Islanders convicted of Pitcairn sex attacks

Six Pitcairn islanders were convicted today of a string of sex attacks, following trials that exposed a culture of abuse on the remote British Pacific territory, home to descendants of the 18th-century Bounty mutineers.

Among those convicted was the Pitcairn Island mayor, Steve Christian, who claims to be a direct descendant of mutiny leader Fletcher Christian. He was cleared of four indecent assaults and one rape but convicted of five other rapes, said New Zealand’s TVNZ television network.

The verdicts were read out by judges sent to the island from New Zealand who sat in makeshift courts in the Pitcairn community hall for the trials, which started on September 30. Sentences are expected to be announced later this week.

The men were tried for a string of 51 sex attacks dating back up to 40 years on women and girls on the island, which has a permanent population of just 47. During the trials, prosecutors painted a picture of a male-dominated society in which underage sex was commonplace.

Steve Christian’s son, Randy, was convicted of four rapes and five indecent assaults but cleared of one rape and two indecent assault charges.

Another man, 78-year-old Len Brown, was convicted of two rapes. His son, Dave, was convicted of nine indecent assaults and cleared of four indecent assaults and two charges of gross indecency.

Dennis Christian was convicted of one indecent assault and two sexual assaults he had pleaded guilty to at trial.

Terry Young was convicted of one rape and six indecent assaults but cleared of one indecent assault.

Jay Warren, the island’s magistrate, was found not guilty of indecent assault.

Before the trials started, women living on the island came out in defence of their men, saying that while underage sex did happen, it was consensual.

None of the victims of abuse still lives on the island. They all testified via a video link from the northern New Zealand city of Auckland.

The convicted men could be sentenced to prison time in the island’s newly-built cell block. But they will continue to be free pending the outcome of an appeal by defence lawyers against Britain’s jurisdiction over the tiny island. That case is expected to be heard next year in New Zealand.

Islanders have warned that if men are incarcerated, they will probably no longer be able to crew a longboat that serves as the island’s lifeline - transporting freight and passengers to and from passing ships that cannot dock anywhere along the rocky shore.

During the trials, prosecutor Christine Gordon said Dave Brown assaulted one girl in the island’s Seventh Day Adventist church and another during a fishing trip along the island’s rugged coast.

“Young girls were available to him if and when he chose,” TVNZ reported Gordon as saying.

The abuse went on for decades, prosecutors said. Police launched an investigation after one victim told a visiting British policewoman about the abuse in 1999.

The Pitcairn Islands are a group of five rocky volcanic outcrops – only the largest of which is inhabited – with a combined area of just 18 square miles. They are 9,250 miles from London, in the Pacific Ocean between New Zealand and Peru.

Bryan Nicolson of the British High Commission in Wellington, New Zealand, urged islanders to now put the process behind them.

“Feelings on the island understandably will be mixed but [the verdicts are] a very important step in bringing a conclusion to these matters so that Pitcairn can look to the future,” he said.