On May 4 1969, the body of David Oluwale was discovered face-down in the river Aire, close to Leeds' main sewage works. The coroner recorded a verdict of death by drowning. The loose change found on Oluwale's body was put towards a flimsy coffin and a pauper's funeral. The funeral directors were having a clearout and packed old telephone directories around the corpse. His body was committed to a common grave that contained nine others.
Eighteen months later, this unmourned Nigerian was at the centre of a criminal investigation that shook and shamed a city. His body was exhumed on an icy morning in December 1970 following accusations that two Leeds city police officers had hounded him to his death. At the trial a year later, a long campaign of abuse emerged. Others had simply stood by and let it happen. Even in death, Oluwale was accorded little dignity. The defence counsel likened him to a panther. To the judge, he was a "dirty, filthy, violent vagrant".
It was a long way from the ideal expectations of the "mother country" he had grown up with. Oluwale came to Britain from Lagos in 1949 with the proud status of British citizen. There was a long tradition that every individual born within the sovereign's empire was "one of us", reinforced in 1948 by an act of parliament securing citizenship for some 600 million British subjects. This staggeringly open policy was in place until the early 1960s, by which time bonds of empire were severed.
Sense of fair play
Oluwale was educated in the late autumn of colonial rule, a Christian grammar school education filling him with notions of the benevolent, civilising nature of British power.
It was natural for young men in the Nigerian port city to look outwards and imagine the world beyond; in the postwar years, there were many reasons to wish for an escape - food shortages, soaring prices, high unemployment. Nineteen-year-old Oluwale, struggling as an apprentice tailor, was one of a couple of hundred Nigerians in those difficult years who buried themselves in obscure corners of cargo ships for the gruelling two-week voyage to Britain.
Oluwale took his chance on a ship named Temple Bar on an August morning in 1949, hiding among the boxes of groundnuts being sent to Hull. Days into the journey, the captain ordered that smoke be pumped into the hold to drive out any unwelcome guests. As soon as the ship docked at Hull, a dirty and bewildered Oluwale was delivered into custody, beginning his English life as it would end 21 years later - as police property.
He was soon rudely awakened to the realities of life in ration-book England. The magistrate at Hull police court told him that he would have been better off staying home digging groundnuts, and sent him to prison for 28 days for stowing away. He spent his first night in England in a cell in Leeds. It was that city, with its soot-blackened buildings and bronchial population, that would become his home. Leeds' black population, mostly comprised of single young men, was then tiny. Looked on as curiosities who had emerged from the swamp, they crammed into those few houses prepared to give them bed and board. Work was plentiful, and Oluwale's jobs included tailor, foundry worker and slaughterhouse labourer.
One of the 30 or so Nigerians in the city at that time was Gabriel Adams, who recalls the inhospitality of Leeds in those difficult first years. One swimming baths refused him entry, worried that his black skin would stain the towels. He told me of a friend with tribal markings who was always being asked whether a tiger had been at his face - the man couldn't take any more abuse and threw himself into the path of a London Underground train.
Oluwale's friends called him "Yankee" because he loved Westerns and walked with a bit of swagger. He was popular and easygoing, a lively conversationalist who loved his Saturday nights at the Mecca ballroom. The Africans all took pride in their appearance, but Oluwale was more clothes conscious than most. He used to go to Henry Price's 50 Shilling Tailor for made-to-measure suits, and rather than have one back pocket in the trousers, in the traditional way, he would insist on two. It was the Yankee style.
By 1953, most Africans had met their wives, moved into their own houses, and joined the humdrum stream of industrial labour. But in March that year, Oluwale became involved in a fight with the police. It was rumoured that he took a truncheon blow to the head. During a short prison sentence, he was admitted to the psychiatric unit of the local hospital complaining of hallucinations - lions with fishes' heads, he told a psychiatrist. He was sectioned and sent to Menston, an asylum outside Leeds. Diagnosed as schizophrenic, he did not resurface for eight years.
This experience broke Oluwale. Held on the stinking, overcrowded secure ward of this daunting Victorian asylum, he did not receive a single visitor. As the only black patient, he was an anomalous presence. Mainstream psychiatry was shot through with racist assumptions. One vogueish theory was that of "the African mind", which suggested that all Africans bordered on the pathological ... that they were troublesome children outside rationality, slaves to their passions, given to violence, prone to persecution anxieties, difficult to subdue. (It was this stereotype that emerged at the trial of the two policemen at Leeds assizes. A charge nurse described his former patient as unpredictable, strong and violent.)
