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ulture Shock
http://www.stuff.co.nz/stuff/0,2106,3038329a11,00.html
Quote
Pitcairn sex case papers stay secret
19 September 2004
By DONNA CHISHOLM
The High Court has stepped in to prevent the release of a raft of sensitive
documents on the Pitcairn Island sex
abuse case.
Lawyer Christopher Harder, who acts for one of the Pitcairn men, was
injuncted on
Friday after attempting to meet
Pitcairn Governor Richard Fell to discuss the documents which he said could
be
highly damaging to the case.
Seven other Pitcairn Island men face 96 historical sex charges in a trial
beginning on
the island on September 27.
In a letter to Fell, Harder said Pitcairn Islanders wanted a restorative
justice approach to
the case and such an
outcome "would not only allow for justice to be done, it would also prevent
considerable
embarrassment to Her
Majesty's Government by keeping these documents closeted from media
scrutiny".
End Quote
From The Guardian / Weekend Sept 18,2004
Paradise on Trial , by Dea Birkett
p 28-34, long article - so sections
<...>
Next week, seven Pitcaimers - almost two-thirds of the men on the island,
from a total
population of fewer than 40
- will go on trial for sexual offences ranging from gross indecency and
indecent assault to
rape. The accused - Jay
Warren, Dennis Christian, Len Brown, Terry Young, Dave Brown, Steve
Christian and
Randy Christian face 96
charges between them. All are against children who are now adults.
<...>
Pitcairn's fall began in the late 1990s, when an allegation of rape was made
by a visitor to
the island on behalf of
his daughter. Two officers with Kent county constabulary, Detective
Superintendent Dennis
McGookin and his
colleague Detective Sergeant Peter George, were sent 12,000 miles to
Pitcairn to investigate.
They were the first
British police officers ever to set foot on the island. Although the rape
case was dropped
and a caution concerning
underage sex given, McGookin was disturbed at what he found:
<...>
Many islanders say that Operation Unique gathered the forces of a powerful
nation against
tiny Pitcairn. "Britain
is treating us all like criminals, like animals," said one islander. Karl
Young wrote to the
governor: "It never
ceases to amaze us that so far you, as its governor, have never shown any
compassion for
the community or tried
to provide fairtreatment for the helpless islanders you are supposed to look
after, not persecute."
<...>
"Its been very difficult to keep the complainants on board. The police have
been working
round the clock to keep
them," said Moore. By the time charges were laid, two of the complainants
had withdrawn.
A further eight
prepared a petition, claiming the police had browbeaten them into making
accusations
against the men. A formal
complaint was made against police officer Karen Vaughn to the Police
Complaints
Authority in New Zealand. Kari
Young, a Norwegian married to Pitcaimer Brian Young, who has spent most of
her adult
life on the island,
claimed that the British government offered women "compensation if they had
stories to tell,
whether about
themselves or their neighbours" and "put pressure on the women to fabricate
stories".
When women did come
forward to tell police what happened to them, they made it clear from the
out set that
they did not want their
interviews to be used as evidence. A complaint concerning a three-year
ld - the
youngest alleged victim - also
fell. Around 10 complainants remain, all now adults from their early 20s to
late middle
age. There is still anxiety
that some could withdraw at the last minute. Most live in Australia and New
Zealand, a
nd will give their evidence
by video link, but there are two on the island "if they turn up", as one
lawyer said.
"There are no secrets on
Pitcairn," said Steve Christian, who faces some of the most serious charges.
Some
Pitcairners argue that everyone
knew what was happening on the island: no crime had been committed, it was
all a case of
cultural
misunderstanding. Having sex from the age of 12 is not only legal under
Pitcairnlaw, they say,
but common practice
through-out Polynesia. It is certainly true that Pitcairners start having
children young; one 22
year-old already has
four children. It's also common for a woman to have her first child by one
man and her second
by another, who will
nevertheless willingly adopt her firstborn as his own. But deputy governor
Matthew Forbes,
who is in day-to-day
charge of the island, though based in New Zealand, believes this argument
belies the seriousness
of some of the
charges, suggesting it is a question of teenagers behind the bike shed.
