Death of David Oluwale

In March 2022 a new bridge over the River Aire, crossing from Sovereign Street to Water Lane, and known as the David Oluwale Bridge, was installed.

On 25 April 2022 a blue plaque commemorating Oluwale was unveiled on Leeds Bridge by Leeds Civic Trust and the David Oluwale Memorial Association. The same evening the plaque was stolen from the bridge; West Yorkshire Police began an investigation, which treated the theft as a hate crime. The plaque was then replaced but was then vandalised the same night of replacement, another temporary plaque was then installed.

In 2019, the David Oluwale Memorial Association led a series of events to mark the 50th anniversary of his death. Events included an exhibition at The Tetley, readings by Linton Kwesi Johnson and Jackie Kay and a vigil at his graveside in Killingbeck Cemetery.

In 2018, a production named Freeman by the Strictly Arts Theatre was put on at the Pleasance Theatre in London. It was a play about systematic racism within legal institutions, and how many people have suffered from police brutality. David Oluwale was one of the characters.

The Remembering Oluwale anthology was published in 2016 and its many varied entries cover "the issues that David endured: mental health distress, incarceration, police brutality, destitution and homelessness—all linked to his status as a migrant from Nigeria, a British citizen who happened to be black. The 26 long-listed entries are in the book, along with already published work by Caryl Phillips, Kester Aspden, Ian Duhig, Linton Kwesi Johnson, Zodwa Nyoni, Sai Murray and The Baggage Handlers".

Aspden's book has been adapted by Oladipo Agboluaje into a stage play, first performed at the West Yorkshire Playhouse in February 2009, which critics described as "a richly emotional play which proves its point without coming across like it has a point to prove".

Oluwale's story is also the subject of a film installation by Corinne Silva, entitled Wandering Abroad, which premiered at Leeds Art Gallery in 2009.

Although Oluwale's story caused a national scandal at the time (thanks in part to the radio play Smiling David written by Jeremy Sandford), it had been all but forgotten until police paperwork detailing the case was declassified under the thirty-year rule. This was used by Kester Aspden to write the book Nationality: Wog, The Hounding of David Oluwale, published in 2007, which returned the story to the public eye.

In November 1971, former-Inspector Geoffrey Ellerker—by this time already serving a prison sentence for his involvement in covering up the circumstances of the death of a 69-year-old woman—and Sergeant Kenneth Kitching went on trial for the manslaughter of Oluwale. The trial received national media coverage, but justice and civil rights campaigners considered it to be a whitewash, presenting a deliberately negative portrait of Oluwale as "a wild animal" and "a menace to society", while failing to call any of the witnesses whose testimonies challenged this narrative. During the trial, the judge, Mr. Justice Hinchcliffe—who at one point described Oluwale as "a dirty, filthy, violent vagrant"—directed the jury to find the defendants not guilty of manslaughter, perjury and assaults occasioning grievous bodily harm. The jury returned unanimous verdicts of guilty relating to four assaults which took place between August 1968 and February 1969. Ellerker was sentenced to three years' imprisonment, and Kitching to 27 months.

In 1970, a young police recruit reported to a senior officer that he had heard gossip from colleagues about the severe way Kitching and Ellerker had treated Oluwale. This report might have been prompted by fraud charges that were on-going against Ellerker. An enquiry was launched, carried out by Scotland Yard, and sufficient evidence was gathered to prompt manslaughter, perjury and grievous bodily harm (GBH) charges being brought against Kitching and Ellerker in 1971.

Oluwale's body was recovered from the section of the river between Knostrop Weir and Skelton Grange Power Station on 4 May 1969. The death was not treated as suspicious by the police or the coroner. In October 1970, a whistleblower within Leeds City Police revealed that Oluwale had been the victim of serious and sustained mistreatment by senior officers at Milgarth Police Station, Leeds, and an investigation, led by London's Scotland Yard, was opened. It was discovered that Oluwale had been subjected to "systemic, varied and brutal" violence by at least two officers, which "would often occur in the presence of other [officers], who made no effort to intervene."

In the early hours of 17 April 1969, Kitching found Oluwale sleeping in a shop doorway, and summoned Ellerker. They both beat Oluwale with their truncheons and the last reported sighting of Oluwale was of him running away from the officers towards the River Aire. It was there that his body was found two weeks later. He was buried in a pauper's grave and no suspicious circumstances were attached to his death at the time.

Contemporary police records show that 1968 saw his first recorded contact with Sergeant Kenneth Kitching and Inspector Geoffrey Ellerker in Leeds. The actions of the two officers would allegedly lead to Oluwale's death, although several other police officers were also involved with harassing Oluwale during this time.

During this time he regularly moved between London, Sheffield and Leeds. He found himself in trouble with the Leeds police again several times and accused the police of harassing him. In late 1965, he was returned to High Royds Hospital, where he spent another two years. Following release he was once again homeless and lived on the street.

Upon release Oluwale was unable to hold down a job and a permanent residence, and quickly became homeless. Friends reported that he was a shadow of his former self, and had lost all confidence. As a black immigrant in 1960s Britain, his choices of lodging and employment were also limited in his lifetime (the Race Relations Act outlawing discrimination in both only received Royal Assent in October 1968).

In 1953, Oluwale was charged with disorderly conduct and assault following a police raid on a nightclub. He subsequently served a 28-day sentence. In prison it was reported he suffered from hallucinations, possibly because of damage sustained from a truncheon blow during the arrest. He was transferred to Menston Asylum in Leeds (later called High Royds Hospital, now closed) where he spent the next eight years. He was treated with a variety of techniques, allegedly including electroconvulsive therapy and various drugs (hospital records have since been lost).

Oluwale was born in Lagos, Nigeria, in 1930. In August 1949, he hid on board SS Temple Bar, a cargo ship destined for Hull, England. When the ship docked in Hull on 3 September 1949, he was handed over to the authorities. Under the British Nationality Act 1948 Oluwale was considered a British subject and not an illegal immigrant, but he was charged as a stowaway under the Merchant Shipping Act 1894. He was sentenced to 28 days' imprisonment, served in Armley Gaol, Leeds, and Northallerton Prison, Northallerton.

Following his release from prison on 3 October 1949, Oluwale—who had served an apprenticeship as a tailor in Nigeria—headed to Leeds where there was a large textile and clothing industry.

David Oluwale (1930–1969) was a British Nigerian who drowned in the River Aire in Leeds, West Riding of Yorkshire, in 1969. The events leading to his drowning have been described as "the physical and psychological destruction of a homeless, black man whose brutal, systematic harassment was orchestrated by the Leeds city police force." Oluwale's death resulted in the first successful prosecution of British police officers for involvement in the death of a black person. The precise sequence of events that led to Oluwale entering the river—whether he was deliberately thrown, chased or fell accidentally—have never been officially established, although two independent witnesses testified that they saw uniformed police officers chasing him alongside the river on the night he is believed to have drowned.