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April 22, 2004updated 17 May 2007 11:30am

Blunkett orders review after BBC’s custody death film

By Press Gazette

The BBC’s broadcast of a controversial documentary about a man whose death in police custody was captured on CCTV has led Home Secretary David Blunkett to call for a review of the case.

The programme, Death On Camera, part of BBC One’s Rough Justice series shown last week, was made by the documentary team that produced the award-winning The Secret Policeman.

Following the broadcast of the film, which showed CCTV footage of ex-paratrooper Christopher Alder choking as he lay handcuffed and face down on the floor of a Hull police station, Blunkett said he would refer the case to the newly established Independent Police Complaints Commission.

He said: “We deeply regret the terrible distress that has clearly been caused to the family and understand perfectly well the reaction of viewers seeing these distressing scenes.

“It is, however, six years, a trial and two inquiries later that we are having to assess whether there is any beneficial purpose in reopening the case.”

Blunkett fell short of calling for a public inquiry, for which Alder’s family has been campaigning since his death in April 1998.

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“Public inquiries in such circumstances cannot be triggered by TV footage of material which was already known during the judicial and inquiry investigations,” he said.

“However, I am asking the new Independent Police Complaints Commission to have another look at this and to report back.”

By Wale Azeez

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