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 Pandora (1779) learning of the mutiny on HMS "Bounty", the First Lord of the Admiralty, John Pitt, 2nd Earl of Chatham, decided to despatch her to recover the "Bounty", capture the mutineers, and return them to England for trial. She was refitted, and her 9-pounder guns were reduced to 20 in number, though she gained four 18-pounder carronades. "Pandora" sailed from The Solent on 7 November 1790, commanded by Captain Edward Edwards and manned by a crew of 134 men. With his crew was Thomas Hayward, who had been on the "Bounty" at the time of the mutiny, and left with Bligh