So Bain won’t get any compensation and what’s been offered to Pora is a joke.
Why?
The get tough on crime mantra that has been spun by the media and politicians has made the public so angry at crime that their views have been warped by spite and fury, the end result is an empty justice.
Bain didn’t kill his family and Pora didn’t kill Sarah Burdett but because of the arrogance of our judicial system, it doesn’t have the capacity to admit it’s wrong.
The police knew that Pora couldn’t have used the violence used to kill Burdett but they framed him anyway and the holes in the Bain case are so huge you could drive a truck through the case. David Dougherty was framed by the Police with false DNA and the horrific wrongful jailing of Peter Ellis over fake child abuse in Christchurch is a constant stain on our reputation.
Our love of locking people up has been manipulated so much so that we don’t actually care anymore if innocent people are trapped within our prison system. The Government won’t even consider if we have innocent people in prison, which is why a group of academics have had to step in and build an innocence project themselves.
Once upon a time, we used to believe that it was better to let go 100 guilty people if it stopped one innocent person going to jail, NZ isn’t like that anymore. We want to throw as many people in prison, make them suffer, give them no tools to better themselves and then scream for them to be monitored for the rest of their lives once they are released. And if innocent people are caught in that drift net, well fuck them, they probably hang around smelly criminals any way eh?
Good on ya Nu Zilind. Hush now and get a beer, watch the rugby and turn the BBQ on.
The whole process of having to show innocence “on balance of probabilities” is a confidence trick – a sham process that allows the judicial system one last grab at saving its face no matter how badly the system may have behaved during the process of prosecution.
All accused who have been found not guilty of any charge brought by the state should have all their defence costs reimbursed. This is the only way to ensure that the innocent who have been found not guilty of charges do not end up being punished by the process itself.
If only Bain and Pora were compensated with the same speed they were unjustly convicted, wouldn’t that be a fine thing??
Hah! Chance would be a fine thing!
What’s the bet Chester Borrows doesn’t get convicted. Or go to jail. Or suffer any injustice or indignity whatsoever. One rule for the Masters, one for the Slaves.
Of course not, Wensleydale. That would be demanding equality before our justice system.
Just ask any young woman who was attacked, raped, and when her attacker was hauled before the courts it’s HER past that was dragged out into the public arena.
Yet, the Courts are specifically prevented from looking at the past convictions of any defendent charged with violence.
Justice? Yeah, nah.
Borrows ain’t my master.
When is that half wit O”Connor from the police association going to be held accountable for his constant backing of police when they have failed big time. The rest of the population has to obey the law or risk prosecution while it is accepted that police can prosecute innocent people then suffer no punishment when they are shown to be wrong. With the Bain case & the destruction of evidence or failure to collect information (gunpowder residue) I just don’t understand how the police officers involved still had a job.
Any other job in NZ and they would be dismissed instantly.
Not only has the justice system failed, they are joined by the NZ armed forces who also can not admit any wrong doing and help Veterans in need as they should. Proper and fair compensation pay outs in NZ are a massive and very sad joke.
These rotten attorneys and — ” evidence planting ” criminal cops are not working for the people and justice, for the most part, but for the big bucks ( pay offs ) and stroking their friends backs with no moral conscience. No ethics and no understanding of the consequences of their unethical and criminal behavior.
Bain and Pora are innocent and they deserved much more compensation but our justice system is a failure and not about justice much at all. Most of these dead wood corrupt cops ; geriatric judges and their pedophile buddies need to be either put in jail or out to pasture.
Shame on the ugliness that prevails and the greed that dominates where fair play and sanity should dwell.
I personally know of a man who spent a year in prison in Christchurch and he was innocent and the judge and Parole Board failed the big one and they do often. How much would some jack a___ attorney want for compensation if he lost a year of his life spent in prison and he was innocent ? How many illegal and criminal pay offs go on secretly in this failure of a justice system we have ?
Bain didn’t kill his family? You bought Karam’s fantasies?
