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David Oluwale left his native Nigeria in search of a better life in the UK, dreaming of training as an Engineer and earning enough to send money home for his mother. Arriving in England in the early 1950's, David finds himself in Leeds where he gets a job and sets up home with a local woman. But a run-in with the police leads to a term in the mental institution at Menston and starts David on a long downward spiral. Released from Menston, David finds everything he knew gone, and is forced into a life of sleeping on the streets. But instead of finding help, David then becomes the victim of systematic brutality from members of the Leeds Constabulary, leading to his tragic death in 1969 in the river Aire. When David's body is fished from the water, one officer reveals the truth of what has been going on and an Inspector is summoned from London to uncover the full story and bring the guilty to justice.
A gritty drama of police brutality and society's failure to help a man in need, made all the more harrowing by the fact that it is based upon a true story. David's mental problems, the story suggests, arose from a blow on the head from a truncheon in his initial run-in with the police. Thus, the behaviour for which they so severely punished him was essentially of their own making. Although the abuse he suffered was mainly at the hands of just two officers who made him their favourite 'playmate', many others knew what was going on and facilitated the abuse through their inaction.
The story begins dramatically as David's body is fished from the canal by a police diver. An inspector from London arrives to investigate his death and from then on the story is told through a mixture of flashbacks and imagined interviews between the inspector and the dead man. As such the drama is not strictly chronological, with repeated leaps from past to 'present', jumping between locations ranging from African markets to Leeds dance halls, and action ranging from jitterbugging on the dance floor to brutal beatings. But still the story is told clearly enough - although it is perhaps a little short on impact not nearly as deeply disturbing as it ought to be.
As David Daniel Francis gives a forceful and captivating performance, from the naive, boyish, young Nigerian to the weary, down-trodden and ultimately broken emigre. In the beginning David is feisty, refusing to be bowed and repeatedly coming back to sleep in the same places. But this only serves to help his abusers know where to find him and the continued cycle of abuse eventually wears him down into a broken man. As one of these abusers, Sergeant Kitching, Steve Jackson is thoroughly chilling, he has no compassion, no regard for David's humanity and sees in him nothing more than a problem to be dealt with. When David refuses to submit, it becomes a game - a game in which Kitching holds all the ards and is determined to win at any cost. Inspector Ellerker, played by Luke Jardine, although the senior in rank, is portrayed as the the junior partner in the abuse as Kitching very much leads the way. The remainder of the small but highly capable cast, most of whom play more than one part at various times, all make the most of their oppotunities and keep the story flowing at a swift pace.
Disturbing, violent and frightening. A timely lesson that all it takes for the evil to prevail is for the good to do nothing.