Steve Christian
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fr:Steve Christian Steven Raymond Christian (born 1951) was the Mayor of the Pitcairn Islands, a British dependency in the Pacific Ocean, from 7 December 1999 to 30 October 2004. As such, he was the local head of government of what is the smallest generally recognized country (as opposed to a micronation) in the world with regard to population, as the Pitcairn Islands have a total population of only 47, as of October 2004. He also acts as the island's supervising engineer/mechanic, dentist and X-ray technician, and as coxswain of the longboat, which is described as Pitcairn's umbilical cord to the outside world. He was formally dismissed from office on 30 October 2004, following his rape conviction on 24 October.
Christian is a patrilineal descendant of Fletcher Christian, leader of the mutineers in the late 18th century on the HMS Bounty, a story told in the 1932 Nordoff and Hall novel and several subsequent motion picture versions as Mutiny on the Bounty. Public respect for his lineage gave him considerable de facto influence long before he held political office, first as a member of the Island Council in 1976. He again served on the Council in 1982, and was briefly Chairman of the Internal Committee (considered the second-most influential political position on the island) in 1985. He was to hold this position again in 1991 and 1992, 1994 and 1995, and 1998 and 1999, when he was elected as the island's first Mayor. The title was new but the office was not: the Mayor had previously been known as the Magistrate.
The rape trial
On 4 October 2004, the Pitcairn Supreme Court, (made up of judges from New Zealand) was convened for the trial of Steve Christian and six other men on the charges of rape and child sexual abuse. "Steve seemed to take it upon himself to initiate all the girls, and it was like we were his harem," a former islander (name withheld) declared in a written statement read out by police at the trial. She further alleged that she herself had been raped twice by Christian in 1972, when she was 12. One of the rapes had taken place in bushland and the other in a boat moored in Bounty Bay.
She had not informed her parents or others in the community, she said, because she had no faith that anything would be done about it. "What good would it have done for me if I had reported it?" she asked. "I knew nothing would have been done about it, because of previous experience on the island. It was an act that everybody on the island knew was happening, and nobody wanted to talk about it and say it was wrong and deal with it."
On October 6 2004, the prosecution produced a videotape of an interview conducted at Auckland Central police station in New Zealand in 2000. Christian denied "breaking in" four girls in their early teens or younger. (He was later accused by a fifth woman of having raped her in a similar fashion). Asked about one accuser, who claimed that Christian raped her around 1970 or 1971 when she was 13 and he was 19 or 20, Christian agreed that it "could be the case" that he had sex with one girl of 13 and another of 15. He said he could not recall the specific incidents but admitted to two other sexual relationships with girls under 16, both of whom, he insisted, had consented. In the video, Christian appeared surprised when told by police that the legal age of consent under British law, applicable to Pitcairn, was 16.
On October 12 2004, another of Christian's victims told the court that he had gone to her house the night his first son was born, and asked her for sex. She had refused. Her testimony was disputed, however, by Royal Warren, now 76, who assisted with the birth. She said that Christian had been present throughout the whole time of his wife's labour. Mrs Warren admitted that Christian had left the room at one point to go to the toilet, "but I know," she said, "that he never left the room to go and do anything harmful."
Three of the four women named in the videotape withdrew from the case before it came to court. Only two gave evidence at his trial. Christian pleaded not guilty to all charges of rape and indecent assault, but on 24 October 2004, he was convicted of committing five rapes on girls as young as 12 between 1964 and 1975. (He was acquitted of a sixth rape charge and of four indecent assault charges).
Christian's son Randy and father-in-law Len Brown were also convicted of sexual offences, as were three other islanders; a seventh defendant, former Magistrate Jay Warren, was acquitted.
In the wake of the verdicts, Matthew Forbes, the Deputy Governor of the British dependency, called on both Steve and Randy Christian (who chaired the powerful Internal Committee and was regarded, in effect, as his father's deputy) to resign from their respective positions, and hinted that if they did not, Governor Richard Fell would force the issue. The elder Christian refused, asserting in an e-mail to a supporter that he had "not been convicted of anything illegal." He went on to challenge Fell to "f*** off" and dismiss him, which he did.
On 8 November 2004, Christian's sister Brenda, the island's sole police officer, was elected by the Island Council to succeed him in an interim capacity, pending elections scheduled for 15 December, when Jay Warren, the acquitted former magistrate, was elected mayor.