The Islanders (8 page)

his mark, Kerith Sington . . . . . .

Extract from the Report of Judicial Enquiry into the Murder of Akal Drester Commissah, by Seignior Putar Themper, Attorney Supreme, Muriseay
. The murder of Akal Drester Commissah, followed by the confession, conviction and eventual execution of the perpetrator Kerith Sington, continues to cause concern. This concern is felt not only in certain sections of the judiciary and the press, but in a significant proportion of the general public. Several books of investigative journalism have been published about the case, highlighting evidence that was not available to the original judge and jury. More is now understood about Sington’s background and mental state of health than was known at the time. Serious questions about the safety of Sington’s confession have also been raised.

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.

The language he spoke was the patois of urban Cheoner. We have evidence of this from school records. Patois is of course street vernacular. Patois is purely oral, with no written tradition.

The confession Sington allegedly made to the policier officer could not have been written down in patois. If Sington spoke in patois, then it must have been the recording that was later interpreted or translated by one or other of the policier officers, and written down in demotic. Yet the confession which was admitted to the trial was presented as his own evidence, dictated from his own lips and faithfully transcribed. The confession contributed greatly to his conviction.

Several observations can therefore be made about his allegedly written confession, all of which give rise to juridical anxiety.

In the first place, the confession was obtained by interview with two policier officers, at least one of whom, unknown to Sington, had already been involved in the search for Commis’s killers as well as investigating the ship collision. We know that a recording of the interview was made, and then transcribed in some fashion, presumably by ‘Serjeant A’. Was it then read to Sington aloud? In the demotic which he barely understood?

Sentences in the confession which begin with ‘Yes’ or ‘No’ look like the answers to direct or leading questions. There is also evidence that Sington was led or guided through certain other parts of the confession. For example, he cannot remember the music allegedly being played in the theatre at the time of Commis’s death, until the officers play a recording for him and provide him with the title.

In cognitive screening applied to Sington after he had made his confession, but before the trial began, he was tested for his comprehension of certain terms. Sington did not understand any of the following words, all of which appear in the confession with relevant use: ‘extraneous’, ‘procurator’, ‘duress’, ‘accord’, ‘victimize’ and ‘narcotic’.

Even more disturbingly, he was found not to understand the differences between the words ‘deny’ and ‘agree’, and appears to have used them interchangeably.

Sington was measured as being below ten per cent of average intelligence, and his mental age was estimated to be that of a tenor twelve-year-old boy.

The results of these tests were not admitted as evidence during the trial, and therefore were not known to the jury.

Finally, I consider the actual events which led to the death of Mr Commissah. These were closely examined during the trial, but it is still uncertain as to what really happened.

All that is known for sure is that Mr Commissah, a professional mime artiste who used the stage name ‘Commis’, was performing his act at the
Teater Sjøkaptein
in the town of Omhuuv, on Goorn in the Hetta Group. At the time of year when this happened,
Teater Sjøkaptein
was used as a palace of varieties for summer visitors. During his performance, Mr Commis died when a large piece of plate glass fell suddenly from the rigging loft above the stage. It landed directly on him and he was killed instantly.