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 on volunteer crew. On 29 October 2012, sixteen "Bounty" crew-members abandoned ship off the coast of North Carolina after getting caught in the high seas brought on by Hurricane Sandy. The ship sank, according to Coast Guard Air Station Elizabeth City, at 12:45 UTC Monday 29 October 2012, and two crew members, including Captain Robin Walbridge, were reported as missing. The Captain was not found and presumed dead on 2 November 2012. It was later reported that the Coast Guard had recovered one of the missing crew members, Claudene Christian, descendant of Fletcher Christian of the original HMS "Bounty". Ms.