Caryl Phillips - Foreigners

Dear Sir,

Re David Oluwale. This man was discharged from Leeds prison this morning. I understand that he has £1. 19. He had lived in lodgings in Leeds previously and said that he would have no difficulty in finding lodgings again if he has the money.

He is a somewhat difficult man to place in lodgings and I see no alternative but allowing him to find his own.

I should be obliged, therefore, if you will take an application from him for assistance so that he can find lodgings.

As I said, I was a young police officer, but I remember. He seemed to be very small. I saw him when he was sleeping and I didn't wake him up. I saw him when he was walking about, and I saw him when he was dealing with Ellerker and Kitching. I did not see someone who was weak and all sort of jellyish. I saw somebody who was doing his business. He was going about his routine, despite the harassment, and he would still choose to go into that same Bridal House. He would still be there. And so, what I saw was somebody with some sort of courage. But, I mean, weird. I did sense that he'd got mental health problems. Because the other dossers generally were drinkers, and you know, they'd be drunk, very drunk sometimes, but not David. I sensed that his issues were different from that. I guessed that he'd been in some sort of psychiatric care. Yeah I definitely guessed that, and that's one of the things that makes it so poignant. It was the isolation, the fact that he didn't seem to be a user of any sort, and that generally speaking he was just a mild, quiet person. And I just thought, why does this have to be happening to him? The injustice, you know, that it had to be him. Somebody who didn't have anybody to help him. But I saw that the man had some dignity. I think he was really pissed off. That's what I think. He was absolutely pissed off. That's what I believe, but that's only a feeling. I think he was really, really pissed off with what had gone on.

At 3 a.m. on the morning of 18 April, former Inspector Ellerker and Sergeant Kitching found David in the doorway to John Peters' furniture shop on Lands Lane in the centre of Leeds. They 'moved him on'. ('I heard the sound of blows being struck. I saw Oluwale run out of the entrance [of the shop] covering his head with his arms. . I have not seen Oluwale since that time.' PC Seager) A little over an hour later the two policemen discovered David elsewhere in the city and they chased him. ('We dragged him to his feet and I booted his backside. I did not kick him too hard, just enough to wake him up. He screamed but then he always screamed when I dealt with him.' Sergeant Kitching) David ran down Call Lane and in the direction of Warehouse Hill. David Oluwale was never again seen alive. He entered the River Aire at the foot of Warehouse Hill, just by Leeds Bridge. On 4 May, 1969, Leeds police frogman Police Constable Ian Haste recovered David Oluwale's body from the River Aire some three miles east of the city centre at a point near Knostrop Sewage Works.

I received a telephone call from the Information Room, to the effect that there was a body in the River Aire at Knostrop and that I was required to go there and recover the body. . the body appeared to be lodged on some obstruction. I put my frogman equipment on and swam to the body. I saw that it was the body of a man, who appeared to be coloured. . I pulled the body from the obstruction by its feet and pushed it downstream. . I returned along the bank. . PC Sedman turned the body over and I recognised it as a coloured man called David Oluwale who I knew from my police service in the city centre. . a vagrant who used to doss down in John Peters' doorway in the city centre. I used to move him on when I worked from Millgarth Street but I have never arrested him for anything. He was just another of the city characters. I can never remember him causing me any sort of trouble.

PC Ian Haste

Police Constable Francis Sedman helped to recover the body from the river. He noticed a large lump on David's forehead, bleeding from an eye, a bruise on the right upper arm, and the fact that David's lips were cut. Inspector Leonard Bradley was also at the scene, where he searched Oluwale's pockets, providing the following list of items:

National Health Medical Card

2 Photos

Income Tax Form (P 45)

2 After Care forms

2 Leeds City Magistrate Receipts

6 Forms 103

Irish Information Centres in England card

A Blue bead necklace with a crucifix on

A felt pen

2 ballpoint pens

A toothbrush

Comb

Post Office savings book

I accepted the body into the mortuary and cut the clothing from it because it was rotten. . I put the number '451' on the legs and the name 'Oluwale' on the body, and put it in the refrigeration unit. . Later, some uniformed officers came to the mortuary and identified the body to me as Oluwale. There was no conversation other than someone saying, 'It's Oluwale.'

Reginald Fricker, mortuary attendant at St James' Hospital

Dr David John Gee, Senior Lecturer in Forensic Medicine at Leeds University, examined David Oluwale's body on 5 May, 1969. He concluded death by drowning, and observed that David Oluwale had received a blow to the forehead before entering the water.

In the case of the deceased, Oluwale, diatoms were found in the lungs but not beyond them and therefore the tests do not provide conclusive proof that he met his death by drowning, but in the absence of any gross injuries or natural disease I formed the opinion the death was due to drowning. . The bruise on the forehead of Oluwale was purple and swollen. The purple colour indicates that the bruise was sustained within about one or two days before death or a similar period after death. The fact that the bruise was swollen indicates in my view that it is most likely that it occurred during life though it is possible but less likely for such a bruise to be caused after death in a body immersed in water. . I did not see a large bruise on Oluwale's upper right arm. . Oluwale's lips were swollen and the skin in parts of the face were separating due to putrefactive change. These putrefactive changes could give the inexperienced eye the appearance of injuries such as cuts and bruises especially when in the body of a coloured person such as Oluwale. .

Dr David John Gee

David Oluwale was buried in a pauper's grave at Killingbeck Cemetery — plot B5850A — courtesy of Leeds Corporation's Welfare Department. He was buried with nine strangers.

*

Before the last day of the trial, Justice Hinchcliffe ordered the manslaughter charge to be dismissed. He concluded that there were no witnesses to the charge and therefore no evidence. On 24 November, 1971 the jury returned a verdict of guilty of three charges of assault against Sergeant Kitching, who received a twenty-seven-month sentence, and a verdict of guilty of assault relating to four charges against former Inspector Ellerker, who received a three-year sentence. Justice Hinchcliffe's summing-up contained the following plea: 'Policemen are members of a fine and splendid profession, and without them there could be anarchy and chaos. But you must not allow the fact that the two accused were police officers to influence you one iota. You do get black sheep in every flock.'

The way I see it, the legacy of Oluwale in this city is that a man had to lose his life to get people to sit up and notice what was happening. It's a high price to pay, especially when things are worse now than they were then for my West Indian community. Today there is still a high percentage of black people in prisons and mental homes. The one with the briefcase is a smokescreen. And people still care if they have to sit next to you on the bus, and we can't walk some streets without feeling like a novelty, and the concept of us is still low. Mr Oluwale paid a high price, but sometimes when I drive down Chapeltown Road and see the lack of discipline, and children having children, and what we've allowed ourselves to become, then I feel bitter. Parents have lost control of their kids and England has taken them. David Oluwale paid a high price to get people's attention, but for what?