"We're talking about
offences against
children at quite a young age, and I don't accept that that's a cultural
norm on Pitcairn or in
Polynesia," he said.
Thirty-one of the charges are for rape. At least one involves two men
pinning down a minor;
another placing a penis inside a five year old's mouth.
<...>
Whether they prove to be true or false, these recent allegations will
irretrievably change such a
small place. "We are like
one family," says Betty Christian, 59,a grandmother, wife of Tom Christian,
sixth generation
descendant of
mutineer Fletcher Christian and elder in the Seventh Day Adventist church.
"Regardless of our
differences and
problems, none of our people want to see Pitcairn closed down and abandoned.
Whatever the
outcome, all of us will
be affected as we are related to both alleged victims and alleged
perpetrators." The island used
to be governed at
arm's length - when I visited, the governor had never set foot on the
island. Now, he has a r
epresentative in
residence, and visits regularly himself. Pitcaim has become the most heavily
policed
community in the world. Two
rotating Ministry of Defence police officers one sergeant and one constable
are now
permanently posted on the
island, together with two more investigating officers. Two social workers
specialising in
child protection are sent
out from New Zealand on three month contracts. Under a new Child Protection
Ordinance,
they've been given the
power to remove a child from its family if they fear for its welfare.
<...>
A new six-bedded house called McCoys
where the legal teams and social workers stayed, is nicknamed the Pink
Palace, as it
compares so favourably with
the islanders' own homes. And all these would lie close by the six-cell
prison, known
as the remand centre, and its
adjoining police station - the biggest building on the island.
The fact is that Pitcairn is already a prison from which nobody can escape.
The harsh seas a
round Bounty Bay hem
in the islanders far more effectively than any amount of wire fencing or
steel gates. It is
this geographical jailing
that has always framed the Pitcairners. But now, unlike two centuries ago,
this isolation
cannot put them beyond
the reach of the law.
Next week, MV Braveheart will stop off at Bounty Bay, carrying the two legal
teams, judges, stenographers, a
court registrar, prosecuting police office from Kent county constabulary,
Matthew Forbes
and six members of the
media picked to cover the trial. For the first time, outsiders will
outnumber adult islanders.
The defendants will be
heard before three judges; there could be no jury, as there simply aren't
enough islanders
unconnected to an
accuser or accused
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also
http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/world/20040919-0947-thetrialsofpitcairn.h
tml
<...>
Dea Birkett, a British journalist whose 1997 book "Serpent in Paradise"
described her several months' living on the island, has written: "Starved of
real choices, Pitcairners develop relationships considered unacceptable
elsewhere. Sisters share a husband. Teenage girls have affairs with older
men. Women have children by more than one partner, often starting as young
as 15.
"But faced with such limited choices ourselves," she wrote, "would we act so
very differently?"
End Quote
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http://abcasiapacific.com/news/stories/asiapacific_stories_1203396.htm
Quote
A New Zealand lawyer says he has been stopped from releasing documents that
would have had a significant impact on a sex-abuse case on Pitcairn Island.
The trial of seven Pitcairn Islanders for sexual assault is due to start at
the end of this month.
Lawyer Christopher Harder says he is representing another Pitcairn Islander
who is appealing a previous charge, and he says the documents are also
important for his client's case.
He says he tried to make an appointment with the Pitcairn Governor, but an
injunction was laid stopping him from revealing what is in the documents, or
from taking them out of New Zealand.
ABC Asia Pacifc TV / Radio Australia
End Quote
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http://www.stuff.co.nz/stuff/0,2106,3044244a11,00.html
Quote
US academic calls for hold on Pitcairn trials
24 September 2004
A United States academic says holding Pitcairn Island trials into sex abuse
without first reviewing documents would be a miscarriage of justice.
