Bain compo protesters may incur legal action

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A group campaigning against compensation for David Bain is stepping up its fight by planning advertisements in daily newspapers. However, its members may face action themselves.

Some members of a group on social networking website Facebook hoped to take out advertisements in The Dominion Post, Waikato Times, The Press and New Zealand Herald.

They want to highlight a petition set up to urge Justice Minister Simon Power to decline any application by Mr Bain to seek compensation for wrongful imprisonment.

The move comes five months after Mr Bain, 37, was found not guilty of killing his parents, Robin and Margaret, and siblings Arawa, 19, Laniet, 18, and Stephen, 14, inside their Dunedin home in June 1994. He spent 13 years in prison after a trial in 1995.

His legal team is preparing an application for compensation. Mr Bain would theoretically be eligible for about $1.3 million, as Cabinet guidelines state about $100,000 a year is available for those wrongfully jailed.

Mr Bain – who returned from a three-month European holiday last week – would have to prove on the balance of probabilities that he was innocent.

Vic Perkiss said several people wanted to place the advertisements as they stepped up their lobbying against compensation for Mr Bain.

"We don't want to go down without a fight," he said. "We don't want it [compensation] to just sneak through."

Mr Perkiss is a member of Facebook site Justice for Robin Bain, formerly called David Bain is Guilty.

The site, which has 676 members and is linked to an online petition signed by 307 people, claims the jury in Mr Bain's second trial was wrong.

Law experts say the site, and any proposed advertisements, could be defamatory.

It is linked to another website – David Bain: Counterspin.

The Dominion Post decided against running the advertisement.

Mr Perkiss said the planned advertisements were carefully worded so as not to run foul of the law.

"We're not going to say he's guilty or not guilty. Basically we're going to say that Robin Bain ain't guilty. He can't stand up and speak for himself."

Media law expert Associate Professor Ursula Cheer said the test for defamation depended on the wording, but she thought the newspaper had made the right decision to avoid the advertisements.

"Suggesting someone is guilty of something when they've been acquitted can clearly lower them in the minds of right-thinking people, which is the test [for defamation]."

Even stating Robin Bain was innocent could be defamatory. "Defamation can flow not only from the literal meaning of words but the meaning that can be taken from it," Dr Cheer said.

Mr Bain and his supporters could try to shut the website down, but any action tended to be expensive, she said.

Bain supporter Joe Karam said yesterday he would take a look at the Facebook site. "It is quite disturbing. We probably should do something. I need to see what they are saying."

Mr Karam said Mr Bain's legal team was "right in the middle" of its application for compensation. It took time. "It's just the volume of material really. And everyone needed a bit of a break, and it's only five months since the trial finished."