Jail terms 'tailored to Pitcairn'

By KATHY MARKS on Pitcairn Island

They do things differently on Pitcairn Island. In Auckland or London, Steve Christian would have been jailed for 10 years for raping children. Yesterday, in Britain's South Pacific outpost, he received a sentence of three years - and was told he could be free after nine months.

Christian, still mayor despite being found guilty of five rapes, was one of four men given jail terms by the Pitcairn Supreme Court. His son, Randy, 30, chairman of a key island committee, received six years for four rapes. His 78-year-old father-in-law, Len Brown, was jailed for two years for twice raping a young girl. Terry Young, 46, got a five-year term.

The Chief Justice, Charles Blackie, said the penalties were "tailored to Pitcairn", taking into account "factors unique to the island, such as its isolation, its permanent population of fewer than 50 people and its dependence on the manpower of its able-bodied citizens".

The sentences, the leniency of which astonished some observers, will not take effect until legal argument about Britain's authority over the island is resolved next year.

So all four child rapists slept in their own beds last night, in their houses overlooking the Pacific.

For the next six months, they will live freely in the community where they preyed on young girls.

The men have been free on bail since being charged. Steve Christian, 53, spent yesterday morning driving a mechanical digger at a site where two friends are building a house.

Christian, who has run Pitcairn like a personal fiefdom, stood straight-backed as Justice Blackie told him the court was "impressed by your contribution to island life over the last 30 years".

Sterner words were reserved for his son, the "heir apparent" to the island's leadership. Justice Russell Johnson told him that "as a young man, you seemed to believe you had some kind of right to sexually violate young girls when you felt like it".

Randy Christian's principal victim had been "isolated and ostracised" by her family, who pressured her not to testify. Justice Johnson said the woman only found out about her grandmother's death on Pitcairn through rumour.

"Some people on this island who did not see or hear the evidence have publicly suggested that it is a fiction," the judge said.

"The fact that the major complainant gave her evidence in the face of total rejection by her family is eloquent proof to the contrary."

Justice Johnson told Brown he "disgraced himself" 30 years ago when he raped his victim. "This was no idyllic South Pacific seduction."

The other two guilty men - Brown's son, Dave, and Dennis Christian - were sentenced to community service.

The unresolved legal issues have left a deeply divided community facing months of uncertainty.

Mike Lupton, an Englishman married to Steve Christian's sister, Brenda, said: "The trials had to happen in order for things to be put right. But now we are in limbo. This will make it very hard to move on."

Simon Moore, the Pitcairn public prosecutor, said the trials had sent a strong signal to a society where men abused young girls with impunity for decades. "No one will be able to say that they're beyond the reach of the law, because we've proved that they're not."