THE Burnley sister of a man who died in police custody will come face to face with Home Secretary Jack Straw to demand manslaughter charges be put to five officers.

Janet Alder's brother Christopher, a former paratrooper, died in the custody suite of Queens Gardens Police Station in Hull in April 1998.

Since then Janet, 38, from the Manchester Road area, and friends from the Red Triangle Cafe, St James Street, have been campaigning for justice.

Last year an inquest jury of nine men and women returned a verdict that the 37-year-old father of two had been unlawfully killed after hearing nearly seven weeks of evidence.

But the officers involved in the case, who were said to have laughed and chatted while Mr Alder choked on his own blood have already been suspended and charged with misconduct in a public office and are seeking leave to have a judicial review into the conduct of the inquest and the verdicts available to the jury.

Mr Alder, of Dagger Lane, Old Town, Hull, had been involved in a disturbance outside a Hull nightclub when he struck his head on the ground. He was later arrested for breach of the peace when he refused to leave hospital grounds.

A video showing his dying minutes in the station was shown to the jury and will be watched by Burnley MP Peter Pike before the meeting with Mr Straw on Thursday.

Miss Alder said: "I will be calling for manslaughter charges and for a public inquiry. It will be the first time I have made a proper approach to him although I did lobby him at his surgery at Audley Community Centre, Blackburn, in 1998 calling for a full inquiry." Since the inquest verdict in August Miss Alder has been waiting for the crown prosecution service to review the charges currently facing Sergeant John Dunn, and Constables Mark Ellerington, Nigel Dawson, Matthew Barr and Neil Blakey. A spokesman for the CPS said: "In July 1999 the officers involved were charged with misconduct in a public place and those prosecutions are going through the court process. We are looking at what came out from the inquest but the application for a judicial review was lodged by the officers in October 6 and until the outcome of those legal proceedings is known we can not pursue matters further."

Miss Alder said: "This is the British Judicial System and we have had an inquest and the jury made its decision, and I feel it was the right decision. I don't think I will get an answer from Mr Straw, I expect him to say I will have to wait for the outcome of the legal proceedings before they can do anything, but at least I will have shown him that we are not going to let this go.

"If I have to pursue this for the rest of my life then I will. At the end of the day my brother died in police custody. I am like a little rottweiler and I am not going to let go." Inspector Stuart Downes, vice chairman of Humberside Police Federation, refused to comment