Humberside police also followed Christopher Alder’s sister during inquest into his death in custody

Police launched an unauthorised surveillance operation at short notice after they became concerned about the presence of “four large black men” at an inquest into a death in custody, a misconduct panel has heard.

A retired police inspector revealed the instruction at the disciplinary panel in which two officers are facing gross misconduct charges over the operation.

The surveillance was carried out at an inquest in 2000 which concluded that Christopher Alder, a Falklands veteran, had been unlawfully killed in a Hull police station.

On 28 July 2000, up to 14 Humberside police officers followed his sister Janet and her barrister, Leslie Thomas, in an attempt to listen to their private and legally protected conversations.

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Giving evidence on Tuesday on the second day of the hearing, Michael Dixon, the retired inspector, described receiving a call from a colleague about a group of men who had not previously been seen at the inquest.

He said his colleague had told him they looked intimidating. Surveillance was set up on them in an effort to establish their intentions because their presence had aroused concern among officers, he said.

After a series of questions at the hearing, Dixon said the instruction was “basically to follow them”.

He said the failure to record the instruction to “follow four large black men” was a significant omission from the paperwork recording the surveillance operation. “Yes, it should have been there,” he told the three-person panel sitting in Goole, Yorkshire.

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Police had been authorised to monitor protesters who were supporting Alder on the concourse outside Hull crown court, where the inquest was being held, but the commander of the operation and his deputy, who have been granted anonymity, have been accused of going “far beyond the strictly limited” authorisation and running intrusive surveillance to follow Alder and her barrister to a hotel and car park in Hull.

The pair, who held the rank of detective sergeant and acting detective sergeant in 2000 and deny wrongdoing, say they were following what they believed to be a lawful order. They argue that the blame for the surveillance operation lies with their superiors.

Sam Green, QC for the men, has told the hearing that the identity of the officer who authorised the surveillance had yet to be revealed.

Janet Alder has been pressing for many years to discover how her brother, a father of two, choked to death on the floor of the police station in 1998. Officers gave Alder no help as he struggled for breath for 11 minutes, with his trousers and boxer shorts pulled down around his knees. They thought he was play-acting. An audio tape recorded monkey noises as the handcuffed former soldier lay dead.

The hearing continues