Islander changes his plea to admit sex assaults

The prosecution in the case of seven Pitcairn men accused of a catalogue of sexual offences against young girls on the island scored a significant victory yesterday when one of the defendants changed his plea to guilty.

Dennis Christian, the island postmaster and a descendant of the mutineer Fletcher Christian, admitted carrying out three sexual assaults on two girls aged as young as 12 between the early 1970s and early 1980s. Two of the charges were samples representing a prolonged pattern of abuse.

Christian, 49, now faces being jailed in the prison constructed on the island by the British Government in case of convictions in the seven separate trials.

He was remanded on bail by Judge Russell Johnson, one of three New Zealand judges trying the men without juries, and will be sentenced at the end of the remaining hearings. One charge against him was dropped.

Christian, wearing an HMS Bounty T-shirt, left court with Brenda Christian, his distant cousin and the island's police officer.

Simon Moore, the chief prosecutor in the trials, said he was pleased that Christian's victims had at least been spared the distress of giving evidence against him. Nine women, now living elsewhere, had been due to testify via satellite video link from Auckland.

Det Insp Rob Vinson of Kent police, one of the leaders of the Pitcairn investigation, said of the guilty plea: "It is a significant development. Hopefully, it will lead to some acceptance on the island of things that have taken place.

"It will be a relief for the victims who will now not be required to give evidence in this case. I have only the greatest admiration for their bravery and courage."

Earlier the court was told that Steve Christian, 53, the mayor of Pitcairn, treated the young girls of the island as a personal harem, reserving for himself the right to initiate them sexually.

He was described as a dominating force in the isolated Pacific community who showed no remorse after raping two girls aged 11 and 12.

The victims said they did not tell their parents because they would have been powerless to do anything on a speck of rock where co-operation between the few inhabitants, particularly the able-bodied men, was vital.

Their trauma was ignored until police began investigating sexual abuse on Pitcairn a quarter of a century later.

Christian, whose positions on the island range from supervising engineer to dentist, is accused of raping one girl four times and a second twice, as well as indulging in consensual sex with two other under-aged girls.

In a statement to police read out in court, the second of the alleged rape victims said: "Steve seemed to take it upon himself to initiate all of the girls on the island. It was like we were his harem."

The alleged offences took place between the mid-1960s, when the population was about 80, and the early 1990s, when it had dropped to about 60. There are now only 47 people on Pitcairn, a community founded in 1790 by nine mutineers from the Bounty, their Polynesian consorts and six Polynesian men.

Christian's second alleged rape victim grew up on the island before moving to New Zealand at 15 to continue her education. She accused him of raping her on successive days when she was 12 and he was 20 or 21.

Pressed on why she did not tell her father or mother, she said: "It was not something that was discussed at home because it was known generally that those incidents happened on the island and nothing was done about it.

"It was shoved under the carpet. What good would it have done for me if I had reported it?

Paul Dacre, defending, pointed out a number of discrepancies between the witness's testimony and her earlier statements to police.

The court, composed of New Zealand judges and counsel, also heard the final evidence from Christian's other alleged rape victim, who now lives in Britain.

She was giving evidence about Len Brown, 78, who is accused of raping her twice when she was a youngster.

The woman broke down in tears and banged the table as she defended her decision to give evidence against the men, saying her ordeal began when she was three years old.

Describing the horror of her early life, she said: "It was like a film reel going round and round in my head: my life on that God-forsaken island."