Read Callinan’s report.
Did you read Justice Binnie’s report?
Cover to cover. It was the most unbelievably facile “analysis”, read the transcript of his interview with Bain; it was inept, artless and gullible.
I’m no fan of Collins, but like a stopped clock she was occasionally right.
Ultimately, Binnie’s conclusion came down to one piece of evidence, the bloody sock print. A disputed piece of evidence that Justice Pankhurst had earlier identified as unreliable because of a flawed measurement methodology. There were plenty of undisputed pieces of evidence that he could have used e.g. Stephen’s blood on Bain’s shorts but they would have led to a different conclusion.
“A disputed piece of evidence that Justice Pankhurst had earlier identified as unreliable because of a flawed measurement methodology.”
Is Justice Pankhurst a forensics scientist?
Did the measured sock print in the simulation by the forensic scientists match the prints in the carpet? No – so they extrapolated to come to a conclusion.
And Binnie based his whole case on that. No wonder Collins pulled it, she would have been pilloried to blazes as a dupe if she’d bought it.
Panckhurst had seen one or two expert witnesses in his day, he was no mug.
Translation
I like Judith Collins cannot put aside my personal opinion of Bains ‘guilt’ aside and concede that I might be wrong, therefore I will only accept a conclusion that supports my belief and any that don’t like the Binnie report are automatically “flawed”
And what exactly does Stephens blood prove?, that David discovered the bloody scene in Stephens room, not disputed, it doesn’t prove that he is the killer!
The same thought crossed my mind, Rowan. David Bain walked into a Hollywood-style horror crime scene with five corpses, and blood everywhere. In doing so, he would have inadvertantly contaminated the crime scene and if he brushed against furniture, doorways, etc, it’s unlikely he could have avoided getting blood on his clothing. Especially as, bearing in mind, it was still a dark wintery morning in Dunedin.
In which case, having heard gurgling from Laniet, he waited for 20 minutes to call an ambulance.
So how come Robin showed a complete absence of Stephen’s blood?
David had a mark of Stephen’s blood in the crotch of his shorts.
Two problems here:
1. He said he hadn’t seen Stephen’s body
2. When he found him,he sat on him?
The other bit that bemuses me is the notion that I’m stuck in a dogmatic position while you’re not stuck on David’s innocence.
Cover to cover. It was the most unbelievably facile “analysis”, read the transcript of his interview with Bain; it was inept, artless and gullible.
I’m no fan of Collins, but like a stopped clock she was occasionally right.
Ultimately, Binnie’s conclusion came down to one piece of evidence, the bloody sock print. A disputed piece of evidence that Justice Pankhurst had earlier identified as unreliable because of a flawed measurement methodology. There were plenty of undisputed pieces of evidence that he could have used e.g. Stephen’s blood on Bain’s shorts but they would have led to a different conclusion.
E-cklectic, so the aquittal means nothing and we should go by your beliefs instead??
there’s more than just the bloody sock evidence. (Though I read up on it, and it’s pretty damning of Robin Bain, as the sockprints match his foot size, not Davids).
3D came up with they evidence of marks on Robin’s thumb that are consistent with filling a magazine with bullets.http://www.newshub.co.nz/tvshows/3d/new-evidence-could-clear-david-bain-2013062613
But anyway, I suspect anything we came up with wouldn’t convince you. Just as many people are still convinced Artur Allan Thomas did it, and that Lindy Chamberlain is guilty. Newsflash, Arthur is innocent; so is Lindy, and so is David. On the other hand, Robin and the dingo have a lot to answer for.
Piddle about with David but once you start accusing Robin you’d better have some powerful evidence – not the crappy soot marks that have been debunked.
How about some of Robin’s fingerprints on something?
How about some of Stephen’s blood on Robin?
How about a credible suicide note?
How about a credible reason for sparing David?
Easy to make some cheap allegations especially when the facts say different.
