Pitcairn victims having 'mixed emotions'

Victims of the sex crimes six men of tiny Pitcairn Island experienced "a mix of emotions" when told of the sentences handed down to the men, a policewoman close to the victims said.

Six men – half the adult males on tiny Pitcairn Island – have been jailed for up to six years for rapes and sex attacks dating back 40 years on the isolated Pacific home of the Bounty mutineers.

Island mayor Steve Christian, who claims to be a direct descendent of mutiny leader Fletcher Christian, was convicted of five rapes of young women and sentenced to three years in prison.

Sentences for the other five ranged from community service to six years in prison.

They will remain free until appeals are heard.

The men’s trials lifted the lid on decades of sex abuse of young women and girls as young as five.

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

New Zealand policewoman Karen Vaughan said the victims showed “a mix of emotions” when told of the sentences.

They are “happy, sad, elated, just generally pleased that’s it’s done with really so they can get on with their busy lives,” she said.

The sentences were suspended pending appeals by the men’s defence lawyers against Britain’s jurisdiction over the island. If the men’s sentences are upheld, they will serve time in a cell block they helped to build on the island.

“In setting the sentences, the court indicated that it has taken into account the unique nature of Pitcairn and factors such as its isolation and the small number of able-bodied people among the small population of 47,” said Bryan Nicolson, spokesman for the British High Commission in Wellington, New Zealand’s capital.

Matthew Forbes, the island’s deputy governor, said before the sentences were announced that Christian and his son Randy, chairman of a key island committee, should resign their posts or Britain’s governor for the island would step in to ensure its “best interests”. He did not elaborate.

Residents on the island fear that prison terms will prevent the men from crewing a longboat that is Pitcairn’s lifeline – ferrying fuel and food from passing ships that cannot dock along the island’s rocky coastline.

Prison terms for the men likely would allow for them to be released temporarily to crew the longboats, said John Connell, an expert on the South Pacific from the University of Sydney

Otherwise, “it would be punishment for the whole community,” he said.

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

The three-week trials were held under British law in makeshift courtrooms set up on the island and presided over by three judges from New Zealand.

Steve Christian’s 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.

During Dave Brown’s trial, prosecutor Christine Gordon said the man assaulted a girl in the island’s Seventh-day Adventist Church and another during a fishing trip.

“Young girls were available to him if and when he chose,” Gordon said. The abuse went on for decades, prosecutors said.

The Pitcairn Islands are a group of five rocky volcanic outcroppings – only the largest of which is inhabited – with a combined area of just 18 square miles.

Bill Hodge, an associate law professor at the University of Auckland, predicted the men would lose their appeal against British jurisdiction, saying the Bounty mutineers couldn’t simply reject Britain’s jurisdiction. “It’s not like being in a contract of employment – you can’t simply resign.”