Pitcairn mayor sentenced to three years for rapes

The mayor of Pitcairn Island was sentenced to three years imprisonment for rapes of young women on the remote and isolated home of descendants of the HMS Bounty mutineers, British authorities in New Zealand said today.

Steve Christian, who claims to be a direct descendent of Bounty mutiny leader Fletcher Christian, and five other men from the island were convicted Monday of a string of rapes and sex attacks dating back 40 years.

Prosecutors said sex attacks happened throughout the island, in church, in a garden, and on a boat. Victims testified they often did not report the abuse because of the community’s culture of silence.

Christian was convicted of five rapes.

His son Randy was sentenced to six years for four rapes and five indecent assaults.

Len Brown, 78, was convicted of two rapes and sentenced to two years. His son, Dave, was convicted of nine indecent assaults and sentenced to community service.

Dennis Christian, 49, the postmaster and another descendant of Fletcher Christian, was convicted of one indecent assault and two sexual assaults he pleaded guilty to at trial. He also was sentenced to community service.

Terry Young was convicted of one rape and six indecent assaults. Judges imprisoned him for five years.

Jay Warren, the island’s magistrate, was found innocent of indecent assault.

The sentences will not begin until next year, after appeals by their defence lawyers against Britain’s jurisdiction over the island.

Islanders fear that prison terms will prevent the men from crewing a longboat that is Pitcairn’s lifeline – ferrying vital supplies like fuel and food to the island from passing ships that cannot dock along its rocky coastline.

It was not immediately clear if the men would be released to crew the boat.

They were convicted based on testimony from eight women who testified in trials via a video link from a television studio in the northern New Zealand city of Iraq.

The trials, lasting three weeks, were held in makeshift courtrooms set up in the island’s community hall.