Herbert Ford, who directs the Pitcairn Islands Study Centre in California,
said today the case should be adjourned until a public review of documents
that contained "irregularities and possible illegalities" about the case
could be conducted by a proper authority.
The trials of seven Pitcairn Islanders are expected to begin on the remote
island half way between New Zealand and Peru next week.
The accused men face 96 charges including rape and sexual assault.
Accusations of widespread sexual abuse on the island date back as far as 40
years, but first surfaced publicly in 1999.
"There has been so much irregularity. . . so much that smacks of possible
illegality demonstrated in documented form, that any trial conducted before
these very serious matters are carefully studied and resolved would be a
gross miscarriage of justice," Mr Ford said in a statement today.
He had based his opinion on documents that had passed between those
governing Pitcairn Island from both England and New Zealand, and legal
personnel asked to develop Pitcairn law or to have a part in the trials.
They included a written admission by a Kent police officer, which said she
got a Pitcairner on the island drunk in an effort to get him to reveal acts
that might incriminate others being investigated in connection with the
trials.
Mr Ford said that as late as 2000 there was ambiguity as to what age
constituted the age of consent for sexual relations on Pitcairn Island.
The sex charges have divided the community on the tiny outpost of the
British Empire, which was settled by Fletcher Christian and his shipmates
more than 200 years ago.
"The Pitcairn trial as presently being pursued, in addition to the possible
incarcerating of individuals, has the potential to destroy an entire
indigenous people group," Mr Ford said.
Pitcairn mayor Steve Christian had told Mr Ford that families were being
destroyed by being asked to bear witness against each other.
"It is hard to not believe that a destructive vindictiveness toward the
Pitcairn people as a whole is present here," Mr Ford said.
He was aware of an injunction against two people in New Zealand forbidding
the release of information contained in "largely government sensitive"
documents about the Pitcairn trials, but had not received any documents from
those people.
Three judges, prosecutors, defence lawyers and court officials were due to
arrive on the island yesterday in preparation for the start of the trials on
Monday local time (Tuesday NZT).
End Quote
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http://www.stuff.co.nz/stuff/0,2106,3045617a1861,00.html
Quote
Pitcairn Islanders face turmoil
26 September 2004
Pitcairn Island is about to be torn apart as seven of its men go to trial
charged with child sex abuse. Is the tiny community of 45 the victim of
blundering outsiders, or are some terrible secrets about to be revealed?
Anthony Hubbard reports.
Jean started having sex at 12, like "most of the other girls" on Pitcairn.
"To us, it was everyday life on the island," she says. "I just feel that the
boys are being punished for something that I don't consider to be a crime."
"The boys" include seven men who go on trial on the island this week. They
are accused of rape and indecent assaults going back nearly 40 years, a
sensational case that has split the community of 45. But all Jean saw when
she was young was "consensual sex".
"No one told us there was a certain age for it," says Jean, 46, who was born
and raised on the island before she moved to New Zealand seven years ago.
"It was just like - your body feels like you want to, and it was just the
thing to do." If there was a law against it, she says, the youngsters didn't
know. "As young teenagers the last thing you want to read about is the law."
Typically the girls would sleep with boys a few years older than them.
Jean - not her real name - did not see older men sleeping with young girls.
Hers is one version of the strange life on the island, a version that some
other islanders and their supporters are keen to promote. They portray a
place where relaxed "Polynesian" habits of sexuality have reigned ever since
chief mutineer Fletcher Christian arrived with his flock of sailors,
Tahitian women and slaves 214 years ago.
Christian called the island - half way between New Zealand and Peru - a
paradise, and this has been a common perception of Pitcairn ever since. But
there was trouble in paradise right at the beginning. Fletcher was murdered
in a fight over women less than four years after he arrived.
The accusations against the men of Pitcairn today are very serious: they
include charges involving offences by adult men against children as young as
five. "It's not a case," one lawyer said, "of a 17 or 18 year-old male and a
girl of 12 - nothing like that."
