What happened
Christopher Alder was 37, a black former paratrooper decorated for service in Northern Ireland. He was arrested on 1 April 1998 after an altercation outside The Waterfront nightclub in Hull, where he was hit in the mouth and fell. At Hull Royal Infirmary he was confused and uncooperative and could not be treated. Officers removed him, drawing a CS spray canister and threatening to use it. Outside he asked to go back and see the doctors.
He was arrested for breach of the peace and handcuffed behind his back, put in a van and taken to Queen’s Gardens Police Station. On arrival he was motionless in the van. Video showed him dragged into the custody suite and placed face down on the floor, and the handcuffs were removed.
For the next 11 minutes four officers did not touch him, though he was clearly injured and the rattle of his breath was audible on the recording. Officers were heard speculating that he was faking illness. An ambulance was called 13 minutes after he was brought in, and resuscitation failed.
The outcome
An inquest at Hull Crown Court before Coroner Mr J C Saul returned a verdict of unlawful killing on 24 August 2000 and found the death was due to positional asphyxia.
Five officers had been suspended and were awaiting trial accused of misconduct in public office. The record notes no criminal conviction of any officer. The European Court of Human Rights later found a violation of the procedural obligation under Article 2 in respect of the investigation.
What went wrong
The failure was not the handcuffing. It was the 11 minutes. A man lay unconscious and face down, the opposite of the recovery position, with four officers present and none of them turning him, checking him or starting resuscitation. The signs were there to be read, the breathing and the stillness and the injury, and they were read as pretence.
The officers declined to answer questions at the inquest because they faced criminal charges, so the jury decided without their account.
What it teaches
Recovery position and monitoring are part of the restraint, not something that follows it. The restraint ends when the person is breathing, on his side, and watched by someone who is looking. Until then, everyone in that room is still holding him, whether or not they have a hand on him.
Faking is the word to teach. When a colleague says it, the answer is a hand on the chest and a count of breaths. The cost of being wrong one way is a complaint. The other way, it is this.
Questions for the room
- The breath sounds are on the recording. If you were standing in that suite, what would have made you kneel down?
- You are the custody sergeant. A detainee is face down, still, and a colleague says he is faking. What do you do in the next minute, and who do you tell?
- The handcuffs came off on arrival. What did that change about the risk, and about who was responsible?
Evidence and limits
Confidence: confirmed. The inquest verdict, its cause and the sequence rest on INQUEST’s release and are recited in the Strasbourg judgment. The judgment itself failed to fetch for this pack, so the Article 2 finding rests on the vault record rather than on text read here.
Dates conflict. INQUEST’s release is dated 21 August 2000 and says the inquest concluded that day, while the court record and the IPCC review of 2006 give 24 August. The court record is preferred and 24 August is used.
Our restraint reduction training covers the handover between a hold and the care that has to follow it.
Sources
- INQUEST, inquest into the death of Christopher Alder concludes
- European Court of Human Rights, Alder v. the United Kingdom (app. no. 8266/04)
Reviewed 20 October 2026.