Pitcairn sexual assault trial of 2004 denied the island's colonial status, and with it the United Kingdom's judicial authority. Defence lawyers for the seven accused men claimed that British sovereignty over the islands was unconstitutional: HMS "Bounty" mutineers, from whom almost all of the current island population is descended (together with Polynesians), had effectively renounced their British citizenship by committing a capital offence in the burning of the "Bounty" in 1790, they said. According to the Public Defender of the Pitcairn Islands Paul Dacre (who was appointed in 2003), islanders still celebrated this act annually by burning an effigy of the "Bounty" in a symbolic rejection
HMS Bounty to and including the names of every seaman on board, something which larger ships in the rating system only occasionally were capable of due to crews in the hundreds whereas the "Bounty" carried fewer than fifty personnel. Bligh's original log remained intact throughout his ordeal and was used as a major piece of evidence in his own trial for the loss of the "Bounty" as well as the subsequent trial of captured mutineers. The original log is presently maintained at a museum in New South Wales with available transcripts in both print and electronic format. In the 18th century Royal