By the time Oluwale was released from Menston, electric shock treatment and heavy antipsychotic tranquillisers had knocked the Yankee swagger out of him. He shuffled and twitched, and laughed for no apparent reason.
In 1961, the idea of care in the community was born, and patients were being disgorged from asylums in their thousands. But for many there was neither community nor care. Oluwale was one of those who simply drifted into the shadowy parts of Britain's cities.
He returned to Leeds, which was then undergoing a process of brutal modernisation. Many of the inner-city back-to-back houses that once provided an abundance of cheap lodgings were pulled down. Homelessness was a growing problem. Between 1961 and 1969, Oluwale hardly worked and, apart from in prison and hospital beds, rarely slept indoors. He was picking up regular convictions under antiquated vagrancy laws. After several years on the streets, his physical and mental health was deteriorating. Prison welfare officers pronounced him beyond help.
His life took its fateful turn in July 1968, when he lost a hostel place following complaints from other residents. He was back on the streets at a time when influential traders were putting pressure on the police to clean the city of antisocial nuisances. And much of the responsibility for that fell on inspectors at Millgarth police station. In April 1968, a newly appointed inspector, Geoff Ellerker, was assigned to the city centre. He came to rely heavily on one of his shift sergeants, Ken Kitching, who was zealous in removing "human rubbish" such as beggars and rough sleepers from his patch.
But Oluwale, the only black man on the streets, became a fixation - "a wild animal, not a human being", in Kitching's words. When working the night shift, Kitching and Ellerker went hunting for their "playmate" and subjected him to a range of humiliations. They called it penance. They waited until the streets were deserted, found him in doorways, kicked and beat him, never doubting that they were doing a good job for Leeds.
A month before his death, Oluwale was arrested for disorderly conduct. A charge sheet containing various personal details was completed. Under "nationality", one unidentified Millgarth officer scored out "Brit" and in its place wrote "wog".
Desperate action
In the last weeks of his life, Oluwale's mood swung between defiance and despair. At only 5ft 5ins, he did what he could to resist tall policemen - he bit. It was a desperate action that only confirmed him as a savage in the police minds and brought greater violence down upon him. All his attempts to seek redress were frustrated. His complaints were dismissed by one prison doctor as "delusions of persecution".
The last sighting of Oluwale was in the early hours of April 18, 1969, running away from Ellerker and Kitching.
Oluwale's death and the convictions that finally followed left society unchanged. Far from being seen as a racist crime that showed up the worst of British life, the official presentation of the case was that of a squalid little local affair, a tale of "two bad apples". Civic leaders and police chiefs wanted the whole dirty business to be swept away, quickly.
Contrary to the expressions of official denial, among the ordinary people of Leeds there was deep embarrassment that such indignities and violence could have been inflicted on a vulnerable man by two of their policemen, on their streets. He became something of a folk hero, his name being sung by fans of Leeds United. To the tune of Michael Rowed the Boat Ashore, they sang: "The River Aire is chilly and deep, Ol-u-wale; Never trust the Leeds police, Ol-u-wale." Even at a time of intense hostility to black settlers, Oluwale's plight offended beliefs in British decency and fairness. But far from provoking self-examination, the death of Oluwale left only a lingering sense of shame. He lurks in the recess of the city's memory, barely acknowledged.
It would be tempting to consign the story of Oluwale to a shameful, but now discarded past of Enoch Powell and the Black and White Minstrel Show. Oluwale's fate symbolises so powerfully Britain's belligerent denial of black people's right to belong. But now that this right is regarded as incontrovertible, it might be thought unhelpful to revive such memories.
Three decades on, the police service is still in the process of rooting out the sorts of practices and attitudes that surfaced during the Oluwale case. Following the failed investigation into the Stephen Lawrence murder, it accepted the need to confront its institutional racism. Its very different response to the murder of Anthony Walker in 2005 is cited as evidence that the police have indeed begun to move with the rest of British society.
But high-profile successes have disguised some unacceptable realities. There have been hundreds of suspicious deaths in custody since the records began in 1970, and black people are over-represented in the roll call. Despite several inquest verdicts of unlawful killing, there have been no successful prosecutions of police officers to this day. Perhaps the obscure deaths of men such as Brian Douglas, Roger Sylvester and Mikey Powell tell us more about the health of our institutions than eyecatching investigations.
Punitive measures
Institutional racism also continues to blight the mental health system, though it rarely makes headlines. Black people are more likely to be diagnosed schizophrenic, sectioned, and held on the secure wards of our psychiatric hospitals. Two hundred years on from the abolition of the slave trade, the idea of black people as primitive, threatening and in need of control is still with us, as is our tendency to resort to punitive measures when dealing with marginal and "deviant" individuals.
