Steve Christian

Last updated

Steve Christian
1st Mayor of Pitcairn Islands
In office
7 December 1999 8 November 2004
Parent(s) Ivan Christian
Verna Carlene Young
Relatives Brenda Christian (sister)

Steven Raymond Christian (born 26 June 1951, Pitcairn Island) is a politician, convicted sex offender and child rapist from the Pitcairn Islands. [1] He was mayor of the islands from 1999 until 2004, when he was removed from office after being found guilty in the Pitcairn child sexual abuse trial.

Contents

Background and mayoralty

Christian is a patrilineal descendant of Fletcher Christian, leader of the mutineers in the late 18th century on HMS Bounty, a story told in the 1932 Nordoff and Hall novel Mutiny on the Bounty , and several subsequent motion picture versions. He is the son of Ivan Roa Christian and Verna Carlene "Dobrey" Young, a descendant of Ned Young. Ivan Roa Christian is the son of Richard Charles Edgar Christian and nephew of Charles Richard Parkin Christian, and is the grandson of Francis Hickson Christian. Steve Christian married Olive Jal Brown in 1972 and they have four children: Trent, Randy, Shawn and Tania.

Public respect for Steve Christian's lineage gave him considerable 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.

Christian was the Mayor of the Pitcairn Islands, a British dependency in the Pacific Ocean, from 7 December 1999 to 30 October 2004. He also acted as the island's supervising engineer, dentist, radiographer, 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.

Sexual assault trial

In 2004, Steve Christian, along with six other men, was tried on charges of rape and child sexual abuse by the Pitcairn Supreme Court. [1] [2] [3] Over the course of the trial, it was alleged that Christian repeatedly raped or assaulted a number of island women, including his children, over a period of several years [4] [5] – using the remoteness of the island and his position of power to coerce their silence. Christian denied all accusations of impropriety, but admitted having consensual sex with several of his children. Christian pleaded not guilty to all charges of rape and indecent assault, but on 24 October 2004, he was convicted of committing five rapes between 1964 and 1975 for which he was sentenced for three years. [5] [6] He was acquitted of a sixth rape charge and of four indecent assault charges.

On 8 November 2004, Christian's sister Brenda, [7] 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.

Later life

Christian served as one of the two assessors during the trial of Mayor Mike Warren for child pornography charges. When Warren was found guilty in 2016, Christian reportedly reacted: "I know I did some bad things in the past but never anything like that sort of stuff." [8]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Pitcairn Islands</span> British overseas territory in the South Pacific

The Pitcairn Islands, officially the Pitcairn, Henderson, Ducie and Oeno Islands, is a group of four volcanic islands in the southern Pacific Ocean that form the sole British Overseas Territory in the Pacific Ocean. The four islands—Pitcairn, Henderson, Ducie and Oeno—are scattered across several hundred miles of ocean and have a combined land area of about 18 square miles (47 km2). Henderson Island accounts for 86% of the land area, but only Pitcairn Island is inhabited. The islands nearest to the Pitcairn Islands are Mangareva at 688 km to the west and Easter Island at 1,929 km to the east.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Stuart Hall (presenter)</span> English media personality

James Stuart Hall Jr. is an English former media personality. He presented regional news programmes for the BBC in North West England in the 1960s and 1970s, while becoming known nationally for presenting the game show It's a Knockout. Hall's later career mainly involved football reporting on BBC Radio. In June 2013, he was convicted of multiple sexual offences against children, effectively ending his media and broadcasting career.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">History of the Pitcairn Islands</span> Chronology of the Pitcairn Islands

The history of the Pitcairn Islands begins with the colonization of the islands by Polynesians in the 11th century. Polynesian people established a culture that flourished for four centuries and then vanished. They lived on Pitcairn and Henderson Islands, and on Mangareva Island 540 kilometres (340 mi) to the northwest, for about 400 years.

The Aberdeen Scandal was a military sexual assault scandal in 1996 at Aberdeen Proving Ground, a United States Army base in Maryland.

Christopher David Denning is an English former radio presenter and convicted sex offender. His career effectively ended when he was convicted of sexual offences in 1974, and Denning has been imprisoned in Great Britain and overseas on multiple occasions since 1985.

In 2004, seven men living on Pitcairn Island faced 55 charges relating to sexual offences against children and young people. The accused represented a third of the island's male population and included Steve Christian, the mayor. On 24 October, all but one of the defendants were found guilty on at least some of the charges. Another six men living abroad, including Shawn Christian, who later served as mayor of Pitcairn, were tried on 41 charges in a separate trial in Auckland, New Zealand, in 2005.

Jay Calvin Warren is a political figure from the Pacific territory of the Pitcairn Islands.

Meralda Elva Junior Warren is an artist and poet of the Pitcairn Islands, a remote British Overseas Territory in the South Pacific. She works in both English and Pitkern, the island's distinctive creole language. Her book, Mi Bas Side Orn Pitcairn, written with the island's six children, is the first to be written and published in both English and Pitkern. As an artist, she works with tapa cloth, a Polynesian tradition. She has also published a cookbook featuring Pitcairn Island cuisine.

