I believe Martin’s article also demonstrates that the Press has no fear of a libel case from Karam / Bain.

IIRC correctly when Joe Karam tried to access the daughter who was working as an underage prostitute’s cell phone records, he found that they had been deleted.

So there you have it: Laniea or whatever her name was, was about to confess to her work as an underage prostitute servicing the Dunedin elite (and some in the Police). Underage sex is a big crime, fearing exposure from L’ approaching confession an unnamed person with good links in the Police went around while David was on the paper run, killed the lot and then left the dumb message on the computer knowing it would incriminate him

Then someone in the police, thinking that David really HAD done it, or to protect the person who had, rearrange things like gloves or whatever to incriminate David (and Police will do that if they think they have the real murderer, see Wayne Tamihere and the mysterious watch and sightings in the bush).

Conspiraloon conspiracy theory!? Of course, it is as likely to happen as an economics lecturer stabbing a student 216 times or hospital doctor poisoning his wife or a cabinet minister belonging to an S and M wife-swapping club.

This is Dunedin, normal rules don’t apply.

The question “who did it? David or Robin?” still misses the point: even if these are the only two possibilities, correctly determining the answer as “David did it” still results in an acquittal if followed by the caveat “I’m almost certain”.

A lot of us have trouble with semantics. I’m almost certain the Chinaman – whatever his name is – murdered his wife. However, I would not stake my life on it or even my house. Having that I would have difficulty finding him guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. I would put the chance of him being innocent at less than 1 in a million.

In the case of David Bain I was not in the court and there was a lot more evidence. With my limited knowledge of the case I would say the chance of him being innocent would be between 1 in 500 and 1 in 10,000.

Graeme, can you put a rough figure on what you would consider a reasonable doubt?

I am like many. If you look at the first hand evidence, it all points to David. After looking into a few cases now, it seems that those who come across a murder or suicide have pretty much contacted emergency services straight away and usually have no blood present on them.

Lundy had one single fragment of tissue on him and that convicted him!

When David was intimidating the family I wonder what those “family secrets” were” that Arawa talked about?? Did he have a motive regarding the girls?? Did he have a secret that he didn’t want to get out.? We will never know????

Only David knows what really happened, and he is not saying much……….

Now let us take another example, Peter Ellis (who was in jail with Bain incidentally) and I think there is an even greater case to argue a substantial miscarriage of justice on his part yet he has not yet progressed as far as Bain, it seems likely the case will get to the PC and we should all hope it gets the same kind of treatment as Bain’s – and what does that show? again? how tinpot our justice system really is, why are we ignoring that?

The issue is not the truth – did David it do it? – but the proof – does the evidence show without reasonable doubt that David did it? Some simple tests could have ruled Robin in or out yet these weren’t done?

The truth is out there somewhere but what can’t be doubted is that the police did not provide sufficient proof to establish a conviction, as noted by the Privy Council. To this end, the Police need to take their fair share of the blame (which they have not yet done so). Basic tests and basic policing could have avoided a lot of the conjecture.

Admittedly the Arthur Allan Thomas case has cast a major shadow but surely we should be expecting the police to learn from these fundamental mistakes?

Sonic/Chronic, the moon-baying, logic-bereft, genetically unmodified socialist troll, supports the David didn’t-do-it cult. This should erode any last doubts among the sane and sensible about the David Bain case.

Poll David Bain cultists, such as those popping up in the posts above, and you would likely find a good proportion believe the Americans didn’t land on the Moon, UFOs abduct Earthlings, spirit mediums channel dead people, smoking cannabis makes you drive cars better, and that Douglas’s Social Credit can make everyone in the world rich and happy without hard work.

I’m reminded of British lord Denning on the (later released Birmingham 6)

“Just consider the course of events if their action were to proceed to trial … If the six men failed it would mean that much time and money and worry would have been expended by many people to no good purpose. If they won, it would mean that the police were guilty of perjury; that they were guilty of violence and threats; that the confessions were involuntary and improperly admitted in evidence; and that the convictions were erroneous. … That was such an appalling vista that every sensible person would say, ‘It cannot be right that these actions should go any further”

“Personally, I thought the Crown case was pretty much non-existent, and I was astonished that it took as long as five hours to deliver a not guilty verdict.”

i like your sarcasm.

I really don’t see why we bother to fuck around with trials at all in this country. We’ve got DPF to tell us whether the defendant was guilty or not, and if people don’t believe him, we could just pay Martin van Beynen to sit through “almost” every minute of the evidence and tell us the answer.

Mr van Beynen’s article strikes me as utterly pathetic. Typical of the quality of his argument is this: “Robin had a settled night in his caravan (we know this by the amount and quality of urine in his bladder)”. Well, that’s definite proof Robin had a settled night, isn’t it?

Mr van Beynen’s alleged “series of coincidences” seems to show that he was asleep in the morning as well as the afternoon most days of the trial. Bain’s “clear and recent fingerprints”? Unlike Mr van Beynen I haven’t examined photographs of the prints closely, so can’t judge how clear they were, but how was it shown they were recent? “The blood of his brother on his clothes”? A few spots, some not visible to the naked eye. “Blood all over the laundry?” Well maybe one handprint, not visible as red to the naked eye, which showed up using luminol (a substance which shows up many substances other than blood) . “A lens from damaged glasses (of no use to anyone else and found in his bedroom) turning up in his dead brother’s room”. Well yes, despite what the police said at the time, the lens was covered in dust and was covered by clothing. It was pretty clearly established that the glasses were his mother’s, a fact concealed from the jury in the first trial, although I take van Beynen’s point that after Robin shot Margaret the glasses were of no use to her.

Personally, I thought the Crown case was pretty much non-existent, and I was astonished that it took as long as five hours to deliver a not guilty verdict. The Crown’s tactic seemed to be to throw as much mud as they possibly could, and hope some of it stuck. “Hey, you don’t like these arguments? We’ve got others! You don’t like these experts? We’ve got others!” The despicable Raftery’s summing up was typical. Realising that most of his “case” had disappeared from underneath him, he instantly switched ground to claim that who killed Steven was suddenly the key to it all.

Mr Farrar says “I hope he does apply for compensation, so a QC can advise on balance of probabilities if he is innocent or not.” Well, we can be pretty sure that the QC will be carefully chosen to give the right result – see for example the recent appointment of Kristy McDonald QC, a crown prosecutor of thirty years standing, to carefully investigate Scott Watson’s petition for mercy and carefully find that he has no case.

That makes it Robin.

Besides killing 4 family members and leaving Robin until after the paper round seems a bit implausible.

I wouldnt lie to you good looking.