Pitcairn’s sex abuse trials to start

THE sex abuse trials of seven men from Pitcairn Island will begin on Monday, on the remote British outpost in the South Pacific that is home to the descendants of the Bounty mutineers.

The trials had originally been due to open today but will start next week due to logistical problems of setting up courts on the island, said Bryan Nicholson, press officer for Britain’s High Commission in Wellington, New Zealand.

It was unlikely any cases would be called on Monday, he said. The day would probably ‘be spent laying the groundwork for the trial, telling counsel and others what is likely to take place’.

In a special court complex designed specially for the trials, seven men from the island - which has a permanent population of under 50 - will face a total of 96 charges, some of which date back decades and involve young children.

The cases are expected to last six weeks and will be heard before judges, but no jury.

None of the suspects or victims have been publicly identified and scant details of the offences have emerged.

But in a recent interview, Pitcairn’s deputy governor, Matthew Forbes said: “These are very serious offences ... in some cases against very young children.”

The allegations have divided the normally tight-knit community, with some people even suggesting they are part of a British plot to drive the last Pitcairn inhabitants from the remote island, a rocky outcrop midway between New Zealand and Peru which is 9,250 miles from London.

Some islanders say imprisoning seven of their able-bodied men would be disastrous because they are needed to man the longboats that bring supplies to land from passing ships.

The case erupted in 1999 when an island woman complained to a visiting British policewoman of sexual abuse.

Since then, new laws including a child protection act have been passed and police and social workers have been sent to the tiny island.

Amid escalating tensions over the case, islanders have even been ordered to hand in the guns - used to hunt food - for the duration of the trials.

British authorities originally wanted to try the suspects in New Zealand, but the men successfully fought to be tried on their island.

Six former Pitcairn men, two who live in Australia and four in New Zealand, are also to be charged with similar sex crimes. No date or venue has been set for their trials.

The trials are Pitcairn’s first since Harry Albert Christian, a descendant of Bounty mutiny leader Fletcher Christian, was tried and hanged in 1897 for killing his wife and child, according to Herbert Ford, the director of the Pitcairn Island Study Centre in San Francisco. Pitcairn has long fascinated the world for being the refuge of the men who mutinied aboard the Bounty and cast Captain William Bligh adrift with his supporters in 1789.