A study of island records confirmed anecdotal evidence that most girls bore her first child between the ages of 12 and 15. "I think the girls were conditioned to accept that it was a man's world and once they turned 12, they were eligible," Tosen said. Mothers and grandmothers were resigned to the situation, telling him that their own childhood experience had been the same; they regarded it as just a part of life on Pitcairn. One grandmother wondered what all the fuss was about. Tosen was convinced, however, that the early sexual experience was very damaging to the girls. "They can't settle or form solid relationships. They did suffer, no doubt about it," he said emphatically.[7]

Pitcairn's 47 inhabitants, almost all of whom are interrelated, were bitterly divided by the charges against what constituted most of the adult male population. Many Pitcairn Island men blamed the British police for persuading the women involved to press charges. Some of the women agreed. Sources close to the case said that, when several women withdrew their charges, it was due to family pressure.

On 28 September 2004, Olive Christian, wife of the accused Mayor, daughter of Len Brown and mother of Randy Christian, both of whom were also among those accused, called a meeting of thirteen of the island's women, representing three generations at her home, Big Fence, to "defend" the island's menfolk. Claiming that underage sex had been accepted as a Polynesian tradition since the settlement of the island in 1790, Olive Christian said of her girlhood, "We all thought sex was like food on the table." Christian’s two daughters also said that they had both been sexually active from the age of 12, with one of them claiming that she started having sex at 13, "and I felt hot shit about it, too". They and other women present at the meeting, who endorsed their view that underage sex was normal on Pitcairn, stated emphatically that all of the alleged rape victims had been willing participants.[10]

Auckland lawyer Christopher Harder, who represented one of the accused, appealed for mercy in view of the social devastation he said would be caused by the imprisonment of most of the island's able-bodied men. He proposed that the men make a public apology and pay compensation to their victims, instead of facing imprisonment, which, he said, could mean the end of the microstate.