Bain case jury to retire soon

BY MARTIN VAN BEYNEN

The jury in the Bain trial is expected to retire to consider its verdict next Thursday in the 13th week of the trial.

Evidence in the Bain trial ended today after 54 defence witnesses, 130 prosecution witnesses, 54 days of trial evidence, and 4000 odd pages of evidence.

The evidence finished at 3.30pm today in the 12th week of the trial.

David Bain, 37, is charged with murdering his parents and three siblings on 20 June, 1994, by shooting them with his .22 rifle. The defence contends the murderer was David’s father Robin, 58.

The prosecution will give its closing address on Tuesday next week and the defence on Wednesday. Justice Graham Panckhurst will sum up on Thursday next week.

He asked the jury to think about whether they wanted to stay together after his summing up. He thanked them for their attention and for putting up with inconvenience during the trial.

'GET BAIN' ALLEGED

Earlier, the court heard that the statement that the police were out to get David Bain was not heard by other family members.

John Boyd, who is married to Margaret's sister, said he attended a meeting with the police on the afternoon of the funerals of the Bain family at the South Dunedin police station.

A witness who told the court a police officer told the meeting, "David is the enemy and we are going to get him" was wrong. He did not hear the remark and the family would have been very upset if it was made, he said.

The meeting was conducted by the police officers Peter Robinson and Jim Doyle who were the officer in overall charge of the case and the second in charge.

Jan Clarke, Margaret's sister, said she had not heard the remark either.

"When I heard (the witness) say that I was absolutely astounded," she said. "I would have been appalled and challenged that immediately. It would have been completely inappropriate. David is a member of our family," she said.

Justice Panckhurst told the jury he had allowed the Crown to recall Boyd and Clarke to give rebuttal evidence.

The evidence about the police statement was given by Robin's first cousin Michael Mayson of Wellington.

FINGERPRINTS EVIDENCE DISPUTED

Defence evidence that David Bain's fingerprints on the murder rifle were not made in blood has been challenged in the Bain trial today.

The evidence from British expert Carl Lloyd says the fingerprints were definitely not made with bloodied fingers because a black and white photograph of the prints showed the ridges as white. Blood would appear black on such a photograph, he said.

However Crown expert Kim Jones, who was recalled by the Crown after the defence finished its evidence today said he had this week conducted his own tests with his own bloodied thumb which he had impressed on the wood of a rifle stock.

The prints were then photographed under the white light of a polilight device (a light which can be set to different settings). The digital photographs showed the ridges of the fingerprint as white.

Jones said his belief the fingerprints were in blood was based partly on the fact they had a red pigment.

'CLEAN START'

Laniet Bain was ready to make a "clean start" and was going to tell her family "everything" on the weekend before her death, the trial heard earlier today.

The evidence Laniet was ready to make a clean start came from a statement by missing witness Dean Cottle, whom the defence had wanted to call.

Justice Panckhurst told the High Court jury today Cottle had evaded a witness summons which a server had tried to serve on 13 May. He had issued a warrant on 21 May and unbeknownst to the court, Cottle had flown to Brisbane on 16 May.

"Draw your own conclusions," the judge said.

He said he had ruled it was appropriate to hear Cottle’s evidence by means of a statement he made to police on 23 June, 1994.

In the statement read to the court by Justice Panckhurst, Dean Robert Cottle, then unemployed and aged 27, said he met Laniet about 10 months previously and they had become friends.

After ringing Laniet’s home on 17 June, 1994, he found out Laniet was staying out at Taieri Beach which surprised him because "I didn’t think she would be back with her father".

Later that day he saw Laniet coming out of coffee shop on George Street and spoke to her on the footpath for five to ten minutes.

"She told me she was going to make a new start of everything and that her parents had been questioning her about what she was doing. She said she was going to tell them everything and make a clean start of things. I said if she wanted to talk give me a ring. She had always been very very scared of her parents finding out what she was doing."

He had thought she was going to tell her parents about the prostitution, Cottle said in the statement.

"Laniet would talk to me and sometimes I would take her out for dinner. She told me she had been a prostitute at some stage. About her father she told me he had been having sex with her and this had been going on for years. He was still doing this as I believed it. She told me she would not go to bed until 3am and he knew this."

She had told him she didn’t want it coming out and "I wasn’t to tell anyone".

The incest was one of the reasons she left home and was also "fed up with everything".

"Her mother was hassling her. They used to sit around and all take turns at talking to God."

"She told me her sister Arawa had been involved in some prostitution. She had told her sister what she had been doing and I asked what her sister had thought of that. She replied not much because she had done a couple of jobs herself."

"Ever since I’ve known her she wanted to go back to Papua New Guinea. The night she told me about incest she also told me this was something that happened in PNG. She started crying and told me what her father was doing to her."

Justice Panckhurst said Cottle had made an affidavit on 26 June, 1995, some of which he would read to the court.

In the affidavit Cottle said he wished to add some detail to his statement. He said Laniet was clearly agitated on the Friday he talked to her. "She told me was going home that weekend to tell the family everything that had been occurring."

Laniet had told him was going to put a stop to everything. She actually used the term she was sick of "everyone getting up her".

She did not refer to incest with father during Friday conversation. "She also told me the incestuous relationship commenced in PNG." Laniet Bain claimed her sister Arawa had also worked as a prostitute, the Bain trial has heard.

Earlier today a cross-examination of a Bain trial defence expert by video link from Britain was marred by technical difficulties.

The defence expert who says David Bain’s fingerprints on the murder rifle could not have been made with bloodied fingers was cross-examined by Crown counsel Kieran Raftery this morning but photographs he wanted to show the expert were too blurred for him to see them.

In his evidence for the defence last week, Carl Lloyd said a photograph of the fingerprints showing the ridges of the print in white proved conclusively the prints were made with sweat and were therefore latent prints.

If the prints were made by fingers covered in blood the prints would be positive and the ridges would show as black, he said.

Asked if the ridges could appear white in a photograph taken under a particular white light from a device called a polilight, Lloyd told Raftery he disagreed.

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