Vigil marks anniversary of ex-para Christopher Alder death in police cell

More than 200 people gathered outside Queens Gardens police station, in Hull, where the 37-year-old former paratrooper choked to death on blood and vomit in April 1998 after being arrested for a breach of the peace.

In an appalling mix-up his body was recently discovered in a Hull mortuary 11 years after he was thought to have been buried.

He has since been reburied and South Yorkshire Police is carrying out an investigation – although his sister Janet said yesterday she was “not holding her breath”.

Before taking flowers into the police station, she addressed a gathering, which included friends and family of 36-year-old Anthony Grainger, who died of a single gunshot wound to the chest while he was sitting in a stolen car with two friends in the village of Culcheth, Cheshire last month, in what police described as a “pre-planned operation”.

Ms Alder, who lives in West Yorkshire, said she had thought she would be able to move on with her life after the Government late last year admitted his death had breached the European Convention on Human Rights.

She said: “Then we had this terrible turn of events and found that his body had lain in a mortuary for 10 years when we believed he had been lain to rest.

“It is the disrespect he has been held in – I want people to know that we are still here and still fighting.

“Justice does not have a time limit - you don’t just turn round and say these things don’t matter.”

She went on: “Now once again like history repeating itself we are waiting for police to make an investigation – why they buried a 77-year-old woman instead of a 37-year-old paratrooper who fought for his country. I do not hold my breath.”

Ruth Bundey, her solicitor at the time, who attended the vigil, said she was “deeply suspicious” of recent events. “The mix-up of bodies was discovered shortly after the Government chose to settle the European Court case by a paltry offer of money.

“By doing that they discharged the European Court of any responsibility of looking into it further.

“I think the only way it was to be resolved was to put a lid on it – particularly after the November body discovery – because the Government did not want a full-scale investigation into what happened and this has been effectively closed off, like everything else.”

Anthony Grainger’s girlfriend Gail will be meeting the Independent Police Complaints Commission today.

She said her boyfriend had been unarmed, adding: “There should be consequences for pulling the trigger.

“If it turns out they had a reason they should get let off. The police have said it was an error of judgment, they thought he was an armed robber.”

Closed circuit television footage caught Christopher Alder’s last moments as he choked to death.

He had been concussed in a scuffle outside a nightclub, and hospital staff called the police when he became aggressive.

He was dragged into the custody suite at Queens Gardens, and was left face down on the floor with his arms handcuffed behind his back, while officers stood round chatting.

In 2000, a coroner’s jury returned a verdict that Mr Alder was unlawfully killed and in 2002 five Humberside Police officers went on trial accused of manslaughter and misconduct in public office, but they were cleared of all charges on the orders of the judge.

Four years later, an Independent Police Complaints Commission report said four of the officers present in the custody suite when Mr Alder died were guilty of the “most serious neglect of duty”.

In November last year there was a shocking development when it was discovered his body had been mixed up with that of 77-year-old Grace Kamara.

Just a few weeks later the Government made an “unprecedented” admission that his treatment breached the European Convention on Human Rights.

Ministers accepted “that the lack of an effective and independent investigation in this case amounts to a violation of the procedural obligations in Articles 2 and 3 of the Convention”.

They further accepted that his treatment in police custody amounted to a “substantive” violation of parts of the Convention.