The Surgeon Of St Helena

Luke Jones takes you behind The Pitcairn Trials, to answer some of your most-asked questions. We hear how he navigated interviewing Glenda, who grew up on Pitcairn and experienced abuse there, how he found his way through a maze of official legal documents and whether he would ever visit Pitcairn himself. Luke reveals the unanswered questions he still has from the series, and the areas he’d like to explore further.

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The Guilty men of Pitcairn received remarkably short prison sentences. Some on the island, sent to the luxury jail they helped to build. Some received community service, with time off to help with the island’s harvest and work. In the end the Pitcairn Trials cost £47 million, paid by the British taxpayer and government. By 2009 all the convicted men had been released. But the problem did not vanish in the years since. We examine what the future holds for Pitcairn. Can Pitcairn escape the shadows of its past?

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Glenda takes the stand. Through interviews and court transcripts, we examine the Defence team’s arguments, and the legal debates that surrounded them. Glenda and police officer Peter George wait for the verdict in the UK. Peter gets it first, then phones Glenda.

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Judges, lawyers and a press pack make the long journey to Pitcairn and the trials begin. Journalists are summoned to a meeting of all the women on the Island at Big Fence as they argue that their men are innocent, and there are claims that the trials are a British conspiracy to reclaim Pitcairn. A punishment for the mutiny on the Bounty in 1789, revenge on Pitcairn, being a dish served well and truly cold.

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Despite immense pressure to withdraw their testimony, key witnesses for the prosecution are secured. A campaign to undermine the victims to withdraw from the trial begins, led by Pitcairn women.

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Luke Jones meets Glenda at her home, in the UK. Glenda grew up on Pitcairn but now lives in the UK. She was abused growing up but told no one, until she was contacted by Kent Police during Operation Unique. This is the first time Glenda has recorded her story and it is very emotional. Glenda is supported in the room by her therapist and friend Sandy. And what about justice for the victims and survivors? Some fear the risks to the Island are too great to take this to trial. Politicians and lawyers around the world fiercely debate whether there is a case to answer.

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What is the history of the Island of Pitcairn, its myths and realities? Born from the 1789 Mutiny, the mutineers, led by Fletcher Christian stumble across Pitcairn. Handily wrongly located on maps, this is their opportunity to escape the British Navy and disappear, today all Pitcairn families are descended from the mutineers and their Tahitian ‘wives’. But they were not a contented community, marked by violence and death, which are marked on the Island in place names. Abuse survivor Glenda, now living in the UK, paints a vivid picture of life on the Island, eating breadfruit, swimming, the unique language, the red volcanic dirt. But her memories are not all full of sunshine.

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Kent WPC Gail Cox is chosen as the woman to bring law to Pitcairn. She sets off to Pitcairn to teach the locals how to Police themselves. At a drunken Pitcairn party, one evening, another girl makes an allegation of rape. Detective Peter George returns to Pitcairn and a distressing and astonishing picture begins to emerge of child sexual abuse on an unimaginable scale.

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In Kent, UK, Police Officer Peter George is asked to investigate an alleged serious crime: the rape of a child. The crime is not in England but on the remote Pacific Island of Pitcairn, and what Peter and his colleague find is a complicated story. They decide that modern British law and policing must be taken to this worryingly lawless Island, but how to implement an entire legal system on a remote Pacific island? And what are the secrets that are hidden in plain sight?

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Halfway between Peru and New Zealand is a tiny volcanic island, a little known British Territory. The community of Pitcairn is home to 37 people and a terrifying scandal. In The Pitcairn Trials, British Journalist Luke Jones uncovers a story of historic abuse in a remote place where prosecuting secrets and challenging centuries of power has left deep scars on generations of women and girls, and brought a unique, lonely, pacific island to the brink of extinction.The Pitcairn Trials is a chilling lesson in what human beings can be capable of when they think no one is watching them.

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