Pitcairn sex case in a logistics tangle

The long-running and complex saga of 13 Pitcairn Islanders facing sex charges has taken another twist with a suggestion the trial may be held on the island.

The Pitcairn Supreme Court sat in the Papakura District Court this week to discuss several aspects of the case, including the venue.

The island is famous as the home of Fletcher Christian and his band of mutineers, who took over the British merchant ship Bounty in April 1789 and set Captain William Bligh and 18 other loyal crew adrift in an open boat.

Holding criminal trials on the island presented an enormous logistical challenge, said the Pitcairn public prosecutor, Auckland-based Simon Moore.

The island, a tiny dot in the Pacific Ocean, halfway between New Zealand and Chile, is about 3.5km long. Britain administers the island and its laws and pays for much of its costs.

The island, with a population of about 50, has no airstrip or scheduled ship visits, no jail and no television.

Seven islanders living on Pitcairn, four living in New Zealand and two living in Australia face multiple sex charges which first surfaced several years ago. Some of the offences are alleged to have happened 40 years ago. They include rape and indecent assault.

The trial venue will be thrashed out in the Pitcairn Supreme Court sitting in South Auckland in the next few weeks, but if the trial is held on the island it could become one of the most complex and logistically challenging trials involving New Zealand lawyers.

Last April, Pitcairn public defender Paul Dacre, based in Auckland, lost his bid to have the islanders tried by their own community.

He argued that the British Government had no jurisdiction on the island after the Bounty was burned by Christian and his mutineers.

However, the Pitcairn Island Supreme Court bench of judges, consisting of Auckland justices Charles Blackie, Russell Johnson and Jane Lovell-Smith, said there were no grounds to doubt that British law applied to the island.

Mr Dacre is appealing their ruling in the Pitcairn Court of Appeal in the High Court in Auckland next month. Mr Moore said on Thursday: "We are going to have an argument about venue, where those trials will be, and what trials in any particular place will, in reality, mean.

"What I suspect we may end up having is the judges, counsel and accused being on Pitcairn but with video links with witnesses outside the jurisdiction, either based here [Auckland] or wherever the complainants are.

"It is terribly complicated."

An example, he said, was holding a person in custody. The island had no proper jail or prison officers. Locals could not be used and it was impossible to send prison officers there "just in case".

- NZPA