The UK's Guardian newspaper last week named the seven men and detailed
several of the charges against them in a feature by Dea Birkett, a British
journalist who spent four months on the island and wrote a book about it
called Serpent in Paradise. In the feature she discusses her experience of a
society in which it is impossible to confront people directly about bad
behaviour, be it adultery or pinching fruit off your tree; a society in
which it can be extremely difficult to disentangle exaggerated rumour from
fact.
Last week a group of judges, lawyers, officials and journalists arrived via
longboat, the only way to reach the island. Pitcairn is not the white sandy
atoll of the Pacific idyll. It is a rough piece of rock in the middle of
nowhere whose cliffs make landfall difficult. The judges - three district
court judges from Papakura who are Pitcairn Supreme Court judges for this
trial - occupy one house in Adamstown, the sole settlement. Adamstown is
hardly even a village - just a scatter of houses in the bush. Many are
derelict: the island's population has fallen steadily from its peak of 200
in the 1930s.
The defence lawyers will live in another house, and the prosecutors in a
third. A special jail has been built by adding on to the existing remand
block. Some of the accused men helped build the jail. "It was good money,"
explains one islander.
Some islanders say the British government - Pitcairn is a British
protectorate - is ganging up against them. The case will wreck the
community, they say. Instead of the formalised, expensive and unnecessary
business of a trial, the problem should have been resolved by restorative
justice.
This argument has had some eminent proponents, including Tony Angelo,
professor of law at Victoria University of Wellington. "The blunt instrument
of the criminal law has already caused considerable disruption to the
community and threatens its long-term survival," he wrote in an article with
Andrew Townend.
Steve Christian, the mayor of Pitcairn and a descendant of Fletcher
Christian, told a UN committee in 2002 there should be a Truth and
Reconciliation Commission for Pitcairn. "Individuals and families are being
destroyed by the waiting regarding allegations and the situation where
families and members within families have been asked to bear witness against
each other. This is mental torture. We are losing control of our island and
our destinies."
Herbert Ford, director of the Pitcairn Islands Studies Centre in California,
says many islanders are likely to join their relatives on Norfolk Island or
in New Zealand. "I really believe that the sense of shame, the sense of
incursion by the outside world, is going to see the dissolution of this
place."
The seven men are the muscular heart of the community: they help man the
longboats, do the fishing, and tend the gardens. If they are stuck in the
jail, islanders ask, how will the community's work get done?
But the other side disagrees. Restorative justice only works, said one
lawyer, when the offender is prepared to fully acknowledge his crime. "The
prosecution was quite receptive to the idea of restorative justice at the
start," said a lawyer. But the men did not display the kind of attitude
needed to make the process work.
In fact, he points out, Pitcairn law allows for restorative justice. If
anyone is found guilty, this could be discussed at the time of sentencing.
The process of mending the wounds, and bringing the divided community back
together, could still take place.
Whether the community can be healed, of course, is an open question. The
trial "is like a big dark grey cloud hanging over the island," says one
former resident. Some islanders - probably a minority - support the British
government.
"The pro-British group is very divided," she says. "The only thing they
agree on is to hold on to the British, 'because that means benefits for us'.
Otherwise they have nothing in common."
It is understood that only one of the women who complained to the police is
still living on the island. But she has refused to testify at the trial.
Eight other women will testify, however, via a video-conferencing site in
Auckland. None of them live on the island now.
Supporters of the prosecution say the men could still work even if they are
convicted. "On many islands a custodial sentence still means you come out
during the day to do public works or to be available," says a prosecution
source. "It's entirely possible that a prison sentence would still mean the
men are available to man the longboats or work on the roads."
Some say that offending on the scale alleged - there are dozens of charges -
could not have happened. In such a tiny community, "someone would have
noticed", said one woman who spent 12 years on the island.
But an American anthropologist who spent three months on the island in 1999,
and wrote a master's thesis about it, says a code of silence operated on
Pitcairn.
