properly.” Kent found that infuriating: they had not even arrived in Sussex to begin their inquiry, and yet here was Whitehouse announcing a conclusion. And they were particularly worried that it would alienate the family of the dead man. When Whitehouse then gave press interviews in which he said incorrectly that Ashley had been wanted for attempted murder, they feared Sussex were deliberately blackening the dead man’s name.

By the time that Kent discovered that there had also been a series of meetings between senior officers and some of those involved in the shooting and that nobody had mentioned any of these meetings, they believed they were dealing with a fully-fledged conspiracy to obstruct their inquiry. They stopped briefing Paul Whitehouse on their progress, moved their base back to Kent for fear of break-in or surveillance, and told the Police Complaints Authority, who were supervising their work, that they feared senior Sussex officers were being untruthful. The PCA called in Sir John Hoddinott, then the chief constable of Hampshire and a very forceful man.

Sir John found “suggestive evidence of collusion between some or all of the chief officers” in Sussex to conceal what they knew at the time of the press release, noted that “an arguable case of attempting to pervert the course of justice might be made out” but concluded finally that it made better sense to see this as evidence of criminal misfeasance. He lacerated the senior officers of Sussex with the kind of language that is rarely heard between public figures. (Indeed, it was not intended to be heard, but was contained in a secret report which the Guardian has seen.)

Sir John found that the press release was “effectively disinformation” because it claimed that all was well even though Whitehouse and his team already knew that the dead man had been naked and unarmed and, furthermore, that the officer who had shot him, PC Chris Sherwood, had had his firearms permit temporarily withdrawn a couple of years earlier after a girlfriend complained about his violent behaviour. Sir John concluded: “The chief constable is a public officer and has a duty to tell the truth. He wilfully failed to tell the truth as he knew it, he did so without reasonable excuse or justification and what was published and said was misleading and therefore likely to injure the public interest.”

Paul Whitehouse remained adamant that there was nothing wrong with the press release, telling friends that “John Hoddinott doesn’t understand that a police officer can shoot somebody who is naked and unarmed without that being improper.” Senior Sussex officers accused both the Kent and the Hants inquiries of being “dishonourable” in trying to make something of the fact that PC Sherwood had once lost his firearms permit: the reality was that the permit had been returned to him on the authority of a senior officer, Richard Childs, who had gone on to become chief constable of Lincolnshire. But Sir John was not finished.

He said some of Mr Whitehouse’s statements to Kent were false, and that his defence of his actions to the Sussex Police Authority was “unsustainable in any rational sense” and “plainly perverse”. Mr Whitehouse had told the authority that “nothing in what was reported to me suggested in the slightest that there had been improper behaviour”. Sir John said: “No objective person – the man on the top deck of the Clapham omnibus or any other – could possibly come to that conclusion, presented with the same information as the chief constable had. Such a comment could only mislead.” Sir John went on to specify that he was questioning not only Mr Whitehouse’s judgement but also his integrity. He said there was evidence that Mr Whitehouse was guilty of criminal misfeasance, falsehood and discreditable conduct.

Whitehouse denied all this with passion and found some support from the Crown Prosecution Service, who declined to charge him, and from his police authority, who issued him with ‘words of advice’, the lowest form of discipline. Sir John conceded that Mr Whitehouse’s sole motive was to support his officers and not to conceal the truth about the shooting. But he was still not finished.

Examining the police authority’s handling of a complaint about the press release from the dead man’s family, Sir John declared that the behaviour of the deputy clerk to the authority, Andrew Ogden, was “rather strange and a cause for concern”. Mr Ogden had acted both as legal advisor to the chief constable and as deputy clerk to the police authority who were responsible for judging his behaviour. Mr Ogden, Sir John said, had failed to give the authority key facts about the production of the press release – “one would have thought that a deputy clerk owed a duty to the authority to have drawn these matters to their attention”. Mr Ogden replied that he was well aware of his professional obligations and saw no conflict of interest.

Sir John also roughed up one of the assistant chief constables, Nigel Yeo, against whom he said there was evidence of criminal misfeasance and falsehood over the press release; and the deputy chief constable of Sussex, Mark Jordan, against whom he said there was evidence of criminal misfeasance, neglect of duty, discreditable conduct, and aiding and abetting the chief constable’s false statements. He described some of Mr Jordan’s statements to the Kent inquiry as “frankly absurd” and “simply not credible” and suggested that Mr Jordan had abrogated his responsibilities on the day of the shooting by sitting alone for 20 minutes in his office and then going for a long walk in the garden. Sir John noted “sometimes bizarre behaviour revealing a deputy chief constable who at one moment is in tears and threatening to resign and another treating subordinates like children. It is from this that he has apparently earned the nickname, from the nursery rhyme, the Duke of York.”

Sir John’s report was sent to the Crown Prosecution Service, who decided not to prosecute any of the senior Sussex officers for criminal misfeasance. The Sussex police authority temporarily suspended Paul Whitehouse and Nigel Yeo in February 1999 and then gave written ‘words of advice’ to both of them. Mr Jordan has been suspended since February 1999, and the police authority are due to conduct a disciplinary hearing against him soon.

THE CODE OF CONDUCT

Not many people get a reply to their correspondence even when reporting serious crimes, but this force will spend £10,000 of public money attempting to prosecute a person for goods to the value of £19.99, where that person is a thorn in the side of their chums at Wealden District Council.

On the other side of the coin, this force appear hesitant to investigate complaints involving £ hundreds of thousands of pounds in connection with land fraud and manipulation of land values, totally ignored by the crime commissioner, Katy Bourne.

SIMILAR FACT EVIDENCE

There are too many cases that demonstrate failures in investigations, for this to be a coincidence. Certain individuals that fall foul of Wealden District Council almost invariably end up being wrongly imprisoned or otherwise with a criminal record, or facing some kind of charge. This is one of Weaden's favourite ploys for disposing of cases where they have been caught red-handed tampering with or otherwise falsifying evidence in neighbour disputes, where Wealden DC have taken the side of the more influential citizen - instead of investigating matters impartially and honestly.

FAIR USE NOTICE

This site contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available in our efforts to advance understanding of environmental, political, human rights, economic, scientific, and social justice issues, etc. We believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes.

This site is protected under Article10 of the European Convention on Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms.