Lord Porter.-

Their Lordships have already indicated that they would humbly advise His Majesty that this appeal should be dismissed and that they would give their reasons for tendering such advice in due course. Those reasons are set out below. The appellant and his wife Amelia Youth were jointly charged on indictment in the Supreme Court of Turks and Caicos Islands before His Honour S. T. B. Sanguinetti and a jury of twelve with the murder of one Poland Smith in the Parish of Saint George at the Bight of Blue Hills. Both pleaded not guilty but were convicted and sentenced to death: the wife's sentence however was afterwards commuted to penal servitude for life. The husband alone appealed first to the Supreme Court of Judicature of Jamaica and subsequently by special leave to His Majesty in Council. The appellant lived in a small settlement on Caicos Island called Thomas Stubbs Settlement which appears to have consisted of only three houses: one inhabited by the appellant and his wife, the next by the deceased man, his wife and family, and the third by the dead man's mother-in-law. There was ample evidence of bad blood between the appellant and the deceased and indeed that the appellant threatened to get him out of the Settlement and had been heard to say with reference to him "Something is going to happen serious." Some miles to the west of this Settlement lies another and larger settlement known as Bight Settlement, a road or path joins the two Settlements, and from this road a track leads to the seashore which is about half to two-thirds of a mile distant. The dead man was accustomed to pay a visit each Sunday afternoon to friends at the Bight Settlement and on Sunday, 6th July 1942, as usual he left his house about 5 o'clock and visited one James Pratt, who lived two or three miles away. He arrived about 6 P. M., left about 10 P.m , but never reached his home. On Tuesday, 7th July 1942, his dead body was found floating in the sea some distance to the west of the Bight Settlement. Death apparently was not due to drowning but to a combination of injuries which had been inflicted upon him: they consisted of three scalp wounds towards the back of the head, a jagged wound below the left car and a cut through the right side of the lower jaw penetrating through the inferior maxilla. Though the last mentioned wound would cause profuse bleeding, the blood would not, necessarily be on the assailant. Later the same day at a spot lying just off the track mentioned above a sandy clearing was found, bloodstained and trampled and marked by foot-prints. The clearing was about one mile from Thomas Stubbs Settlement and 21 chains, from the shore.

The bloodstains continued for about 200 yards to the beach and on the beach were found two sets of footprints as if two persons walked face to face sideways to the sea. The two sets were about two feet apart heavily indented, as if a weight was being carried and between them at one spot was a collection of blood. One set was larger than the other. According to the evidence the appellant and his wife left home a long time after the dead man, walking in the direction which he had taken towards the Bight Settlement. At sun-rise the following morning Amelia Youth was seen coming from the direction in which she and her husband had gone the previous evening and shortly afterwards the appellant came from the same direction towards his house. That same morning a farmer living at Bight Settlement saw two persons coming eastwards along the beach about 4 A. M. After they saw him the two turned back in the direction of Stubbs Settlement, but he was unable to identify who they were. On the same day there was found on the floor of the Youth's house a machete without a handle which could have caused the wound on the right-hand side of the dead man's face, but no blood was in fact found on it. The two accused were seen by the police about 3 P. M. on 7th July and the appellant then had a bruise over his left cheek, s