First shown in December 2006

In 2004 one of the most unusual trials in the history of the British Empire took place on Pitcairn Island – a tiny colony of just 47 people, lying 9,000 miles from London. The trial, in which six local men were convicted of systematically raping children as young as eight years old, sent shockwaves around the world. The case divided the tiny population of locals and became a battleground between a 200 year-old island way of life on one side and modern British justice on the other.

Now, just days after the Privy Council has rejected the men's appeal against conviction, the people of Pitcairn, and one of the victims, tell their extraordinary story for the first time in Trouble in Paradise: The Pitcairn Story – a unique film which examines how isolation in thousands of miles of empty ocean can affect our perception of what is right and what is wrong.

Lying in the South Pacific, roughly between New Zealand and Chile, Pitcairn Island is one of the last outposts of the British Empire. The colony was settled in 1790 by the Bounty mutineers and their Tahitian companions, and lay undetected for 20 years. Even now the islanders live a remote life with no television, roads or airstrip.

But in 2004, Pitcairn Island rocketed to the centre of the world's attention when allegations of a long history and tradition of sex abuse of girls as young as eight culminated in the arrest of seven local men – descendants of the Bounty mutineers – on sex-related offences including rape. During the trial, the main defence was that consensual underage sex was traditional on the remote island.

Six of the men were convicted of the attacks, while the seventh was cleared. Incredibly, the convicted men had even helped build a jail on the island in preparation of the trial's outcome but they were not immediately imprisoned because of their pending Privy Council appeal.

During this time, they, their families and one of their victims spoke exclusively and candidly to film maker Nick Godwin about the sex scandal that shocked the rest of the world. It is the first time any of the convicted men, or victims, have spoken outside the trial.

'No one knew any different, it was all consented or whatever,' says Steve Christian, former mayor and the man considered the ring-leader of the group. 'We didn't know the law or the British law. There was no rape'.

'There's been no rape in Pitcairn. There was underage consented sex, I would say that yes,' agrees Steve's wife Olive Christian, whose son, brother and father were also convicted. 'I'm the worst off you would say, but my shoulder can keep them up above water.'

In support of their menfolk, many of the women of the Island maintained that underage sex was part of Pitcairn's culture. Meralda Warren sister of the acquitted man acknowledges that most of the women of her generation were having sex at the ages of 12, 13 or 14. 'We're Polynesians,' she explains. 'In Polynesia we grow up very quickly'.

But one of the victims, a 35-year-old Pitcairn Islander then living in London – Jacqui Christian – tells the other side of the story and is the only victim to have talked publicly:

'We could go most places we wanted to go after school, riding our bikes, flying kites, or go anywhere on the island without being mugged,' she recalls. 'And that's something I still treasure.

'And then you have another side that we've never, ever talked about, ever, before this trial, where being a girl we always tried to avoid being anywhere with an adult male on our own'.

The men still express little regret about their actions. 'What I'm being accused of is nothing from what has happened on Pitcairn in our parent's days, in their parent's days,' says Steve Christian. 'Don't let anyone run off with the idea that in Pitcairn's history we were the bad ones. No we were the good ones'.

But Jacqui Fletcher tells of the toll the abuse has taken on the rest of her life:

'It affects your whole life, decisions you make, who you become. It affects your relationships. It affects how you think about having children and having children of your own,' she says. 'I'm 35 and I still haven't been game enough to have children of my own yet.

'I don't have hate, I'm not after revenge. I'm after justice. Some of the people are quite closely related to me... and I don't want them hurt but I want them to admit that what they're doing is wrong. And recognition in itself will bring healing – but they have to make their own choice.'

If you've been affected by any of the issues raised here you can find details of organisations that may be able to help you here.

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