Thirty nine years ago the body of David Oluwale was fished out of the
River Aire in Leeds. Oluwale was a rough sleeper with a history of
mental illness and  his death was quickly dismssed as an accident or
suicide. Two years later it was to make front page news when two
police officers stood trial for his manslaughter.
Nationality: Wog - The hounding of David Oluwale is the story of
Oluwale's descent from a bright faced teenage migrant from Nigeria to
a shambolic vagrant subjected to a systematic campaign of abuse by
members of the Leeds City Police.

Beyond the unfortunte title, which is based on what was written on a
police charge sheet relating to one of Oluwale's arrests, this is a
gripping and distrubing read.

Kester, using archive material released under the 30-year confidelity
rule, and interviews with trial witnesses and those who knew and liked
him, reconstructs Oluwale's miserable life and death and  lays bears
the implacable racism of British postwar society.
David Oluwale, the son of a poor fisherfolk from Lagos, arrived in
Britain in 1949 at the age of 19 as a stowaway. As a British subject,
he was allowed to remain in the country after serving a 28 day prison
sentance in Arnley Prison in Leeds. Once released, he joined the few
Africans who lived in the city at the time, as much as for protection
as for friendship given the hostile reception black people experienced
from locals.

Nicknamed Yankee beause of his swagger, Oluwale was well liked by his
associates. He was in regular work and was said to have fathered two
children with a woman from Sheffield.
But four years after his arrival, Oluwale found himself in Arnley
again after being involved in a minor scuffle with police in Leeds
city centre. While serving a two-month sentance, he was judged to be
acting strangely and taken to a local mental asylum.
Oluwale was to emerge eight years later, effectively driven mad by the
various treatments he was subjected to. Regarded as violent and
unintelligent, he is abandoned by those meant to support his release
back into society and left to fend for himself.
A pitiful figure, Oluwale would have probably lived out the rest of
his days sleeping in shopdoorways of Leeds city centre and relying on
the kindness of strangers were it not for the unwelcome attention of
two police officers,   Sergeant Ken Kitching and Inspector Geoff
Ellerker.

In 1968, the two took it upon themselves to drive Oluwale off the
streets, giving him frequent beatings, dumping him in woods outside
the city and arresting him for disorderly conduct whenever he fights
back. On one occasion they urinate on him. After a year of such
treatment and frequent stays in prison, Oluwale is in an even more
pathetic state but continues to defend himself, with the inevitable
consequences of arrest and jail. Then one night, two policemen are
seen chasing a man towards the river.
Kitching and Ellerker's colleagues, who have witnessed the harassment
but kept quiet about it, have their suspicions. Rumours about how
Oluwale met his death begin to surface before a rookie constable
decides to tell all to his superiors.
Oluwale's body is exhumed from his pauper's grave and Kitching and
Ellerker stand trial for manslaughter.

Despite the prosecution's decision to play down the racism element of
the crime and their failure to call witnesses who would dispute the
authourities' assessment of Oluwale as deranged and violen; despite
the obvious bias of the trial judge who directed the jury to deliver a
not guilty verdict, the two officers are sent down for the lesser
charges of assault. It would be first and the last time that police
officers were to be diciplined in connection with a death in custody.

Kester's book often makes stomach churning reading. In the face of
such systematic racism and having no one to speak up for him, Oluwale
never really stood a chance. To the police, the mental health system,
the welfare services and the courts, he barely registers as a sentient
human being. Kester has ensured that in death at least Oluwale is
given the dignity so denied him during his brief life. AC

Nationality: Wog - The hounding of David Oluwale  is publsihed by
Jonathan Cape, London