5 - “Operation Unique”

Summary

In September 2004 the machinery of colonial justice travelled to Pitcairn Island in the eastern Pacific Ocean for the trials of seven men charged with sexual offences against women and girls over a thirty-year period. The journey took around four days. Three judges, four prosecutors, three defence lawyers, two court officials, two Ministry of Defence police, and six journalists flew from London and Auckland to Papeete in Tahiti. From there, they took a threehour flight to Hao Island in French Polynesia and then a further two-hour flight to Mangareva, the main island in the Gambier archipelago and the nearest landfall to Pitcairn. From Mangareva they travelled by boat, thirty-six hours on a chartered vessel, the Braveheart, and then took a short trip ashore in a longboat manned by a number of the accused. One of the journalists, Claire Harvey, reported that the “six-week trial … made Pitcairn Island the focus of international fascination and revulsion.” She writes,

Pitcairn Island has always been famous. Before these trials, it was known as the world's most remote inhabited island, the secret hideaway of Fletcher Christian and his band of British sailors who mutinied aboard His Majesty's Armed Vessel Bounty in 1789 and abducted a group of Tahitian women to be their wives. Just 47 people live on the island today.

Suddenly at the end of September, Pitcairn became notorious. The trial was reported from Kazakhstan to Bahrain. (“Men Overboard” 17)