Oh, yeah, and it was a nice touch of Robin’s to bring the newspaper in for David to read being as how he wouldn’t have much else on his mind that morning.
Ignore my “beliefs” – read Callinan’s report which is based on the evidence – seriously, it’s all there.
https://admin.beehive.govt.nz/sites/all/files/Ian%20Callinan%20Report.pdf
E-clectic, so you were there and saw it all, did you?
Ha, that old one. Judges and juries are never there, are they? Yet, they fashion judgments from the physical evidence.
Just read Callinan’s report, the evidence speaks for itself.
https://admin.beehive.govt.nz/sites/all/files/Ian%20Callinan%20Report.pdf
Incidentally, @Sally’sH can you please point me to one piece of physical evidence that incriminates Robin? It was Robin or David, there are no other options. Actually, don’t waste your time – there aren’t any.
No, many of us did not buy into any fantasy at all. Karam is not about fantasies but about justice.
It is clear that Bain and Karam are good men and ethical caring men.
You place so much value in this Callinan report.
I place value on the truth and not what some, likely paid off,
research team put together to defend the evidence tampering criminal cops
and all those in the ( non ) justice system that supports their wrong theories.
Of course those few criminal Dunedin cops and their slimy attorney friends and the
crooked justice system workers and bought judges want to make it out that David Bain was guilty.
They are covering up big time and have for many years. David Bain deserves a huge compensation
and to deny him that is way way beyond what is right and just confirms the
insanity and unethical factions of our legal and justice systems. Full of wankers.
If Bain was so good and ethical, why didn’t he take the stand at the second trial? Why didn’t he allow himself to be cross examined? Shouldn’t have been a problem, should it?
Interesting question, E-Clectic.
According to Western principles of justice, no one is compelled to stand in a dock and answer questions. The onus is on the State to prove their case, not the Defendent has to prove his/her innocence. (And long may that simple concept of natural justice continue.)
However, that aside, my best guess (and it is only a guess) is that David was advised by someone in his team not to take the stand. It could have been a misguided attempt to shield him, remembering that David Bain had been in prison for over a decade and might not have been in a fit mental state to to withstand the rigours of cross-examination.
However, that’s only my guess and not supported by one jot of evidence whatsoever. I have zero knowledge of David Bain’s state of mind after his convictions were quashed by the Privy Council.
I will say, though, that it is one of three mis-judgements made by the Bain defence team. None of which directly impacted on the evidence and testimony presented at the re-trial – but still, not a “good look”.
One of the differences between the first and second trial was that Bain took the stand in the first trial and not the second.
If the Bain case has highlighted anything, it’s that political interference in our judicial system is hopelessly compromised.
Collins’ horrendous insults to both Bain and Justice Binnie seem to be the new benchmark of behaviour set by the Nats.
Amy Adams to David Bain Translation: You will be compensated by the crown, as cheaply as possible, just by calling the payment a different name, so we can sweep this monumental fuck up travesty of justice under the carpet and make it go away. At the same time we will appease the small minority of our voters who think you possibly did it based on the rumour mill instead of the facts, and we never have to admit responsibility.
+100%
so we can sweep this monumental fuck up travesty of justice under the carpet and make it go away
Translates as once again the judicial system does not have to admit error and can maintain the absurd myth that the system has adequate checks and balances and that it always acts in good faith.
Look up Sir Thomas Thorpe, he conducted extensive studies into all our controversial cases.
“In 2005 he published a book entitled Miscarriages of Justice. He researched 53 applications for the Royal Prerogative of Mercy and found that at least 20 applicants may have been wrongly imprisoned”
Interestingly enough he also examined the Bain case in-depth. And stated that he believed he did kill his family and was not one of the ‘wrongly imprisoned’.
Now no-one can call him biased, and he researched the evidence far more thoroughly than Binnie’s report (which even a 1st year law student could see was hopeless flawed and factually incorrect in many areas).
Correct Jollo, the Binnie report was simplistic rubbish.
