Southern officer first to pick up Bain sensation

Bain's suppressed 111 call released

What did David Bain say?

Joe Karam on suppressed Bain claims

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The alleged confession hidden in David Bain's 111 ambulance call that was kept from his retrial jury was discovered by an Invercargill detective.

Detective Donald Ward, of Invercargill CIB, was handed responsibility for the tape when the police inquiry team, dubbed Operation Huia, began preparing for Mr Bain's retrial in 2007.

Mr Ward found the disputed admission in July that year when he took the 111 recording played to the jury at Mr Bain's first trial to Dunedin company Strawberry Sound.

When the tape was played digitally in a sound studio Mr Ward heard the words "I shot the prick" or "I shot that prick".

However, the digital copy was never played to the retrial jury after the Bain defence team persuaded the Supreme Court that the alleged confession was unreliable. The Bain team went to the Supreme Court after both the High Court and the Court of Appeal ruled the whole tape should be played to the jury so it could decide whether the "confession" could be heard.

The St John Ambulance officer who took Mr Bain's 111 call is now also based in Invercargill and, according to the Supreme Court ruling, also heard Mr Bain confessing to the shooting when the digitalised version of the 111 call was played to him.

Ambulance officer Tom Dempsey, who was working in Dunedin on June 20, 1994, was "stunned that I hadn't heard the words previously", the ruling says.

The Southland Times understands Mr Ward also travelled to the United Kingdom with the tape to have it analysed by experts but according to the court ruling the experts consulted could not decide whether the "confession" was words or merely Mr Bain breathing heavily during the 111 call.

The Supreme Court yesterday lifted suppression on the portion of the call after Mr Bain's defence team lost a last-ditch bid to keep the tape secret.

Mr Dempsey's boss, St John Southern Region operations manager Doug Third, said St John would not comment on the evidence.

A Strawberry Sound spokeswoman said the company had taken legal advice and had been advised not to comment. "A verdict has been reached," she said.

Detective Inspector Ross Pinkham, of Dunedin, who led the Bain investigation said yesterday police had no comment on the court ruling. On March 6, the Supreme Court deemed the evidence was not reliable in Mr Bain's retrial for the murder of five members of his family. He was found not guilty on all charges last Friday.

The Court's judgement says the evidence was analysed by expert witnesses for both the Crown and defence and there was little difference in either's findings.

Both sides say the sounds relied on in the recording are potentially words but cannot rule out the possibility they are meaningless exhalation of breath.

"The principal Crown expert uses the analogy of an image glimpsed in a cloud formation to illustrate the dangers," the judgement says. Two United Kingdom experts said the alleged words consisted of "an unvoiced out-breath ie, the vocal folds are not vibrating during it".

However, they also said Mr Bain had the ability to produce speech on an "out breath", citing the part of the call where Mr Bain first gives the last four digits of his telephone number.

"This utterance provides a clear indication that Mr Bain could  and did  during the course of the call speak on exhaled air without vocal fold vibration.''

The judgment says the prejudicial effect of the evidence could have been profound.
"If taken to be an admission the disputed sounds go directly to the ultimate issue of guilt.

It would be open to the jury to convict on the basis of the admission alone."

The Bain team, which yesterday morning lost a bid to keep the evidence suppressed, dismissed it later in the day. "Let me say unequivocally, there is no confession, there are no words,'' Joe Karam said.

- © Fairfax NZ News