Brenda Vera Amelia Lupton-Christian is a political figure from the Pacific territory of the Pitcairn Islands. When her brother Steve Christian was removed from the office of mayor following the 2004 Pitcairn child sexual abuse trial, she served as interim mayor of the islands.

Betty Christian is the Communications Officer and Island Secretary of the Pitcairn Islands. Appointed by the colonial Governor, the Island Secretary is an ex officio member of the Island Council, the legislative body of Britain's last remaining Pacific colony. She previously served as an elected member of the Council in 1990 and 1993.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Pitcairn Supreme Court</span> Supreme court of the British Overseas Territory of Pitcairn Islands

The Pitcairn Supreme Court is the supreme court of the Pitcairn Islands, a British Overseas Territory. It is a superior court of record. Provisions for a supreme court were set out in amendments to the Old Constitution Order in the 1990s. The court first sat for the Pitcairn sexual assault trial of 2004, and its powers were further elaborated on in the Constitution Order 2010.

Michael Charles Glennon was a convicted Australian child molester and former Roman Catholic priest, the subject of one of the most notorious clergy sex abuse cases in Australia. Glennon ran a youth camp in Lancefield, Victoria, where most of the abuse took place.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mike Warren (mayor)</span> Pitcairnese politician

Michael Calvert Warren is a Pitcairnese politician, who was Mayor of the Pitcairn Islands from 2008 to 2013.

Catholic sexual abuse cases in Australia, like Catholic Church sexual abuse cases elsewhere, have involved convictions, trials and ongoing investigations into allegations of sex crimes committed by Catholic priests, members of religious orders and other personnel which have come to light in recent decades, along with the growing awareness of sexual abuse within other religious and secular institutions.

Catholic Church sexual abuse cases in Canada are well documented dating back to the 1960s. The preponderance of criminal cases with Canadian Catholic dioceses named as defendants that have surfaced since the 1980s strongly indicate that these cases were far more widespread than previously believed. While recent media reports have centred on Newfoundland dioceses, there have been reported cases—tested in court with criminal convictions—in almost all Canadian provinces. Sexual assault is the act of an individual touching another individual sexually and/or committing sexual activities forcefully and/or without the other person's consent. The phrase Catholic sexual abuse cases refers to acts of sexual abuse, typically child sexual abuse, by members of authority in the Catholic church, such as priests. Such cases have been occurring sporadically since the 11th century in Catholic churches around the world. This article summarizes some of the most notable Catholic sexual abuse cases in Canadian provinces.

Hubert Patrick O'Connor was a Canadian Catholic bishop in British Columbia who was forced to resign his position following charges of multiple sex crimes stemming from his time as principal at the Saint Joseph's Mission Residential School in Williams Lake. At the time, he was the highest ranking Catholic official in the world to be charged with a sex crime.

Raymond Teret was an English radio disc jockey who started his career in the 1960s. In December 2014 he was convicted of rape and indecent assault, and was sentenced to 25 years in prison. He died in prison in May 2021 at the age of 79, having served just over six years behind bars.

Shawn Brent Christian is a Pitcairnese politician, who served as Mayor of the Pitcairn Islands between 2014 and 2019. He previously served in prison after being convicted of child rape.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Child sexual abuse in the United Kingdom</span> Overview about child sexual abuse in the United Kingdom

Child sexual abuse in the United Kingdom has been reported in the country throughout its history. In about 90% of cases the abuser is a person known to the child. However, cases during the second half of the twentieth century, involving religious institutions, schools, popular entertainers, politicians, military personnel, and other officials, have been revealed and widely publicised since the beginning of the twenty-first century. Child sexual abuse rings in numerous towns and cities across the UK have also drawn considerable attention.

A child sexual abuse scandal involving the abuse of young players at football clubs in the United Kingdom began in mid-November 2016. The revelations began when former professional footballers waived their rights to anonymity and talked publicly about being abused by former coaches and scouts in the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s. This led to a surge of further allegations, as well as allegations that some clubs had covered them up.

References

  1. 1 2 Fickling, David (26 October 2004). "Six found guilty in Pitcairn sex offences trial". The Guardian . London. Archived from the original on 2 July 2015. Retrieved 29 November 2011.
  2. "Six guilty in Pitcairn sex trial". BBC News . 25 October 2004. Archived from the original on 31 July 2017. Retrieved 29 November 2011.
  3. "6 men convicted in Pitcairn trials". The New York Times . 24 October 2004. Archived from the original on 5 January 2015. Retrieved 29 November 2011.
  4. Lines, Chris (1 July 2006). "UK: Court dismisses key part of Pitcairn appeal". AAP General News Wire. ProQuest   432877107.
  5. 1 2 Birkett, Dea (29 October 2004). "Island of Lost Girls". The New York Times. p. A.25. Archived from the original on 31 October 2014. Retrieved 15 September 2017.
  6. "Six sentenced in Pitcairn abuse cases". NBC News. 25 October 2004. Retrieved 8 June 2022.
  7. "Islander changes his plea to admit sex assaults". The Telegraph. Archived from the original on 12 August 2017. Retrieved 26 September 2019.
  8. Marks, Kathy (11 March 2016). "Pitcairn in 'last chance saloon' after child abuse images case". The Guardian. Archived from the original on 13 August 2022. Retrieved 28 April 2023.