Pitcairn Islanders lose final appeal

Top L-R: Dennis Christian, Randy Christian, Steve Christian. Bottom L-R: Terry Young, Dave Brown, Len Brown.

Six Pitcairn Islanders convicted of sex crimes on the remote Pacific Island had their final appeals dismissed overnight.

The Privy Council in London dismissed the argument that English law does not apply in Pitcairn and that it was never properly proclaimed.

The Law Lords have also turned down the claim that the men suffered an abuse of process, because of the long time it took for their cases to be dealt with by the courts.

The six men who were convicted in October 2004 of historic crimes of rape, incest and sexual assault over a 30-year period are former mayor Steve Christian, his son Randy Christian, Steve Christian's father-in-law Len Brown and his son Dave Brown, Pitcairn's postmaster Dennis Christian and Terry Young.

The men have been out on bail pending the outcome of the hearing.

"Let me not mince words," Lord Hope of Craighead said in the decision handed down by the Privy Council overnight in London.

"This case is about child abuse on a grand scale."

The ruling means the men will serve a range of sentences from community service to six years in the jail they helped to build on Pitcairn.

Seven New Zealand prison officers will staff the prison, a British Foreign Office spokesman said. Britain will pay the bill, expected to total £500,000 ($1,451,800) a year.

Pitcairn Island deputy governor Matthew Forbes told National Radio today that the officers were already on the island, waiting to begin overseeing the sentences.

Mr Forbes said the decision from the Privy Council represented "the end of the road" as far as the legal process went for the men, and there would be no further appeals.

Lord Triesman, British Minister responsible for overseas territories, was reported by the UK Press Agency as saying: "Despite the difficulties of prosecuting serious crimes such as these in such a remote location, it is important that child sex offenders are dealt with by the courts.

"The decision today opens the way for this remote community to move forward."

The appeal to the Privy Council ended in just two days - well short of the two weeks the hearing was expected to take - after the court refused to hear arguments about the history of the island.

Counsel for the men had hoped to argue that Pitcairn had been settled by Fletcher Christian and his fellow mutineers from the Bounty, so they and their descendants had lived outside the law.

But the court refused to hear the claims, saying the Queen had long claimed the island and it was not the court's place to challenge that.

The men's lawyers were left to argue that the earlier trials amounted to an abuse of legal process.

Only 50 people remain living on Pitcairn, which can only be reached by boat. The convicted men make up a quarter of the island's adult males.

- NEWSTALK ZB, NZHERALD STAFF