Constable tried to drink Pitcairner under the table

The British police officer who unearthed the initial allegations of child sex abuse on Pitcairn tried to obtain information from an islander by getting him drunk, Supreme Court judges in Auckland heard yesterday.

Constable Gail Cox of Kent Police, who was sent to the British overseas territory twice in the late 1990s to train locals in community policing, admitted that the episode involving Dennis Christian was "an unorthodox approach to policing" and "totally unethical".

Ms Cox wrote to Leon Salt, the Pitcairn Commissioner, in early 2000, telling him she had hoped to secure evidence from Christian to support allegations of assaults on two local girls by fellow islanders.

It was those complaints, reported to her during her second visit to the island in 1999, that led to widespread child abuse being uncovered.

Christian was one of six men found guilty last year of child sex offences, but back then was not yet under suspicion himself.

Ms Cox told Mr Salt, at the time the island's top administrative official, based in Auckland, that she did not think he would approve of her methods.

"Had I obtained corroboration, I may have had quite a bit of explaining to do," she said.

"In any case the approach was unsuccessful and I only ended up sporting a hangover which two paracetamol couldn't shift."

The six men are seeking to convince the Pitcairn Supreme Court, sitting in Papakura, that they did not know about the English law prohibiting rape.

If they succeed, their guilty verdicts will be quashed and the jail sentences given to four of them rescinded.

Peter George, one of the British detectives who investigated the allegations of systematic abuse, told the judges that the situation would probably have come to light sooner if British police had been on the island earlier.

"These victims on Pitcairn had no one to go to to report these matters," said Mr George, now a retired detective inspector.

"There was no one independent and I think that's what was lacking."

But he added: "You don't need a police presence to tell you that it's against the law to rape a child."

The court heard that Martin Williams, a former British governor of Pitcairn, wrote to the Foreign Office in London in 2001 noting that social workers and military police were being sent to the island "to demonstrate that we are serious about the need for Pitcairn to move out of the 19th century".

Mr Williams said it was no longer up to islanders to run their own affairs.