He's the only policeman for 3,300 miles

When Malcolm Gilbert spotted a job advert asking for a policeman with “remote island experience”, he thought that he might just fit the bill.

Having spent 30 years pounding the beat in one of Britain’s most far-flung island communities, the 55-year-old former sergeant applied for the post. Though more used to a dark uniform and waterproofs in his job on Orkney, he will put on Bermuda shorts and suncream to take up his new post on the tiny sub-tropical island of Pitcairn, on the far side of the world.

Mr Gilbert is to become the first full-time policeman on the two-and-a-half-mile-long (4km) volcanic speck of land that sits in the middle of the South Pacific, halfway between New Zealand and South America.

He is being employed by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office for the year-long posting, during which he will be the sole arbiter of law and order among the 47-strong population, one of the world’s most isolated communities. If anything does go awry, his nearest back-up will be about 3,300 miles away in New Zealand, a seven-day journey by boat.