Not guilty
In June 1994, five members of the outwardly normal middle-class Bain family were murdered in their Dunedin home. David Bain was jailed for the murders in 1995. He never stopped claiming he was innocent and in 2009 was acquitted in a second trial. In a 10-
He was careful to be scrupulously fair to both sides in his summary, no doubt with an eye on a possible appeal by the defence.
He did, however, make a statement that seemed to me to reveal exactly where his sympathies lay, although few would have picked it up.
In instructing the jury that they were entitled to reach deductions based on direct evidence, the Judge chose an example which he had suggested in pre-trial argument was a particularly strong point for the Crown.
On the morning of the murders police had found the day’s Otago Daily Times newspaper on a cabinet in the hallway of the Every St house.
Justice Panckhurst set out the direct evidence that allowed the jury to infer Robin Bain had brought the paper in from the letterbox and placed it on the hallway cabinet.
‘‘You can only arrive at that, as I say, by inference. So what ordinarily would be a very everyday, commonplace circumstance, that a householder had wandered to the gate and picked up a newspaper. But someone intent on murder and suicide? Why would they be getting a newspaper to leave in the house when there is to be one survivor who won’t be, one would have thought, interested in reading the newspaper?
‘‘Well the Crown says there is a simple answer to that and it is that Robin Bain was not intent on murder gratitude was furtherest from his mind.
It was no secret the defence camp and Justice Panckhurst had a testy relationship. Justice Panckhurst and Bain’s lawyer Michael Reed QC clearly loathed each other and it sometimes spilled out in court.
I looked over to David standing in the dock. He looked stunned.
Justice Panckhurst thanked the jury and told David he could leave the dock.
David returned to the cell where he had spent breaks and lunchtimes during the trial. Each night he would emerge with his big red lunch box to go home to the house of a former Press sub-editor Carolyn Davies and her husband, Roger. Their daughter, Liz, a primary school teacher, like David’s parents, would in 2014 marry David and have his child.
After David had collected himself, he, with Karam by his side, left the courtroom a free man.
In the foyer jubilant supporters mobbed him. The scientist who had marshalled the scientific evidence in his defence, Anna Sandiford, held back from the throng but had tears running down her face.
I approached Carolyn Davies for a comment but she was tearful and speechless.
Karam spotted TV1 journalist Chris Cooke in the foyer. Cooke had made no secret of his belief in David’s guilt and Karam asked him if he wanted to apologise. Cooke smiled and shook and Goliath,