"The policewoman told me that even though she knew something might be
happening in a household, she could not do anything unless someone in that
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It is laughable that they spend so much time and energy in trying to
bring a prosecution against people whose main crime appears to be the
crime of being poor and poorly educated.
Meanwhile, rich and well-educated men continue to travel to India &
Fiji to obtain sex with underage boys - in some cases even going so
far as to "sponsor" underage boys travelling back with them in order
to "give them an education" (gang rape them over a period of years
with their fellow-perverts, that is).
These men's names are well-known and yet the police haven't touched
them and their friends in the judiciary, far from trying to bring them
to justice, do their utmost to protect them.
When will the police prosecute the prominent paedophiles?
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Arthur Brain wrote:
It is laughable that they spend so much time and energy in trying to
bring a prosecution against people whose main crime appears to be the
crime of being poor and poorly educated.
Meanwhile, rich and well-educated men continue to travel to India &
Fiji to obtain sex with underage boys - in some cases even going so
far as to "sponsor" underage boys travelling back with them in order
to "give them an education" (gang rape them over a period of years
with their fellow-perverts, that is).
These men's names are well-known and yet the police haven't touched
them and their friends in the judiciary, far from trying to bring them
to justice, do their utmost to protect them.
When will the police prosecute the prominent paedophiles?
Why don't you name them, since you are so certain of your facts?
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http://www.stuff.co.nz/stuff/0,2106,3047991a10,00.html
Pitcairn governor seeks return of documents
28 September 2004
Documents said to be sensitive to the sex trial of seven men on remote
Pitcairn Island need to be returned, the High Court in Auckland has been
told.
The Pitcairn Island governor, represented by Brian Latimour, is asking for a
court order to get back documents which a lawyer claims could be highly
damaging in the trial of the seven, facing multiple sex charges, due to
start on Thursday (NZ time).
Auckland lawyer Christopher Harder acts for a person convicted of a sex
charge on the island in 1999, but was told today by Justice Rhys Harrison he
would be in conflict if he also acted for Leon Salt, a former Pitcairn
commissioner, who asked Mr Harder for a legal view on the documents.
Mr Harder is cited as the first defendant and Mr Salt as the second
defendant in today's High Court hearing.
During today's hearing, as tension rose between the judge and Mr Harder,
Justice Harrison said he should have referred Mr Salt to another lawyer for
advice.
"Today the interests of Mr Harder and Mr Salt must diverge," the judge said.
"The conflict is self-evident."
The judge ruled that Mr Salt, who was not in court, would not be represented
at today's hearing.
Mr Harder was arguing it was in the public interest for the documents to be
released.
During the hearing, the judge also ruled that the documents, or pertinent
parts of them, must be referred to by page number to prevent publication of
the confidential material they contained.
The documents have already been disclosed to the court on Pitcairn Island
and lawyers both prosecuting and defending the seven men.
Proceeding
End Quote
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"Tinkle" <chimes@piano.com> wrote in message news:<2dbd8mpiebbsbff.270920042038@localhost>...
Arthur Brain wrote:
Why don't you name them, since you are so certain of your facts?
Everybody knows who they are.
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Arthur Brain wrote:
Everybody knows who they are.
So, you are all talk. Everybody does not.
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First i've heard reference to Pitcairn shennanigins
on main BBC R4 news this morning.
Giving knocking copy concerning the trawl
to obtain women prepared to trstify
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/3699286.stm
and latest
http://news.scotsman.com/latest.cfm?id=3559700
Quote
Wed 29 Sep 2004
6:51am (UK)
Pitcairn Mayor among Seven Sex Abuse Defendants
"PA"
The mayor of tiny Pitcairn Island - home to the descendants of the
18th-century Bounty mutineers - is among seven men accused in a string of
sexual assaults in the isolated community dating back decades, court
documents revealed today.
Steve Christian, one of the island's most prominent members, is charged
along with his son Randy and five other men, on 55 charges, including rape,
indecent assault and gross indecency.
