Lords (then the United Kingdom's highest court), where the appeal was successful. The lords confirmed that the threshold for a plea of self-defence in a civil case was higher than in a criminal one and that it was for the litigants, not the judge, to decide which causes of action to pursue, even where no further damages were available. Ashley's death has been compared to other mistaken police shootings in the United Kingdom, including those of Stephen Waldorf, John Shorthouse, Harry Stanley, and Jean Charles de Menezes. It was one of the cases considered in a 2003 report by the PCA which recommended stronger control of armed operations and equipping armed officers with less-lethal alternatives such as tasers. Prelude James "Jimmy" Ashley was a 39-year-old man from Liverpool living in St Leonards-on-Sea, East Sussex, on the south coast of England. Ashley and a group of friends occupied three of the six flats in a converted house in Western Road. He was suspected by Sussex Police of being involved in the distribution of heroin, and the police had heard rumours that he owned a gun. They placed the house under surveillance in October 1997, though the operation was wound up without producing any substantive evidence. On 7 January 1998, Ashley was present when Thomas "Tosh" McCrudden, a friend he had been drinking with, stabbed and seriously wounded another man in an argument outside a pub in Hastings town centre. Ashley's only involvement was to pull McCrudden away from the victim. In the following week, armed officers were deployed to pursue several leads but failed to apprehend McCrudden. Officers believed McCrudden was staying in the Western Road house and formulated a plan to raid it. Detectives obtained a search warrant based on a tip-off from an officer in the regional crime squad that a large quantity of cocaine had been delivered to the house, and the plan to use armed officers was authorised by the deputy chief constable, Mark Jordan, based on the rumour that Ashley had a firearm. The officers conducting the raid were briefed that McCrudden was dangerous and known to be in the flats and about the potential firearm. They were also told, incorrectly, that Ashley was wanted for shooting a man in Eastbourne and had a previous conviction for attempted murder. At the time, it was the largest firearms operation in Sussex Police's history, using 25 armed officers.