The Pitcairn Perspectives by Philip Spires - HTML preview

Former colleague confirms Pitcairn story

The dust has now settled on the Pitcairn affair. It is over a month since we first reported on the tragedy that befell the Pitcairn family at the home in north London. Edward Pitcairn, Emeritus Professor of Archaeology at Hackney Metro University, is alleged to have poisoned his daughter, Gemma, his granddaughter, Elsie, and Gemma Pitcairn’s live-in male companion, Geoff Sullivan. He was making his way out of the property, probably trying to escape the scene, when his mobile phone battery ignited. Already in frail health as a result of terminal pancreatic cancer, Edward Pitcairn made it only as far as the front steps of the house, where he collapsed, having closed the front door behind him. Whether as a result of the direct effects of the battery fire, his general weakness or indeed because of the shock brought on by the combined effects of the evening’s events, he died there. His body was then consumed by fire as his clothes ignited.

At least that is what we originally reported. Since then, sources that are unsympathetic towards our editorial stance have published a different version of events, containing allegations against politicians, public servants and professionals who were not directly involved with the family tragedy, thus revealing the true motive of these politically motivated stories.

Crucial in this counter argument has been the identity of Gemma Pitcairn’s partner, Geoff Sullivan. In the fiction invented to counter our analysis, it was not Mr. Sullivan who died in the Islington kitchen, but a substitute designed to preserve the life, if not the identity of Sullivan. The case for the alternative interpretation rests on this assertion.

We can now reveal, definitively, that the person who died alongside Gemma and Elsie Pitcairn was, indeed, Geoff Sullivan.

In order to refute the nonsensical claims made by our competitors, we have conducted our own investigation. We followed leads provided by Elsie Pitcairn’s mobile phone contacts, a copy of which came into our possession.

Elsie Pitcairn was active in several campaigning groups, all of them left wing or environmental. Mr. Sullivan regularly attended the same meetings as Elsie Pitcairn and sometimes even spoke at those gatherings. Now this evidence, of course, cannot claim to be definitive. Some of Elsie Pitcairn’s contacts do remember Mr. Sullivan, and remember him well, largely because he was the person who usually was most vociferous in supporting Elsie Pitcairn’s often extreme positions. He had previously, also, assisted Gemma Pitcairn in her work on behalf of the group ‘Stay And Share’, a group that campaigned unsuccessfully to secure a remain vote in the Brexit referendum. We also contacted others involved in ‘Stay And Share’, but the organization was very much a front for the personal views of Gemma Pitcairn, Elsie’s mother, and others involved remembered little about Mr. Sullivan.

In the case of ‘Off Uking Palace’, however, Elsie Pitcairn’s campaign to block the construction of student accommodation in east London, we had significant success. Some contacts reported remembering Mr. Sullivan, but described him as a quiet, even reticent person, most of the time, only really participating in proceedings when it came to supporting the adoption of Elsie Pitcairn’s extreme proposals at meetings. All described a dark-haired man in his late thirties or early forties, always in jeans, and a check shirt, sometimes with a dark pullover or anorak and always carrying a black box-like shoulder bag that had a zipper end-to-end along its top.

We accept that, as descriptions go, this is not much to go on. The victim seated at the Pitcairn’s kitchen table, however, did answer this description, and crucially his bag was by his chair, a bag that was exactly as recalled by those who knew him.

We understand, also from the contacts from Elsie Pitcairn’s telephone, that there was more than met the eye about the household. We know for definite from Gemma Pitcairn’s colleagues that she had been in a relationship with Mr. Sullivan since the Brexit referendum five years ago. Their relationship was part time and had been broken off by both parties more than once, only to have been established anew.

It is interesting, but no more, that Gemma Pitcairn’s colleagues had never met Mr. Sullivan except in passing. None of them had ever shared time with Gemma Pitcairn in the company of her partner, because, in the words of one of her closest collaborators in Hackney Metro, Gemma Pitcairn was always a private person and did not like to mix her personal life with her work. For Gemma Pitcairn, home and office were always effectively separate, even though she often worked from home.

But we have discovered from Elsie Pitcairn’s contacts that she was also in a relationship with Mr. Sullivan. Apparently, their friendship had grown as a result of his growing interest in her campaigns, especially that surrounding Uking Palace development, ‘Off Uking Palace’. The particular contact we spoke to, whose identity will not be revealed by us, described a recent evening spent with Elsie Pitcairn where she related in detail a recent amorous encounter with Mr. Sullivan in the family home.

