2004 Pitcairn Islands sexual assault trial

In 2004, seven men living on Pitcairn Island faced 55 charges relating to sexual offences against children and young adults. The accused represented a third of the island's male population and included Steve Christian, the mayor. On 24 October, all but one of the defendants were found guilty on at least some of the charges.[1][2][3] Another six men living abroad, including Shawn Christian, who later served as mayor of Pitcairn, were tried on 41 charges in a separate trial in Auckland, New Zealand, in 2005.

The trial was repeatedly punctuated by legal challenges from island residents, who denied the island's colonial status, and with it the United Kingdom's judicial authority. Defence lawyers for the seven accused men claimed that British sovereignty over the islands was unconstitutional: HMS Bounty mutineers, from whom almost all of the current island population is descended (together with Polynesians), had effectively renounced their British citizenship by committing a capital offence in the burning of the Bounty in 1790, they said. According to the Public Defender of the Pitcairn Islands[4] Paul Dacre (who was appointed in 2003), islanders still celebrated this act annually by burning an effigy of the Bounty in a symbolic rejection of British rule.[5] The defence maintained that the UK never made a formal claim to Pitcairn, and never officially informed the islanders that British legislation, such as the Sexual Offences Act 1956,[note 1] was applicable to them.

In a judgment delivered on 18 April 2004, the Pitcairn Supreme Court (specially established for the purpose of the trial, consisting of New Zealand judges authorised by the British government) rejected the claim that Pitcairn was not British territory. This decision was upheld in August 2004 by the Pitcairn Court of Appeal,[6] endorsing the claim of Deputy Governor Matthew Forbes that Pitcairn was British territory. A delay of the trial until the United Kingdom's Judicial Committee of the Privy Council (JCPC) decided on an additional appeal was rejected. The trial started on 30 September 2004. Verdicts were delivered on 24 October 2004, with all but one of the defendants convicted on at least some of the charges they were facing. Those found guilty were sentenced on 29 October 2004.

  1. ^ Fickling, David (26 October 2004). "Six found guilty in Pitcairn sex offences trial". The Guardian. London. Archived from the original on 2 July 2015. Retrieved 29 November 2011.
  2. ^ "Six guilty in Pitcairn sex trial". BBC. 25 October 2004. Archived from the original on 31 July 2017. Retrieved 29 November 2011.
  3. ^ "6 men convicted in Pitcairn trials". The New York Times. 24 October 2004. Archived from the original on 5 January 2015. Retrieved 29 November 2011.
  4. ^ "About Paul - Paul Dacre QC". Paul Dacre QC. Archived from the original on 28 January 2018. Retrieved 15 March 2018.
  5. ^ Souhami, Diana (2012). Coconut Chaos. Hachette. ISBN 9781743511480.
  6. ^ Queen v 7 Named Accused Archived 28 June 2005 at the Wayback Machine [2004] PNCA 1; CA 1-7 2004 (5 August 2004)


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