The previous day, a man had received an electric shock when removing a plug socket in a fisherman’s shed, while the following day while the event was being set up people and animals at the harbour began receiving electric shocks from metallic items. 

All power supplies connected to a temporary supply board were lost that morning, and the event organisers brought in temporary generators – but there wasn’t an earth stake or RCD protection installed with it.  

People continued to receive electric shocks, however, despite the organisers believing the event was being powered by the generators except for a PA system which was connected to the Harbour Cafe. This was later disconnected and plugged into the generator at which point the current stopped passing through it.  

After the unconscious man was found, the generator and mains supply to the harbour were shut down, and no more shocks were reported after that. 

Guernsey Electricity visited the island in October 2023 at the request of Conseiller John Guille, one of the event organisers, and Sark Electricity. 

Conseiller Guille told the Easter meeting of Sark’s government that the investigation would be published online as it was in the public interest. 

GEL said Sark Electricity needed to test and check safety systems around the harbour network and replace if necessary, install earth stakes, introduce better procedures to ensure network isolations have been carried out correctly, and consider installing a new distribution pillar.  

It also said the government needed to be mindful of earth staking and safety checks when using generators. 

Pictured: GEL's recommendations to Sark. 

“This rise in potential on all conductive components bonded to earth was caused by the network fault that occurred immediately outside the Harbour Café service, in very close proximity to the Harbour Café main earth stake. The cable fault had an earth fault characteristic and was not cleared by the upstream protection system. This is supported by the café owners’ account of flickering lights and SEL Engineers description of the condition the insulating sleeving was found in,” GEL’s report said. 

“From the Harbour Café service to the crane shed and onwards to the Creux harbour shed all buried cables are plastic coated SWA type which is not grounded by earth stake or any other means at any point (other than the Harbour Café service). As the protective armouring of all these cables are bonded to each other at all termination points, the symptoms of ‘live’ earthing were experienced from anything plugged in to any electrical outlet that was sourced from the SEL supply at both the Crane Shed and Creux Harbour Shed.  

“It is important to note that this effect would have been seen on any plugged-in appliance, regardless of status of switch on socket. Given the various accounts of the set up on the day of the event it is highly likely that at least one cable was connected between either trailer unit and the SEL supplies. In this scenario any conductive component of the trailers would be ‘live’. Human contact between any conductive component and ground would have caused an electrical current to flow through the body and that person would have received an electric shock at this point.” 

GEL said it was satisfied this was the likely cause, as shocks stopped being reported after the fault was isolated at source. 

It also said the electric shock in the shed was due to the plug, noted to have been in poor condition, powering an old fisherman's freezer which was also in an “extremely” bad state: “This needs to be addressed as a fire and electric shock risk”.