The court decided to reveal the identities of the accused because everyone
on the island, with a population of just 47, already knew who they were and
because newspapers and Internet sites outside Pitcairn's jurisdiction
already had published the names, Charles Blackie, the chief justice in the
trial, said.
The names were unveiled as the court rejected an eleventh-hour application
by the defence to halt the trials because of alleged judicial bias.
The defence had earlier said the lead judge sent to hear the case on the
remote Pacific island had shown bias by bowing to pressure from Britain's
minister for overseas territories to press for a trial and avoid any
out-of-court settlement.
It was the latest legal challenge to the trial of the men - who account for
half the island's adult male population - over allegations of sex abuse
dating back up to 40 years.
Blackie, one of three judges overseeing the trial, declined the defence
application and said the trial would commence tomorrow morning.
The charges against the men stem from 1999 when an islander told a visiting
British policewoman she had been sexually abused.
Since then, new laws including a child protection act have been enacted and
police and social workers have been sent to the island.
The defendants could be sentenced to lengthy prison terms if convicted in
the trials expected to last up to six weeks.
The size and complexity of the case is unprecedented on Pitcairn Island,
where descendants of the mutineers on the British navy ship HMS Bounty
arrived in 1790. The inhabitants eke out a living by selling postage stamps
to collectors and handicrafts to tourists on passing cruise liners.
The arrival of three judges, prosecutors, defence attorneys and media has
almost doubled the island's population.
On Tuesday, a group of women residents on the island came to the defence of
the seven charged men at a meeting, claiming the cases had been blown out of
proportion and that the victims may have been coerced into testifying.
But prosecution witnesses are expected to testify via video links from New
Zealand, home to many people who have fled the isolated community.
Speaking to reporters on the island, some of the women said underage sex was
normal in the community.
"There's never been a rape on the island," said one resident, Carol Warren,
on New Zealand television today. "I was one of them, I had sex at 12. I went
in fully knowing what I was doing and I wasn't forced."
"It's like a blight that's been hanging over us for way too long," said
Meralda Warren, another female resident.
The defendants had a chance to head off trials at a pre-trial hearing last
week, but refused to plead guilty when offered the chance - a move that
would have cut any sentence they may face.
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 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. They are 9,250 miles from London.
Just getting to the island, which has no port or landing strip for aircraft,
is a major challenge. Once on the island, people get around using
four-wheeled all-terrain vehicles on dirt tracks.
End Quote
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The previous trial on Pitcairn only got one column-
inch in the Times 1898, 08 Nov, p4, col 3 covering
the murder, trial and sentence. Presumably no
telegraph to Pitcairn.
" PITCAIRN ISLANDER SENTENCED TO DEATH:-
The cruiser Royalist, which has visited Pitcairn Island
recently, took with her a Commission from Suava,
Fiji, to try one of the Pitcairn Islanders,
named Harry Christian, great-grandson of Fletcher
Christian, for a murder committed in June, 1897.
Christian admitted having murdered from jealous
motives one of the island women and her children,
whose bodies he afterwards threw into the sea. The
Court, after sitting for a day, sentenced Christian to
death, and the Royalist left with him for Suava, where
the sentence was to be carried out. "
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Posted via Mailgate.ORG Server - http://www.Mailgate.ORG
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On Fri, 1 Oct 2004 17:26:06 +0000 (UTC), "Paul Nutteing"
<nutteing@quickfindit.com> wrote:
The previous trial on Pitcairn only got one column-
inch in the Times 1898, 08 Nov, p4, col 3 covering
the murder, trial and sentence. Presumably no
telegraph to Pitcairn.
" PITCAIRN ISLANDER SENTENCED TO DEATH:-
The cruiser Royalist, which has visited Pitcairn Island
recently, took with her a Commission from Suava,
Fiji, to try one of the Pitcairn Islanders,
named Harry Christian, great-grandson of Fletcher
Christian, for a murder committed in June, 1897.
