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 Christian was found to be unresponsive and pronounced dead at Albemarle Hospital in Elizabeth City, NC. A second "Bounty" replica, named HMAV "Bounty", was built in New Zealand in 1979 and used in the 1984 film "The Bounty". The hull is constructed of welded steel oversheathed with timber. For many years she served the tourist excursion market from Darling Harbour, Sydney, Australia, before being sold to HKR International Limited in October 2007. She is now a tourist attraction (also used for charter, excursions and sail training) based in Discovery Bay, on Lantau Island in Hong Kong, and has an additional