Death On Camera By Nicholas Boldock Next Page

I seem to spend a lot of my time writing articles for thisisUll.com which focus on negative aspects of our dear city. I've written on these pages about racism and about football hooliganism, neither of which gave me much pleasure. I don't enjoy highlighting the darker sides of our citadel, but sometimes it has to be done.

And now here I am again. I have just watched Death On Camera, the BBC documentary about Christopher Alder, who died in police custody in Hull in 1998. If you missed the programme and don't already know the case, here are the facts:

Christopher Alder was in Waterfront Nightclub on the night of April 1st, 1998. There was an altercation inside the club which he would appear to have been involved in. Later on, outside the club, there was further trouble. Christopher was punched in the mouth and fell to the ground where he apparently lost consciousness. Police and an ambulance crew attended the scene - by which time Christopher had regained consciousness - and the 37-year-old former paratrooper was taken to Hull Royal Infirmary. At this time the police were still treating him - correctly - as the victim of an assault. On his arrival at HRI, Christopher's behaviour became erratic and he was abusive to the nurses and doctors who were attempting to treat him. Medical experts have stated that behaviour such as this is common in cases of serious head injury. Christopher was examined and became calmer, but when his behaviour once again became abusive the police were called. Two PC's who had attended the earlier incident at Waterfront arrived at HRI. Again Christopher became more cooperative, but when he was taken for x-ray and again became difficult he was escorted from the hospital premises by the police. Outside, the two police officers attempted to placate Christopher and told him that he had five minutes in which to calm down - otherwise he would be arrested for breaching the peace. He became threatening and was eventually handcuffed. When a police van arrived to transport Christopher to Queen's Gardens police station, a witness - a security guard from HRI who had spoken to Christopher earlier in the night - says that Christopher stepped into the van under his own volition and sat down unaided. The security guard was the last member of the public to see Christopher Alder alive. What happened between HRI and Queen's Gardens police station remains unknown. What is known is that when he arrived at the police station, Christopher was unconscious, with his trousers and underwear around his knees, and was dragged into custody and laid on the floor of the custody suite in that state.

He lay there - as recorded on CCTV - for around eleven minutes. Throughout that time period, he can clearly be heard - as shown on tonight's programme - to be suffering from serious respiratory difficulties. His breathing was extremely noisy and laboured, and laid on his front as he was, his airway was obstructed.

The police officers on the tape can be heard stating that Christopher is "play-acting". The desk Sergeant does not examine Christopher up close, even though he is lying prone - and handcuffed - on the floor, and has been bleeding from his mouth continually. Eventually, the sound of his breathing clearly stops. It is several minutes before any of the police officers present react to this. Once they do, their efforts to revive him are, at best, amateur. None of them seem sure of what to do. In the end, an ambulance is called, but in the interim, the police officers present make no serious attempt to revive Christopher, nor do they seem to be in a state of urgency, as you would have a right to expect under such circumstances. They can be heard repeatedly saying "put him in the recovery position" - yet they do not act swiftly. Christopher Alder was not revived, and died on the floor of the custody suite in Queen's Gardens police station. Tonight's BBC programme (also covered on Newsnight) - made by the same team who put together the Secret Policeman documentary which exposed racism in the police training system - looked at some of the questions raised by Christopher's death. And those questions are plenty. Two years after these events, the inquest into Christopher's death returned a verdict of unlawful killing. The decision hinged on the fact that the police had not done enough while a man lay dying in front of them - surely a clear case of negligence, if not culpable manslaughter. In 2002, the five police officers who were present that night faced trial in a manslaughter case which argued that Christopher Alder's death could have been avoided if action had been taken to deal with an obvious medical emergency. Due to a range of different opinions given by medical experts - a situation which does not normally arise, because the Crown normally appoints one preferred expert to give evidence - the trial judge ruled that the police officers had "no case to answer". Mr Christopher Enzor, the head of the Crown Prosecution Service's Casework Directorate in York, said: "The key problem in the manslaughter case was proving beyond reasonable doubt - as the prosecution must do in every criminal case - that the actions and omissions of the five police officers contributed more than minimally to the tragic death of Mr Alder. "Medical experts put forward different theories as to the initial cause of Mr Alder's unconsciousness. This was critical, because without knowing that cause for sure, it was difficult to prove beyond reasonable doubt that the actions and omissions of the five defendants affected whether he would have lived or died."

Continued on www.thisisull.com...... Next page.

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