Opinions are like arseholes, everybody has one. My opinion is David probably was wrongfully convicted, but the only person who knows what happened for sure is David. My opinion or anyone else’s isn’t relevant to his compensation right.
David received a new trial because there were substantial legal grounds for it. The fact is his conviction was overturned. That means in the eyes of the law David, has no criminal convictions for these murders, yet he spent twelve years of his life deprived of his freedom, paying a price for them. He must be compensated for it.
It isn’t up to you, or me, or Amy Adams to re-try David, the jury in his last trial did that, as they were ideally, privy to the most information. That is the system of justice we’re supposed to have because it’s the fairest most effective one we’ve been able to come up with. Without the belief that justice is served through the system, it’s integrity and the law itself falls over as it it loses the perception of being fair and right. Justice is supposed to right the wrongs, that includes accepting that the system isn’t perfect and there are miscarriages of it. Do guilty people get off scott free? Yes, sometimes. Do innocent people go to jail? Yes, sometimes.
In David’s last trial, the justice system said it was David that had been wronged because he was found not guilty. The next step should have been a compensation hearing to decide his entitlement and be done with it.
So you’re willing to allow the possibility of rewarding people for crime? Guilt and innocence don’t matter – it’s just the verdict that counts? The guidelines for compensation are very clear – to get compensation you need to show you’re innocent on the balance of probabilities. What could be fairer than that?
the jury in his last trial did that, as they were ideally, privy to the most information.
Have you checked out the inadmissible evidence? They were working with part of the picture as Reed/Cull called halt after halt to proceedings challenging evidence.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10848471
So you’re willing to allow the possibility of rewarding people for crime? Guilt and innocence don’t matter – it’s just the verdict that counts?
Well yes to the first question. I don’t know where you get guilt or innocence doesn’t matter – no one here said that at all. We put people in prison on the strength of a verdict punishing them by ruining their life and taking away their freedom, which they deserve if they did do it, but it’s always possible they didn’t do it. See how that must work both ways to be fair and just? Do you listen to yourself?
From a juror in the last trial:
The Bain juror also expressed concerns about the jury not having access to evidence that was suppressed until the verdict was reached and then released after the trial.
In the letter, the juror reveals three other jurors, of their own volition, visited Every St, where the murders took place, during the trial.
Jurors must reach their verdict only on evidence heard or seen in court. They must not make their own investigations during the trial.
Link here – http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/6472004/Don-t-pay-Bain-compo-juror
What you makes you think trial one was unsafe and trial two watertight?
You’re re-trying the case again, and again, completely missing the point.
Here’s what you wrote:
“The next step should have been a compensation hearing to decide his entitlement and be done with it.”
And that’s exactly what happened – they applied for compo. There was a hiccup as Binnie’s report wasn’t up to standard so a second judge was called in. If you haven’t read Binnie’s report, read it – then you’ll understand why it was turfed out – it was facile, credulous and hinged on one piece of disputed evidence. Callinan has done his review and Bain doesn’t meet the standard for compo – he wasn’t found innocent on the balance of probabilities. That’s it.
You seem to want him to get compo without meeting the criteria for compo.
Where does Michael Bain, Robin’s brother, and the rest of the Bain family fit in your model of compensation? The “innocence” of David implies the guilt of Robin. What about the hurt and shame they experience? What compensation are they getting?
The “hiccup” was purely Judith Collins. Evidently she wanted a pre-determined outcome from Justice Binnie, and he was not prepared to comply.
The question then has to be asked, is a report “up to standard” only when it presents the viewpoint you want?
I’m unsure what Michael Bain has to do with the case. Since he was not present on the early morning of 20 June 1994 at Every Street, in Dunedin, he does not feature as a material witness. And you certainly can’t convict based simply on someone else’s “hurt and shame”.
