David Oluwale’s death was not immediately treated as suspicious. The news that a body had been found in the River Aire was reported by the Yorkshire Post and the Yorkshire Evening Post, but their articles were only three sentences long and there was no follow up once the body was identified.
Interest in the case only changed after concerns were voiced by an eighteen-year-old police cadet called Gary Galvin. He did not know any of those involved in the case but had heard rumours of police involvement in the death of an unknown black man (Aspden, 2008, p. 107). Galvin’s concerns led to an official investigation, overseen by Detective Chief Superintendent John Perkins of the Metropolitan Police.
The three-month long investigation gathered a range of evidence and interviewed various witnesses. The findings were uncomfortable. One Police Constable described what happened after Oluwale was arrested three months before his death:
“Ellerker bumped Oluwale’s head and face into the side of the van. I had not seen Oluwale do anything to justify this conduct on the part of Ellerker” (Bennett quoted in TNA, MEPO 26/55, p. 186)
Another Police Constable reported:
“As Oluwale came through the door and fell to the floor he was screaming. Whilst he was on the floor Inspector Ellerker kicked him very hard between his legs. He lifted him off the floor as he kicked him” (Ratcliffe quoted in TNA, MEPO 26/55, p. 208)
And another recalled seeing both policemen assaulting Oluwale in public:
“Ellerker was standing near his head. Kitching was urinating onto Oluwale. I could see the urine stream and I could see the steam rising from the urine although it was not particularly cold. Ellerker was just standing watching” (Batty quoted in TNA, MEPO 26/55, p. 215).
The investigation was able to establish that the incident outside the John Peters furniture shop took place on the night of 17-18 April and tracked down two witnesses. The first, a bus conductor working the early morning shift, described seeing two officers chase a man along the Calls. The second, a passenger on the bus, remembered seeing two police officers standing near a police vehicle at the junction between Call Lane and Warehouse Hill. The second witness claimed that the bus conductor had seen a man dive into the river after being chased by two officers, but this could not be corroborated as the conductor told the investigation that he had lost sight of them (TNA, MEPO 26/55).
Although Perkins was convinced that Oluwale had been chased into the river by Elleker and Kitching, the Director of Public Prosecutions decided that lack of clear evidence meant that the officers should be charged with manslaughter rather than murder (Aspden, 2008, p. 190). Their trial began at Leeds Town Hall assizes on 8 November 1971.
The case was widely reported by both local and national newspapers. The Yorkshire Evening Post and the Yorkshire Post even used pictorial symbols to highlight articles connected to the case during the trial. The symbols allowed readers to spot the articles when flicking through the newspaper, suggesting that there was real public interest in the case. The reports are important for historians as they would have formed the general public’s ‘social knowledge’ of the case: shaping the way that people perceived Oluwale and the Leeds police. This idea is supported by media studies academics like Tuen van Dijk (1991, p.244).
There were differences in the way that Oluwale, Ellerker and Kitching were described. Newspapers often used Oluwale’s nationality, background and history of mental illness to cast doubt on the charges against the two police officers. He was variously described as a ‘vagrant’, a ‘dosser’ and ‘a lame darkie’. The Yorkshire Post paid particular attention to Oluwale’s mental health. It depicted him as a violent man who had ‘kicked, struck, bitten, scratched and spat’ at people and suggested that he might have committed suicide on the night he died (Yorkshire Post, 17 Nov 1971). Such reporting cast Oluwale as a problem and highlighted the social differences between him and readers (White, 1996, p. 303).
This type of reporting was most obvious in newspaper headlines, which usually referred to Oluwale as a ‘Nigerian’ or a ‘coloured man’ rather than by his name. For example, the Daily Mail reported on the charges with an article that began ‘A police sergeant, and ex-inspector were accused yesterday of killing a coloured man’ (Daily Mail, 14 Apr 1971). An article in The Times reporting on the first day of the trial was more sympathetic, but the author still called Oluwale as a ‘Nigerian vagrant who slept rough in shop doorways’ and described him as a ‘loner of fairly poor intelligence’ (The Times, 9 Nov 1991). This dehumanising language suggests that newspaper editors had little respect for Oluwale despite the possibility that he had been unlawfully killed.
The police were treated far more sympathetically. Before the trail began, the Yorkshire Evening Post argued against a public inquiry because they thought it would ‘provide an opportunity for “malicious accusers” to attack the police’ (Aspden, 2008, p. 224). The same paper reported on the last day of Kitching’s trial with the headline ‘Was he a bully or old-fashioned policeman?’ (Yorkshire Evening Post, 22 Nov 1971). The use of a rhetorical question encouraged the reader to justify the accused’s actions and served to protect the police force. The date of the article is significant as it almost seems to have been designed to softens the blow of the sentence before it was revealed.
Despite the evidence against Ellerker and Kitching, the trial judge dismissed the charge of manslaughter. The two police officers were instead given short jail sentences for bodily harm (Ellerker was given 3 years and Kitching 27 months) (The Times, 25 Nov 1971). The judge seemed more concerned with the reputation of the police, warning that:
“The verdict of the jury today will add fuel to… those who spend much of their time sneering at police officers and making brash criticism against the force” (The Times, 25 November 1971)
Reporting on the sentences, the Yorkshire Evening Post praised Ellerker and Kitching’s ‘manners’ and ‘efficiency’ during the trial (Yorkshire Evening Post, 24 Nov 1971).
Remembering David 