, on the island of Goorn, part of the Hetta Group. Kerith Sington committed the murder with three others, but the identity of these people has never been established. Sington is known to have been the ringleader. All four were drug addicts and on the evening in question they had been drinking alcohol to excess. Members of the audience gave evidence at the trial that they had seen Sington running away from the theatre in the aftermath of the crime.
The policier are still searching for Sington’s accomplices, who are believed to come from Goorn, or from somewhere else in the Hetta Group, or from Muriseay. There is also a connection to Nelquay, but the policier say they are no longer making enquiries there.
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
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
It was Caurer who revealed that the investigating officer in the
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
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