Here, we believe, we have also identified Edward Pitcairn’s motive. We know that Professor Pitcairn had been, during his entire career the consummate professional. His achievements in relation to his work in Australia and again in his current, long-lasting and thorough work in Indonesia, confirm his status as a significant academic in his field and also illustrate that, as a person, he was utterly correct, responsible, respected and dedicated.

We have also learned that Professor Pitcairn’s diagnosis of terminal illness was only made just a few weeks ago. He had originally planned only his usual, short project evaluation visit to London. In the past he had been back in Indonesia a week or two later, but this year, because of the discovery of his medical condition, he had decided to stay, knowing that he had but weeks to live.

Picture the situation, then, where, for the first time in decades, Edward Pitcairn is again sharing a house full-time with his daughter, living alongside his granddaughter for the first time during her adult life and finding that both of them are sharing a bed with the lodger! It is hard to imagine the level of disillusion that was felt by a man like Professor Pitcairn at learning this. Whether he had actually disowned them is unclear. That he was unhappy, even angry about the situation in which he found himself, is beyond dispute. There are reports, albeit unconfirmed, that he had already confronted his granddaughter about her behaviour and lifestyle. It is possible that his judgment or personality had changed as a result of his illness.

For whatever reason, and with only a short time to live, he suddenly found his life unbearable because, in his eyes, his family was effectively betraying him. He had been prescribed the painkillers for his medical condition, but he had not been taking them. He had stockpiled enough of the fentanyl to deliver his judgment and deliver it he did. We are not condoning what he did for one moment, but we believe this, along with the changed mental state of a dying man, explains events.

There remains, of course, the central point of the alternative explanation, the identity of Mr. Sullivan, and whether he carried out the poisoning and then fled, leaving a surrogate in his place, the crucial detail upon which rests the alternative, conspiratorial interpretation of events.

We can now reveal an answer to that question. Also on Elsie Pitcairn’s contact list were several of her former work colleagues from the media production company where she was employed until June this year. One particular colleague, indeed the manager who eventually delivered the company’s decision to let her go, confirmed a crucial detail. For some weeks prior to that June meeting, she had herself been in a passing relationship with Mr. Sullivan, completely unknown to Elsie Pitcairn.

The two had met at an ‘Off Uking Palace’ meeting some weeks before. Elsie Pitcairn’s colleague had indeed only attended the meeting following Elsie’s specific request. The Xenon Media manager explained that Elsie Pitcairn had persuaded her to come to the gathering to see if she might be interested in joining the campaign. It has to be remembered that during this last year, we have all suffered from being locked in at home and many of us have craved for social contact. Elsie Pitcairn, it seemed, had been speaking about feelings of isolation brought on by the Covid pandemic to her manager colleague, who had revealed that she herself has been suffering from depression recently and was feeling an acute need for social contact. In response, Elsie Pitcairn extended her invitation.

Elsie’s colleague attended the meeting, was introduced to Mr. Sullivan and slept with him the following night. The relationship continued, spanning the four weeks or so before the Pitcairn family tragedy.

Elsie Pitcairn’s Xenon Media colleague has described the existence of a particular birthmark on Mr. Sullivan’s body, a patch of purplish discoloured skin on his left shoulder blade, obviously only known to those with whom he had some intimate contact.

We ourselves contacted the pathologist who supervised the post-mortems on the Pitcairn victims. We were careful not to ask any information to be divulged that could prejudice the case in any way. We were doubly careful to clarify our own position, so that we would not in any way compromise the pathologist, allowing her to make the decision as to whether our question could be, indeed ought to be answered.

What we did was pass on the description of Mr. Sullivan’s identifying birthmark to the pathologist and asked her merely to confirm, yes or no, whether the body in question possessed such a mark. It did.

We state here, for the first time in this case, and without any residual doubt, that the third victim in the Pitcairn kitchen that night was indeed the man known to both Elsie and Gemma Pitcairn as Geoff Sullivan. We offer this as proof of our story relating to the Pitcairn deaths and as an obvious rebuttal to alternative, spurious, even conspiratorial theories.