Pitcairn row gives glimpse of mutinous past

By KATHY MARKS

It was the closest that Pitcairn had ever come to civil insurrection, but there were no raised voices and no clenched fists, nor any hint of open confrontation.

The spark was the Clipper Odyssey, an American cruise ship that anchored offshore so that passengers could tour the island immortalised by the Bounty mutineers.

The vessel had called by 12 days earlier, and many outsiders visiting Pitcairn for the child sex abuse trials had seized the opportunity of a change of scene, after weeks without visiting a pub, cinema or restaurant.

A group of lawyers, journalists and police officers spent a pleasant afternoon drinking cocktails on deck.

Little did we know that our brief escape would provoke a row the following night at a local council meeting, where Steve Christian, Pitcairn's mayor and alleged serial child rapist, claimed our drunken antics had shamed the island.

One journalist had been so intoxicated, claimed Christian, that he fell over in the longboat and inadvertently exposed himself.

So when Clipper Odyssey returned, en route to Tahiti, battle lines were already drawn in the British dependent territory.

The word on the mud-caked streets was that Christian was determined to keep us off the ship this time, despite a personal invitation from the captain. Just after lunch, everyone gathered at the wharf.

As the longboats ferried the Americans back and forth, news filtered through that the tour operator did not want us aboard.

The decision was based on logistics, it was claimed. What the company did not reckon with, however, was the presence of Matthew Forbes, the British Deputy Governor, who was also planning to spend time on the ship.

The tour operator's veto, which reportedly followed an intervention by Christian's cronies, effectively prohibited Mr Forbes from boarding a vessel anchored in British territorial waters. The Deputy Governor had a quiet word with Mike Messick, the company's co-owner. Hey presto - the ban was lifted. Clipper Odyssey sent a dinghy to fetch us, and the uprising against Pitcairn's colonial rulers was nipped in the bud.

The incident illustrates the dynamics that made the job of reporting the child sex abuse trials on Pitcairn a peculiar challenge.

Rarely do journalists live in a tiny community while writing about it day after day.

Rarely, too, do we put our lives in the hands of men who detest us for telling the outside world about their alleged crimes - as we did when we boarded the longboat that brought us to shore.

It is impossible to overstate the claustrophobic intimacy of Pitcairn, where the 47 locals live cheek by jowl in Adamstown, the only settlement.

I shared a four-bedroom house with four journalists from Britain, New Zealand and Australia.

Our next-door neighbour was 78-year-old Len Brown who was found guilty of two rapes who could often be seen on his front porch, carving wooden curios.

Close by lives Dennis Christian, 49, who pleaded guilty to two sexual assaults and one indecent assault.

The other day, we had a chat with Dennis about honey. He was wearing a beekeeper's outfit, and was busy puffing smoke over his hives.

The seven defendants, who were free on bail, were omnipresent. Descending the Hill of Difficulty for a swim at Bounty Bay, I passed Steve Christian driving a bulldozer.

In the general store, which opens for three hours a week, I saw Randy Christian browsing the dusty shelves. Dennis Christian sold me stamps in Pitcairn's tiny post office.

It was a surreal experience to sit in court, listening to stories of sexual crimes committed by these men, and then to bump into them in mundane situations a few hours later.

Life took on a particularly unreal air when the cruise ship visited, discharging its passengers. It was like a game of make-believe. Let's make believe that there isn't a trial going on. Let's make believe that Pitcairn is the paradise island of popular fantasy.

Did they know about the trial, we asked the wide-eyed tourists, who had stopped us in the square, wanting to know if we were "real-life Pitcairners".

Yes, they said vaguely.

The daily interaction with the defendants was punctuated with strange contradictions. One afternoon I had a friendly chat with rapist Terry Young after buying a wooden shark that he had carved. The next morning, he pushed me roughly aside as I tried to take his photograph on the way into court.

Dave Brown, known as "The Mouth", lives up to his reputation. He hates reporters, he told us, and was sick of our "lies".

Steve Christian wears an enigmatic smile. He got his yes-men to fight his battles for him.

The cruise ship row was all about power. Until the trials, Christian - who himself spent the afternoon drinking on deck when Clipper Odyssey first visited - controlled everything on Pitcairn. He regards the cruise ships as a private playground.

Now he is no longer in control and his smile is wearing thin.