Pitcairn islanders lose appeal on sex sentences

Six Pitcairn Island men sentenced to prison and community service for raping and assaulting underage girls lost an appeal against…

Six Pitcairn Island men sentenced to prison and community service for raping and assaulting underage girls lost an appeal against their convictions, local media reported today.

The Pitcairn Supreme Court, sitting in Auckland, rejected the defendants' challenges to their convictions, including a claim that British law did not apply to the descendants of the 18th-century Bountymutineers, Radio New Zealand reported.

The convictions and sentences, imposed last October, had been suspended pending the outcome of the case. Britain's Privy Council is to hear an appeal later this year that Britain has no jurisdiction over the remote South Pacific island.

Four men, including Pitcairn's former mayor Steve Christian, were sentenced to prison terms ranging from two to six years for raping underage girls on the sparsely populated island.

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Two other island men were convicted of indecently assaulting girls and ordered to perform hundreds of hours of community service and to undergo counselling.

The men had argued that underage sex had been an island tradition since the Bountymutineers arrived with their Tahitian women in 1790.

Pitcairn, with a population of 47, is the last British territory in the South Pacific, a dot in the ocean 1,300 miles southeast of Tahiti.

Several of the sentenced men operate the island's boats, which are lifelines to the outside world and ferry in essential supplies.