A Pacific island community founded on a naval mutiny over 200 years ago faces extinction if its men are tried in a New Zealand court on sex abuse charges, parliament was told Thursday.
Pitcairn, home to 44 people, is Britain?s last and loneliest Pacific colony. Many of the men on the island are facing allegations of under-age sex, although the exact number has not been revealed.
There are only eight adult males left on the island, which does not have an airport or a harbour. The island says it simply cannot operate with fewer than eight, the minimum number needed for its whaleboats.
Pitcairn’s mayor Steve Christian said the community would not survive a trial in New Zealand, which is nearly 5 000 kilometres away. ”We can’t just leave our houses … the people here want to be witnesses, one way or another, at any trial,” he said. New Zealand’s parliament, at the request of London, is debating legislation to set up a special court to hold the proposed trials next year. A parliamentary committee is reviewing the bill. Auckland barrister Paul Dacre, the Public Defender of Pitcairn Islands, told the committee any trial should be held on the island. He said the island community was united in its opposition to a trial being held in New Zealand.
”They regard the Pitcairns as a nation…the community acknowledges New Zealand as a good friend, but it has never had anything to do with the Pitcairns,” he said.
”Any criminal trial should take place within the community. The practical effect of a trial in New Zealand would destroy that community.”
Pitcairn is a British Colony 2,160 kilometres southeast of Tahiti. Its human settlement followed the 1789 mutiny aboard HMS Bounty, led by master’s mate Fletcher Christian. The mutineers cast their captain, William Bligh, adrift and with eight mutineers, led by Fletcher Christian, six Polynesian men, 12 Polynesian women and a small girl went to Pitcairn. They set the ship ablaze and remained undiscovered for 18 years. The British High Commission in New Zealand, whose head of mission doubles as Pitcairn governor, confirmed in July that a decision to lay sexual abuse charges against a number of Pitcairn Islanders had been made after an 18-month investigation by British
and New Zealand police.
The Pitcairn public prosecutor, Auckland lawyer Simon Moore, confirmed in a statement on Thursday that charges he expected to lay included the rape of girls as young as seven and 10, and one charge of indecent assault against a girl as young as three.
New Zealand Foreign Minister Phil Goff has said that it would be difficult to hold a trial on Pitcairn. But Dacre insisted there was adequate accommodation for judicial officers and court staff.
He said he knew no details of any charges, but that the ”perception” incest was involved was wrong, and he questioned under which law a trial would be held.
”They believe they live under Pitcairn law. There has only been one trial and that was in 1897 — it has never been tested whether Pitcairn law is different to British law,” he said. Steve Christian, speaking to the parliamentary committee through a satellite link, said a trial could take years and the community would not survive.
”Our law has got all the things that are needed to hold a trial,” he said. Asked what the age of consent was on the island, he replied: ”We’ve gone through the old law book and there are different ages for different things … there’s no specific age.”
Christian said the community was angry about the media. ”The media won’t be allowed here. We can contain what is sent out through the media if the trial is held here,” he said. He said British authorities had told the islanders nothing and had not consulted them. – Sapa-AFP