Christian admitted having murdered from jealous
motives one of the island women and her children,
whose bodies he afterwards threw into the sea. The
Court, after sitting for a day, sentenced Christian to
death, and the Royalist left with him for Suava, where
the sentence was to be carried out. "
Yes, but he only *murdered* some children. So not nearly as serious
as the present allegations.
--
Cynic
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On Fri, 1 Oct 2004 17:26:06 +0000 (UTC), "Paul Nutteing"
<nutteing@quickfindit.com> wrote:
Yes, but he only *murdered* some children. So not nearly as serious
as the present allegations.
--
Cynic
Perhaps Harry Albert Christian was a puritanic
monogamous Englishman and a victim of Pitcairn
sexual politcis. He could no abide
the wicked ways of his 'wife' and knew or suspected
that her kids were not his.
It would be interesting to see what was presented as
mitigation at his trial, crime passionel ? , the word
"jealous" would imply.
The rebels in the current trial, the women
prosecutiom witnesses, simply settled abroad.
What they aren't telling you about DNA profiles
and what Special Branch don't want you to know.
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http://www.nzherald.co.nz/storydisplay.cfm?storyID=
3597187&thesection=news&thesubsection=general
Quote
Pastors turned blind eye to abuse rumours
04.10.2004
By KATHY MARKS on Pitcairn Island
The hymn was Shelter in a Time of Storm, and the sermon delivered in the
Seventh Day Adventist Church urged Pitcairners to bond together in
adversity.
But it will take more than a few platitudes to save this troubled community
or redeem the church for its sins of omission.
A pastor was stationed on the tiny South Pacific island throughout the
period when child rape and abuse were allegedly rampant.
But none of the men who served rotating two-year terms reported their
concerns about Pitcairn, where the population was converted en masse to
Seventh Day Adventism in the late 19th century.
After an investigation began into allegations of widespread abuse in 1999,
several former pastors said privately they had suspected something was
gravely amiss on the island, a British dependency with 47 inhabitants.
But Ray Coombe, sent to Pitcairn to minister to the locals during the child
sex abuse trials that began last week, claimed after the Sabbath service on
Saturday that the church had known nothing about the alleged mistreatment of
children.
"They [the pastors] may have had an inkling but, to my knowledge, there was
nothing that was definitely known," he said.
The trials were set to resume today, with a former Pitcairn woman giving
evidence against Len Brown, 78, who is charged with raping her twice about
35 years ago.
Steve Christian, the mayor, will then go back into the dock, followed by
Dennis Christian, charged with two indecent assaults and two sexual
assaults.
Seven men are facing the Pitcairn Supreme Court and another six
Pitcairners - now living abroad - are expected to go on trial in Auckland
next year.
Mr Coombe told a congregation of about 15 locals - who included two
defendants, Jay Warren and Terry Young - that the past week had been a
historic but difficult time for Pitcairn.
"The peaceful, unhurried and carefree atmosphere has been interrupted," he
said.
In an apparent reference to bitter divisions in the community, he added:
"The more we feel threatened and under attack, the more we need to bond
together and help each other."
Mr Coombe said afterwards that every family in the closely interconnected
community was affected by the trials, being related either to the defendants
or their alleged victims.
The church, meanwhile, is still in denial. Mr Coombe has not heard any of
the evidence against the men, which includes allegations that Steve
Christian raped an 11-year-old while two friends held her down and Dave
Brown, another defendant, forced a 5-year-old girl to give him oral sex.
Neither have the vast majority of locals, who have shunned the trials.
Mr Coombe said he had stayed away because he wished to remain neutral. That
means, presumably, that he is hearing only the islanders' version of events:
that all the alleged incidents involved consensual sex and girls mature
early on Pitcairn.
As Edmund Burke said, all that is required for evil to prosper is for good
men to do nothing.
End Quote
What they aren't telling you about DNA profiles
and what Special Branch don't want you to know.
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