Pitcairn woman says she could tell nobody about 'attacks'

By KATHY MARKS


A woman who claims she was raped and molested on Pitcairn Island says she felt she could tell no one in the tiny community.

Former magistrate Jay Warren followed the mayor, Steve Christian, into the dock yesterday, charged with indecently assaulting a 12-year-old girl.

The incident allegedly occurred in Bounty Bay, the picturesque small cove where Fletcher Christian and his fellow mutineers burned their ship two centuries ago to cover their traces.

The Pitcairn Supreme Court heard that Warren, 48, who later served as the island's magistrate for a decade, groped the girl in the early 1980s as she was body-surfing in the bay with friends after school.

"I was wearing flippers, so I just struggled to kick and swam away," said the woman, testifying by video link from New Zealand.

Warren denies the charge.

Asked by public defender Paul Dacre why she did not tell anyone about the alleged assault, the woman, now 33, said: "On Pitcairn I don't recall talking about anything personal to anyone in the whole time I lived there."

She said she could remember the incident clearly, as well as "many more that happened before that age".

Asked whether she informed the magistrate, the woman laughed and said: "Definitely not."

Warren was magistrate of the remote British dependency for most of the 1990s.

In 1999, he presided over the case of Ricky Quinn, a 19-year-old New Zealander, sentencing him to 100 days in jail for "unlawful carnal knowledge" of a 15-year-old girl.

The girl allegedly attacked by Warren said it was the only occasion on which it happened.

"I was getting smarter at making sure I was getting away from anyone, because of all the incidents," she said.

The same girl was one of four alleged victims of Terry Young, 45, who also went on trial yesterday, charged with one rape and seven indecent assaults spanning nearly 20 years.

She told the court she was 10 when Young groped her as she emerged from the girls' toilets at the island's school, where she had been attending an evening community function.

Young has admitted accosting her in a narrow passageway between the toilets and wash-basins.

He also told police that he molested another girl when she was 13 or 14 while she was riding with him on his quad-bike.

Another 10-year-old was allegedly assaulted by Young during a children's game of tag at a communal dinner at an islander's house.

He admitted that the incident happened, but claimed it was accidental. He has formally denied the charges.

Young's principal victim was a girl he allegedly molested regularly, starting when she was just 7.