Veteran in mortuary blunder finally at rest a

Christopher Alder, 37, was buried in Hull yesterday in a private ceremony attended by his sons, Leon and Kelvin, and other relatives.

His family thought they had buried him in November 2000, but in a shocking blunder which is now the subject of a criminal inquiry, the body of the black former paratrooper was discovered in a mortuary last November when the family of Nigerian woman Grace Kamara, 77, arrived to collect her body.

It is thought she was buried in his place and that grave will be exhumed as part of the police investigation.

Mr Alder’s sister Janet, who has been campaigning for justice for her brother since he died in police custody in 1998, said she did not attend yesterday’s funeral as she felt excluded from the arrangements.

Mr Alder, who was decorated for his service in Northern Ireland, choked to death on the floor of a Hull police station with his arms handcuffed behind his back and his trousers around his ankles.

He had been assaulted outside a nightclub and was arrested after becoming aggressive in hospital.

A coroner’s jury found he was unlawfully killed, and in 2002 five Humberside Police officers went on trial accused of manslaughter and misconduct in public office, but were cleared on the orders of the judge.

An Independent Police Complaints Commission report in 2006 found the conduct of four officers present at the time amounted to “unwitting racism”.

In November the Government apologised to the Alder family after admitting breaching the European Convention on Human Rights over his death.