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Pitcairn mutiny over child sex caseBy Claire Harvey, New Zealand correspondentJuly 27, 2004

THE "pirates and traitors" who mutinied on the Bounty in 1789 and fled to Pitcairn Island were never caught by the British navy - and now their descendants say they are still outlaws from British justice and cannot be prosecuted for child sex offences.Rebel sailor Fletcher Christian and his band of mutineers set Captain William Bligh and his officers adrift in the South Pacific in a rowboat and escaped Britain's fury by sailing on to uninhabited Pitcairn Island with their Tahitian lovers, then burning the Bounty.
Now seven island men, facing 96 charges of sex with underage girls, have invoked their ancestors' pirate spirit, arguing Pitcairn is not the last British dependency in the Pacific but an independent state outside London's reach.
In an unprecedented case, defence lawyers are asking the Pitcairn Court of Appeal, which sits in Auckland, to rule that by committing piracy and treason, the Bounty mutineers were no longer British subjects when they settled the island in January 1790.
Britain never owned the island and now had no power to impose its laws or prosecute the islanders, said defence barrister Adrian Cook QC, a retired Australian judge.

The men dramatically declared themselves free from Britain when they set the Bounty on fire -- a treasonable act punishable by death, Mr Cook said.
"British citizenship can be given up by signing a declaration under the British Citizenship Act. Maybe burning a warship is as effective and powerful as signing a document," he said.
The tiny island, with only 45 inhabitants, is funded by London as a dependent territory, and ruled by a local council and a British-appointed governor, diplomat Richard Fell.
Britain has never explicitly declared the island a colony and islanders have long complained that Whitehall has neglected their requests for paved roads, an airstrip and a harbour.
The seven accused men face trial in September in the Pitcairn Supreme Court, which will sit on the island.
Mr Cook and Pitcairn public defender Paul Dacre are asking the Pitcairn Court of Appeal to rule that the whole case is constitutionally invalid, and have vowed to pursue it all the way to the Privy Council in London.
That process could take several years, so Britain is going ahead with the trial anyway, shipping lawyers, judges, police and media from Tahiti, two days' sail away.
Mr Cook urged the court to give the islanders some official status, saying even if they had used British money and protection in the past, the islanders ruled their own "independent state".
"It is time, whatever else happens, to examine these people's situation," he said.
"It can still remain as an independent state in free association with Great Britain."
The hearing is continuing.