Prosecutors disclosed last week that up to 14 police officers had been deployed to spy on the sister of a former paratrooper who was unlawfully killed in a police station.
But the unanswered question remains - what is the full extent of the police’s covert monitoring of her?
For more than 15 years, Janet Alder has been campaigning to find out what happened when her brother, Christopher, died in a Hull police station.
His death has been one of the most contentious in police custody. It makes for disturbing reading. It is worth recapping what has happened.
In April 1998, Christopher, a father-of-two Falklands veteran, choked to death on the floor of the police station.
Police officers stood by chatting and joking as he struggled for breath, with his trousers and boxer shorts pulled down around his knees.
CCTV film shows that as he lost his fight for life, he received no help from the officers, who thought he was play-acting. It took 11 minutes for the handcuffed ex-soldier to stop breathing. Afterwards, as he lay dead, an audio tape recorded monkey-noises. The jury in an inquest in 2000 concluded that he had been unlawfully killed. A prosecution brought against police officers resulted in acquittals.
The Alder family has not been treated well by the authorities. Four years ago, the government formally apologised to the family for the failures in the investigation into his death.
In 2011, Hull City Council also admitted that Christopher’s relatives had mistakenly buried the body of a 77-year-old woman when they thought that they were burying him.
Two years ago, it emerged that the official watchdog, the Independent Police Complaints Commission, had started an investigation into allegations that police had placed Janet and another person under improper surveillance.
Last Thursday, the Crown Prosecution Service decided that four senior officers in charge of the surveillance were not going to be charged.
However the CPS did give an account of how she had been put under surveillance, adding that the evidence indicated that the operation against her had not been properly authorised.
There was evidence that up to 14 police officers had been involved in following her, her barrister and her supporters after the inquest into Christopher’s death had been adjourned one day. The CPS described an allegation that police had attempted to eavesdrop on her and her barrister.
Alder said she felt “terrorised by the state”, adding that she feared that police had been monitoring her since she had started campaigning.
That question of how far the police have been spying on her has yet to be answered. The account given by the CPS last Thursday describes a surveillance operation against Alder on only one day of the inquest - July 28 2000. We only know about this because a detective constable involved in the surveillance on that day came forward two years ago and told her superiors.
But is it really the case that police carried out surveillance on her for only one day of the six-week inquest? This was at a time when senior officers had twice authorised the monitoring of her supporters outside the hearing for the whole duration of the inquest in July and August 2000. The police had justified this monitoring on the grounds that there could be public disorder outside the hearing.
In its account, the CPS disclosed that many of the officers involved in the surveillance had declined to be questioned by the IPCC during its investigation, opting instead to provide prepared statements. The CPS also said that it could not clarify many details of the surveillance operation on July 28 2000 because police officers had a “limited recollection of events”.
Getting to the truth of the surveillance on that one day, let alone any other day of the inquest, has therefore been difficult.
And here’s another unanswered question - Janet has for many years tirelessly attended public meetings to raise awareness of her brother’s death. Have the police, including undercover officers planted in political groups, been keeping records of her activities?
Last year police admitted that undercover officers had gathered intelligence over two decades on 18 grieving families who had been unhappy with the conduct of the police.
That will be among the issues that will be examined by the public inquiry into undercover policing that is being led by a senior judge, Lord Justice Pitchford.
Pitchford has said that Alder’s case raises an “important issue for investigation”, but at the moment, has declined to give her a key role in his inquiry. A proper investigation by the inquiry seems to be the best chance of getting to truth of this matter.