In Leeds, the council actively discourages citizens from acting compassionately towards rough sleepers. Today, antisocial behaviour orders, curfews and dispersal orders, rather than the copper's boot, are the preferred instruments for clearing unwanted people from the city centre.
In the year Leeds celebrates its 800th anniversary, revelling in an economically resurgent, multicultural present, it seems right to acknowledge the uncomfortable story of David Oluwale - a story buried until now.
'At home in the jungle', an extract from Kester Aspden's book
PC Keith Seager saw Sergeant Kitching walking fast down the Headrow towards Park Row; Inspector Ellerker was jogging in front of him. Realising they were chasing Oluwale, Seager drove slowly alongside Kitching, who ordered him to "get down there and stop him". Seager drove on and parked his car up in Cookridge Street, got out quickly and ran towards Oluwale. Oluwale swerved past him into the road, but Ellerker caught up with him and, according to the statement Seager made to the investigation, leapt on him and brought him to the ground.
They bundled him into the back of Seager's car, drove up Woodhouse Lane, passing the university, up the Otley Road, through Headingley, to the ancient village of Bramhope, seven miles away from Leeds, and to a quintessential English pub, The Fox & Hounds.
Seager could see that Oluwale's cheek had swollen. Oluwale was saying: "What are you going to do now? Why are you doing this to me?" They pulled up in the car park and Ellerker said to Oluwale: "We're going to have to leave you here for a few minutes because we've got to go to the police station." Ellerker pointed to the door, which was in darkness, and said: "If you go and knock on that door they'll give you a cup of tea, and we'll be back in a few minutes to pick you up."
Oluwale thanked them and walked towards the pub door. Ellerker got back in the car and said to Seager: "Right, get your foot down." They had a good laugh about it on the way back to Millgarth, imagining the publican's surprise. Kitching would boast and laugh about this incident later at Millgarth. PC Bennett, the radio operator, told the investigation: "He never said who was with him when this was done. I never asked him because, to be honest, I didn't agree with this sort of conduct and I didn't want to know any more about it.'
That week, the same three took Oluwale for another drive.
In the early hours of Sunday, August 11, around 3.30am, Kitching woke Oluwale with a kick. He was pulled up from the ground while Ellerker stood watching. He clung on to his duffel bag.
Seager, who was patrolling nearby in a panda car, had received a message over the radio ordering him to go the Bridal House. When he arrived, Ellerker and Kitching led Oluwale by his arms into the car. Oluwale was protesting that he didn't want to go back there again. They were telling him that they were only going for a ride.
Seager asked Ellerker where he should go. Kitching suggested Middleton Woods and Ellerker said: "That'll do." Ellerker got in the front seat, Kitching was in the back with Oluwale. They drove over the bridge over the Aire into south Leeds, passing the foundry where Oluwale had worked for a few weeks after his release from Menston [asylum] in 1961. They drove for about 20 minutes.
Kitching was enjoying the game, acting the Dutch uncle. He asked him about his mam back in Africa, what she would have thought of him always getting himself nicked, never working. Oluwale kept repeating, "I don't know, I don't know." He began to cry.
When they got to Middleton Woods, about five miles from the city centre, the driver took the left-hand fork and kept driving. Deep into the dark heart.
Sergeant said, "This'll do," and they stopped. Inspector got out of the car. Oluwale refused to get out, pleading: "You said you wouldn't do this." Inspector and Sergeant had to prise him from the car.
Ellerker told Oluwale: "It's going to be you that suffers if you don't stay away." According to Seager, Oluwale started shouting and swearing at them: "You cunts, you never leave me alone - I've got to sleep somewhere." Kitching told him to shut up and pushed him in the chest with such force that he fell back four paces into a tree.
They got back in the panda car and drove off, leaving Oluwale stranded. As they made their way back to the city centre, Kitching said that Oluwale wouldn't like it there, it was dark and he would lose his way. He said that one day he'd learn that he wasn't wanted in Leeds.
Back at Millgarth, PC Bennett asked Kitching: "What did you do that for? Was it to make him think he was back home?" Kitching replied: "Well, he should feel at home in the jungle."
· Nationality: Wog, The Hounding of David Oluwale, by Kester Aspden, is published on June 7 by Jonathan Cape (£12.99). To order a copy for £11.99 with free UK p&p call 0870 836 0875 or go to theguardian.com/bookshop
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