THE sister of a former paratrooper who died in police custody has welcomed a report which accuses officers of 'serious neglect of duty.'

But Janet Alder, of Manchester Road, Burnley, also pledged to continue her long-running battle for a public inquiry into the death of her brother Christopher.

The Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) yesterday released a report about Mr Alder's death in Queen's Gardens police station in Hull on April 1, 1998.

It said that the four officers who dealt with Mr Alder, while he was in custody, were guilty of the "most serious neglect of duty".

Miss Alder said: "The findings of the review are welcome and they are damning, but they are not damning enough.

"This is more ammunition for our campaign and it is a step forward, but we still need a public inquiry to establish exactly what happened to Christopher on the night he died and what role each individual involved played, and that is what we will continue to fight for."

Burnley MP Kitty Ussher said: "I am writing to the Home Secretary to ask that he call a public inquiry into the circumstances surrounding Christopher Alder's death, "I will also be looking for an early opportunity to raise the matter in Parliament."

Nick Hardwick, chair of the IPCC, said: "I do not believe, as has been alleged by some, that any of these officers assaulted Mr Alder.

"Nor can it be said with certainty, such are the contradictions in the medical evidence, that their neglect of Mr Alder, as he lay dying on the custody suite floor, caused his death.

"However, all the experts agreed that, at the very least, the officers' neglect undoubtedly did deny him the chance of life.

"I believe the failure of the police officers concerned to assist Mr Alder effectively on the night he died were largely due to assumptions they made about him based on negative racial stereotypes."

Mr Hardwick criticised the refusal of the five Humberside Police officers directly involved in Mr Alder's death to cooperate with the review.

He said: "I think they owed it to Mr Alder's family, their colleagues in the police service, and the wider public on whose behalf they served, to account fully for their actions on the night of Mr Alder's death."

A copy of the completed report has been handed to Home Secretary Charles Clarke.

The Chief Constable of Humberside Tim Hollis has offered to publicly apologise to the Alder family.