Pitcairn's women stand by accused men
Half the men on remote Pitcairn Island, which is populated by descendants of the Bounty mutineers, go on trial tomorrow for a string of alleged sex attacks dating back up to 40 years.
But a group of women on the Pacific island came to the defence of the seven charged men at a meeting today, claiming the cases have been blown out of proportion and that the victims may have been coerced into testifying.
The defendants, who face a total of 55 sex charges, could be sentenced to lengthy prison terms if convicted in trials expected to last up to six weeks.
Though women residents on the island, which has a population of just 47, rallied around the men, prosecution witnesses are expected to testify via video links from New Zealand, home to many people who have left the isolated community.
The seven separate trials on the island – a speck of volcanic rock midway between New Zealand and Peru – had been due to get under way yesterday, but was delayed until Wednesday.
“I don’t know if there’s specifically any reason for the delay other than in the court’s judgment the parties may not have been quite ready,” said Bryan Nicholson, a spokesman for the British High Commission in Wellington, New Zealand.
The size and complexity of the case is unprecedented on Pitcairn Island. The arrival of three judges, prosecutors, defence lawyers and media has almost doubled the island’s population of 47.
Just getting to Pitcairn, which has no port or landing strip for aircraft, is a major challenge. Once on the island, people get around using all-terrain quad bikes on dirt tracks.
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.
The tiny population, descendants of the mutineers on the Royal Navy warship Bounty who arrived there in 1790, ekes out a living by selling postage stamps to collectors and handicrafts to tourists on passing cruise liners.
Some islanders argue that if the men are convicted, the tiny community will lose its ability to crew longboats that bring essential supplies to the island - threatening the population’s existence.
At earlier hearings, suspects’ lawyers argued the inhabitants of Pitcairn long ago severed their ties with Britain by burning the boat that carried them to their isolated island after the Bounty mutiny. That argument was rejected, allowing the trials to go ahead.
The case started in 1999 when an islander complained to a visiting British policewoman that she had been sexually abused.
Since then, new laws including a child protection act have been passed and police and social workers have been sent to the island.
