Supporters jubilant Bain now free

PETER MEECHAM/The Press

AT LAST: Supporters of David Bain rejoice after he was announced a free man.

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As the first not-guilty verdict clearing David Bain was announced, people waiting in the courthouse foyer cheered and yelled "about time".

Shane Duffy, who spent three years with Bain in Christchurch Men's Prison, said his hands were sweating as he waited for the verdicts.

"You could cut the atmosphere with a knife."

Duffy said Bain was a "very timid, meek and gentle person" who was physically assaulted and constantly threatened while in prison.

"When I arrived in prison, David was the first person to come up and talk to me," he said.

"A few days later he gave me a book, The Celestine Prophecy, and I have kept it ever since.

"We were good friends, but he never talked to me about his family or how he felt about being imprisoned. He kept a lot inside.

"His release from prison was a new start for him.

"This verdict will be a rebirth," Duffy said.

A group of women, strangers who had grown to know each after meeting daily in the public gallery in the High Court in Christchurch, hugged in jubilation at the freedom of a man they never knew.

One of the women, long-time supporter Leila Read, who travelled with Bain to his Privy Council appeal in London, left her Waikanae home on the Kapiti Coast for the duration of the trial.

Unable to squeeze into the packed public gallery to join her new friends and fellow Bain supporters, Read heard the verdicts via a television link in the waiting room outside the courtroom. "It's a great relief," she said. "And it must be for the rest of New Zealand.

"It just didn't add up. Joe Karam and Mr Reed deserve a knighthood."

A Christchurch woman, Bunny Low, 53, who moved to Christchurch from Australia in November, had followed every day of the trial from the public gallery, said: "It's wonderful. Justice has been served. It should have happened years ago."

A woman who watched the trial for several weeks, and wanted to be known only as Maria, said she could not believe the jury had acquitted Bain and the verdict had made her lose faith in the justice system.

Shane Fletcher, 34, cheered as Bain emerged from court.

"David all the way. Yes. Good one, David. Justice is served," he said.

Fletcher met Bain in prison and was pleased with the verdicts.

"It is a relief that it is all over for him and he can get on with his life. I always thought he was innocent and that it was his old man," he said.

"I was in prison with him. He handed me a hot dog with two bread rolls and I liked that. He is a nice guy."

Even those who were toddlers at the time of the 1994 murders were drawn to the court out of fascination and a sense of history.

St Andrew's College pupil Anthony Metcalfe, 17, had rushed from his nearby home to watch the "momentous occasion".

"It's definitely the right verdict," he said.

- © Fairfax NZ News