Christopher Priest - The Islanders

As senior presiding judge I have been commissioned to review all the papers and evidence that remain on file, and wherever possible to track down surviving witnesses.

As these events took place more than forty years ago I was not able to trace any witnesses who are still alive or capable of giving reliable testimony, so I have depended on the trial papers and other bundles of prosecution evidence. All the defence papers are intact. Because of the notoriety of the case the papers have been preserved in good order and I am not aware of any omissions or replacements since the trial was concluded.

The murdered man, Mr Commissah, appears to have been an innocent victim, who was in no way connected with the convicted man. It is not likely he did anything that would provoke an attack. He was respected and admired and to the present day the few performances of his that are available as visual recordings are appreciated and enjoyed by people of all ages.

I turn now to the background and character of Sington, which is where much of the anxiety about this case has arisen.

Kerith Sington was born in a poor part of Cheoner Town. His father, Ladd Sington, was a petty criminal, an alcoholic and a drug addict, and was said by many people, including neighbours, to conduct a violently abusive relationship with his wife. The wife, Mai Sington, mother of Kerith, was also an alcoholic and worked as a part-time prostitute.

The house in which Kerith grew up was always in bad repair, filthy inside and soiled with food waste and animal faeces. Throughout his childhood Kerith was the subject of neglect, abuse and violence, although none of this appears to have come to the attention of local agencies at that time.

Sington grew up to be a young man of exceptional size, with long arms and a large head. He was always tall for his age. Because of his unusual appearance and subdued manner he was bullied at school. Medical examination of Sington while he was in custody established that he was profoundly deaf in one ear, had a mild speech defect and because of a boyhood accident always walked with a slight limp. His eyesight was poor but he did not wear spectacles. His manner was reported by several professional psychologists to be meek and submissive, easily influenced and coerced. When drunk, Kerith was known to become loud, boastful and aggressive, and given to sudden outbursts of rage. He had a record of self-harm and both of his forearms were scarred.

He was a petty criminal, and made frequent court appearances. After the courts had tried a variety of non-custodial sentences, Kerith Sington did serve two short sentences in prison, both for acts of violence against the person, and while in the company of others.

His behaviour improved noticeably after he obtained a full-time job as a seaman with Muriseay Marine, for whom he worked as a deckhand on certain of their inter-island ferries. He remained impressionable and of a dependent character, and staff officers of at least two of the ships Sington sailed with filed statements about their concerns. When he was given shore leave of longer than twenty-four hours, Sington tended to drift into the company of others. On several occasions he returned shipboard in a drunken or drug-induced state, and was not able to perform normal duties for several hours. However, at least two of the officers stated that this was a recurrent problem with members of the ferry crews and that they had ways of rostering deck teams after shore leave. Sington was not considered to be a special risk to the ship or the passengers. He was in fact commended several times for his dedication to deck duties. In view of what soon happened, this trust turned out to be misplaced.

A serious but unrelated incident involving Sington occurred not long before the death of Mr Commissah. The trial judge disagreed with the defence that this event was admissible, so the jury did not hear it. I believe it had a significant impact on Sington.

Two weeks before the murder of Mr Commissah, the steamship Galaton , the inter-island ferry on which Sington worked as a deckhand, was involved in a collision with another ship outside the harbour wall of Muriseay Town. Both vessels were holed below the waterline and they foundered as a result. There was loss of life on both ships: fifteen people died on the Galaton , and two crewmen were killed on the other ship, the Roopah , a dredger stationed outside Muriseay harbour. Prompt action by the master of the Galaton prevented any worse death toll, but it was a serious disaster which raised many questions about the volume of traffic using Muriseay harbour at certain times of day.

Sington was on duty as a deck look-out at the time of the collision, and afterwards he was taken in for questioning about his failure to raise the alarm.

According to the inquest report, after the accident Sington was inconsolable, intermittently blaming himself or one of the other crewmen (who was drowned in the incident), but in general admitting that the accident had largely been caused by his inattention. At the time of his arrest as a suspect in the Commissah case, Sington was still being investigated for criminal neglect causing death, but no prosecution papers had been drawn up or served.

Several independent journalists and criminologists have attempted to unravel the Commis mystery over the years, declaring it to have been a miscarriage of justice. Perhaps the most notable was the book called Sington: Death in Error? , which was the first to raise such doubts. The author of this was the remarkable social visionary, Caurer. It was a matter of fundamental concern to Caurer and the other journalists who followed her, as it is to the present enquiry, that none of the circumstances surrounding this marine accident was placed before the jury at Sington’s trial for the Commis murder.

It was Caurer who revealed that the investigating officer in the Galaton incident, who detained and questioned Sington about his role in the collision, was none other than the policier officer known only as ‘Serjeant A’. This officer appears to have been convinced that Sington was involved in some other illegal matter at the time of the collision, but Sington would not admit it. When Sington became a suspect in the Commis case, the officer made assumptions he should not, and obtained the confession from Sington about his alleged role in that.

Why Sington should deny complicity in a marine accident (albeit a most serious one) and yet be willing to admit responsibility to another offence (just as serious, but with drastic consequences for himself) has made the suspicion of policier intimidation too unreliable as evidence. This was almost certainly why the trial judge ruled the matter as inadmissible.

It was Caurer who argued, and I concur entirely with her, that when Sington’s impressionable and sometimes boastful psychology is taken into account, it becomes increasingly likely that this unhappy young man might have seen one case as providing mitigation for the other.

In addition, it concerns me that I have been unable to locate any policier or court records dealing with the fatal collision between the Galaton and the Roopah . The only official record is the inquest report, but that of course mainly concerns itself with the manner in which the victims died. Why have these important records been lost, removed or in some other way made inaccessible?

I turn now to the concerns over Sington’s confession.

In common with most indigenous island people, Sington in effect spoke two languages. Officially, his language of everyday function was demotic Archipelagian, the common linguistic currency. From the trial transcripts we can divine that Sington was not at all articulate, that he clearly struggled not only to understand what was said to him in demotic, but that he had difficulty in expressing himself. We also know, from the same school records, that Sington was illiterate in demotic when he left school. There is absolutely no evidence or commonsense chance that Sington learned to read and write after leaving school.