SOUTH Yorkshire Police this week issued a statement on the body swap of Christopher Alder and Grace Kamara which completely contradicts what they told Christopher’s family at the time.

They have also claimed that, despite a £500,000 investigation, they had been unable to obtain Alder’s burial form from the funeral directors, a document that was easily obtained by his sister by means of a single phone call. 

It is 25 years ago today that Alder was dragged unconscious into Queen’s Gardens police station in Hull, bleeding from the head and the mouth, with his trousers round his ankles.

Five minutes earlier he had been seen chatting calmly before stepping unaided into a police van following an arrest that the Independent Police Complaints Commission later concluded was probably unlawful.

Twelve minutes later he was dead; CCTV footage revealed police officers standing around working out what they could possibly charge him with while he gasped for air in a growing pool of blood.

Despite an unlawful killing verdict at inquest, a bungled prosecution that the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) never wanted to bring collapsed due to their own dismal efforts. 

Thirteen years later, in November 2011, it was revealed that Hull City mortuary had given Alder’s family the wrong body to bury at his funeral in 2000, and that his body had in fact been in their possession ever since.

Several police officers then came forward to say that they had been shown Alder’s body as part of their training exercises during that period.

But a whitewash of an investigation by the South Yorkshire Police unfeasibly concluded that there was no evidence anyone was aware of Alder’s true identity before 2011. 

Following their investigation — which took almost 18 months and cost £500,000 — officers from South Yorkshire Police told Alder’s family that, despite all their efforts, they had not been able to find who had been responsible for releasing the wrong body from the mortuary in 2000.

This was, they claimed, because, although they knew exactly who was working when, they had been unable to find out which day the body was collected from the mortuary.

Alder’s funeral had been held on Saturday November 25 2000, but the mortuary is closed on the weekend.

When officers from South Yorkshire Police met Christopher’s sister Janet Alder to explain their findings in 2013, they claimed to have left no stone unturned in their quest to find out exactly when the body was released, even going all the way to Australia to interview former mortuary workers, all to no avail.

Yet Janet easily obtained a document from the funeral directors listing the date of the collection from the mortuary as Tuesday November 21. By cross-referencing with the mortuary staff rota they claimed to possess, the police could have had their culprit within a single afternoon. 

When confronted with this document this week, however, the South Yorkshire Police claimed that they had never seen it before.

This is despite the fact that the police referred to the “funeral director‘s form” in their possession when they met Janet in 2013, and the CPS told her that “the police have looked at the funeral directors’ records.”

The SYP also claimed for the first time this week that “the body was released on 25th November not 21st,” completely contradicting their earlier claim that they had been unable to find out the date of release.

What suddenly led them to this conclusion years later, even in the face of direct evidence from the funeral director’s burial form, was not explained. 

Even more astounding, the SYP now appear to be admitting that, despite all their claims to the contrary at the time, they in fact knew who was responsible for the body swap all along.

Their statement said that their “investigation related to the person who permitted the collection of the body from the mortuary” and that “the individual was interviewed under caution and a file was passed to the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS).”

Again, this is in complete contrast to what they told the family at the time: investigating officer Andy Stepanek told Janet in 2013 that “it’s not possible to identify the dates for the mortuary and who released the body. Without that we can’t narrow down who did it … We can’t tell you who released the body or the date.” 

It is well known that SYP are a force completely without shame. Their track record includes the unlawful killing of almost 100 football fans in Hillsborough in 1989 and then slandering their victims; brutally attacking striking miners at Orgreave in 1984 and then framing them for crimes they did not commit; and turning a blind eye for years to the Rotherham grooming scandal, allowing hundreds of children to be repeatedly raped and abused.

So it should come as little surprise that they are at it again, this time covering up for their mates in neighbouring Humberside police, the force that unlawfully killed Christopher Alder, illegally spied on his family, and then used his corpse for training exercises. 

Janet Alder commented: “They were lying when they said they didn’t know when his body was released, and they are lying now when they say he was released on the 25th.

“I have documents that prove they had that burial form in their possession, that they knew all along that he was released on the 21st and who was responsible.

“But they slapped a court order on me threatening me with two years imprisonment if I revealed those documents to anyone.

“That’s how the justice system works in this country. I have carried their burden for too long and I can’t carry it any longer. It’s been psychological torture having to read what they’ve been doing to my brother’s body all that time, and not tell anyone about it, watching them lie about it and not being allowed to say anything about it.

“I knew from the minute they called their investigation Operation Almond, named after the man who had abused me for years and smashed up my house, that they were not serious in getting to the truth, that they were more interested in targeting me because I had exposed them. But I won’t stop exposing them. What they’ve done is disgusting.”