As for the alleged guilt of Robin Bain, there are several points to consider;
1. After Bain’s aquittal by the Privy Council, the second trial jury considered the evidence. They’ve had access to all the evidence and testimony which neither you nor I have had. I’d say they were in a better position to determine guilt or innocence.
2. The Schlaepfer family murders on 20 May 1992, where the grandfather (ref: http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10440545) Brian Schlaepfer, 64, shot or stabbed his wife Jocelyn, his three sons, Peter, Karl, and Darrell. Peter’s wife Hazel, and their son Aaron, were also murdered by Brian. Only one child survived. The Bain family murders, two years later, were eerily similar. It was reported that Mr Schlaepfer suffered from depression in the lead-up to the murders. Again, eerily similar to the Bain case where Robin Bain also reportedly suffered from depression.
3. Motive. Robin Bain’s incestuous relationship with Laniet made for a compelling motive. David Bain had none that I’m aware was ever presented at any of the trials.
By the way, I lived in Dunedin from late 1996 to 2000 and spoke to a friend of the late Laniet Bain. She confirmed that Laniet had disclosed that her father had “interfered with her”. (Though admittedly, whether this statement from Laniet’s friend is true or not cannot be verified.)
4. The discovery of marks on Robin Bain’s thumb by Waikato businessman David Giles, and reported by TV3’s 3D Team in 2013 (ref: http://www.newshub.co.nz/tvshows/3d/new-evidence-could-clear-david-bain-2013062613 and https://yournz.files.wordpress.com/2013/06/robinbain3.jpg?w=600) is pretty compelling;
“…that were on Robin Bain’s thumb and forefinger. We’ve got this rubbing mark here, and these twin parallel lines here. These are marks that are associated with loading the gun and handling the magazine.”
I understand precisely what the significance of those marks are, E-Clectic.
As a teenager, my dad owned a replica M16 semi-automatic rile that we used to take possum shooting (we were all bad shots – no possums were harmed, though quite a few tree leaves perished in the process). I recall re-loading the magazine with 22 calibre bullets and having twin parallel lines marking my thumb . I recall it vividly, though it was nearly 40 years ago, and the hassle of cleaning it off.
That, to me was compelling evidence – though again it was discovered too late to be presented at the 2009 re-trial.
It seems that that there will always be Doubters. Plenty still maintain that Lindy Chamberlain killed her baby and Thomas killed the Crewes (as someone else has already pointed out here on TDB).
After all, two trials convicted Thomas and only an extraordinary Royal Commission uncovered the truth. (The subsequent report was one of the first official documents I read, when I was a teenager.)
Others still believe that Lindy Chamberlain and her Seventh Day Adventists were really satanic cultists and the baby had been offered as a sacrifice to the Devil. Crazy? Of course it is. But the human capacity for belief is strong. Entire wars have been fought predicated on religious, cultural, and nationalistic beliefs.
In this situation, a jury of twelve fellow New Zealanders looked at the evidence and heard the witnesses. They considered the elements of the case for three months. And here’s the crux of the matter, E-Clectic; the jury had to consider all the evidence presented to them. Not just bits they agreed/disagreed with. They couldn’t “cherry-pick”.
We’ve all heard of miscarriages of justice and innocent men and women being found guilty.
Have we ever had a case where a guilty person, in a re-trial, was subsequently found innocent? (Not a mis-trial, but a quashing of a guilty verdict and re-trial.)
Here are the problems with Binnie’s report as summarised by Fisher. The telling point is that Binnie surmised Bain’s innocence on a single piece of evidence, the sock print which was disputed and not reliable.
One could just as easily say that Binnie had a pre-determined outcome in mind the way he went about his “analysis”.
And here’s the crux of the matter, E-Clectic; the jury had to consider all the evidence presented to them. Not just bits they agreed/disagreed with. They couldn’t “cherry-pick”.
And yet, subsequently one of the jurors complained that they hadn’t been given access to all the evidence. Bain’s defence fought tooth and nail for a lot of evidence to be declared inadmissible. I’d call that cherrypicking. Did Bain take the stand? No. So the jury weren’t able to assess his evidence – and as everyone keeps pointing out he was the one who was there by stayed shtum at the retrial. Did that help the jury? Yes, I know he didn’t have to – but you can’t say the jury heard all the evidence when he didn’t take the stand.
So to summarise your case against Robin:
1. Robin suffered depression so was capable as per Schlaepfer. This is highly disputed as to whether he was depressed.
2. Incest – all hearsay.
3. Marks on thumb – don’t match and were caused by an injury of some sort.
So we really need some proper evidence to convict Robin.
Fingerprints, blood, bruising, scratches.
None – not a skerrick.
But it was nice of him to bring the morning paper in for David to read while he waited for the police and ambulances to turn up.
My mind is open to the very real possibility that neither Robin or David did it. There are a hell of allot of unsolved murders in this country, more than we prefer to admit. The scope of the investigation was so narrow and inept, we will never know.
FFS, read Callinan’s report and stop making stuff up. How come Bains defence never went third party? Karam pored over everything for years and never went third party.
No that’s not exactly what happened. The verdict had already been decided. It was then dragged out for seven years after the trial, politicized and generally made into a media circus. The hearing for compensation should have been done swiftly in the interest of justice, just as a sentencing hearing would have been done, had he been found guilty. The question then wasn’t guilt or innocence, it was how much compensation is fair.
And Justice Callinan is some sort of ‘authority’ on the case, yeah right!
Callinan is a hired gun to give the nats the answer they want on the case and failed to get first time around!
Read specifically paragraph 64 where he is unable to state murder or suicide, he is also unable to state definitive conclusions on pretty much anything including balance of probabilities and leaves open possibilities such as Robin being shot before the paper round and all the deaths occurring afterwards.
As to the crown case against David, the holes are large enough that a bus could drive through!
The hard contact wound in Robins temple is hard physical evidence and a lot stronger than the weak circumstantial spin that the Robin defenders put forward as ‘evidence’
The temple wound was also in an upward trajectory so pretty hard to imagine any scenario where Robin is shot by David (or any other third party at all), certainly the crown have steered well clear of offering one, the percentage of suicides with the gun held in hard contact with the temple is around 95%, Robin was clearly exceedingly cooperative with his killer wasn’t he!
And exactly how did Robin fail to leave any fingerprints on the gun, especially in the contorted configuration required to complete that act?
Actually there were multiple unidentified prints on the gun which the ‘textbook’ cops decided not to bother keeping so as to be able to be eliminated as belonging to Robin or David, also it’s actually quite difficult to leave identifiable prints on the gun surface, David’s prints establish that it was David’s gun, scientifically it was shown at the last trial that they were not ‘bloody’ at all, a fact which was obviously to hard for Justice Callinan to understand! What was made very clear at the last trial was that crown fingerprint ‘expert’ was nothing of the sort, he admitted that what he had told the original Bain jury in 1995 was incorrect, but that he had done this deliberately so that ‘they would understand’, in cross examination he had ‘nothing to say’ when it was put to him that he had misled the jury, he was shown up as a liar, and this type of misrepresented ‘evidence’ is the reason for the initial conviction.
Why did he need to lie to the jury? Perhaps his ‘evidence’ wouldn’t be strong enough otherwise!
Regarding fingerprints, according to forensics expert Edward E. Hueske;
ref: https://books.google.co.nz/books?id=2i3SCgAAQBAJ&pg=PA189&lpg=PA189&dq=5%25+of+fingerprints+identifiable&source=bl&ots=-Byk48Fxht&sig=zmgdRQ9Pj7HdydTPYOijn36BR-Q&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwi2276U17POAhWMj5QKHTc5D80Q6AEIQjAF#v=onepage&q=5%25%20of%20fingerprints%20identifiable&f=false
Hueske’s credentials;
ref: http://www.depts.ttu.edu/ifs/documents/Hueske.pdf
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