Martin Van Beynan - preaching.

I've noted at least twice when writing about the Bain case mvb has heading his pieces as 'OPINION.' I assume that is to avoid expressing an opinion based on facts. On the 14 the of March 2012 mvb released an opinion piece titled 'Bain charms audience with keynote sermon.'

This related to David's decision to speak publicly about his experiences as a person who has experienced at actual miscarriage of Justice which resulted in him wrongfully spending 13 years in prison. Mvb has pointedly led an opposition to the notion that David is not guilty, even after a finding of not guilty verdicts against David for the deaths of 5 of his immediate family. In various ways mvb has focused on 'evidence' against David which has been disproved or fully answered in such a way that suggests the mvb has an understanding of the evidence in a more critical way than the Jury, or the Crown, or the Defence, and that therefore he is right and they are wrong. He's even been warned by the Justice Department not to continue harassing jurors.

I stand to be corrected, but I have not once read anything from mvb which attempts to refute the strong body of forensic evidence against Robin Bain, David's father - a man who suicided inside a house which contained 4 dead bodies all shot with the same rifle that Robin used to despatched himself to the hereafter. There were concessions by the Crown, and some of its foremost witnesses, in the retrial that David may not have been home at the time a computer was turned on and which was found a suicide note. There was general avoidance by the Crown or it's witnesses to tackle the fact that Robin, the dead father, had blood wash or smears on the inside of his hands which arrived there before his death, that there was a misfired cartridge near his dead body that meant that the rifle had been reloaded in the process of his death. There is a lot more, a quite exhaustive list, which however mvb has never dealt with such has been his apparent obsession to chortle out headlines and statements not derived from sustained facts.

In his 'normal' form in reporting on David's presentation mvb reverts to 'opinion' as though in this form he is able to convince a reader without hard facts, similarly as it prevails, he has done with his 'direct reporting' supported by an absence of facts or balance to the 2 sides of the argument concerning the Bain familicide. He disputes that the police investigation was not a good one, saying it was compared to many others aired at the conference. Of course he makes no explanation why the dead father was never investigated for incest, why David was charged before forensic tests had been completed and the results considered, why David was asked leading questions that he couldn't possibly know the answers for and which left with the weight of not knowing the explanation for evidence against him - proving somehow that he was therefore guilty. Mvb never touched upon the fact that the primary evidence before David's arrest was that his 'fingerprints were found on blood in blood on the rifle' something ultimately proved as completely false, and perhaps even deliberately used against him with the knowledge that it was false. Certainly mvb reported this 'evidence' at length even after it was refuted. Not once did mvb show reasons for him to conclude that there had been 'shoddier' investigations revealed at the conference in comparison to the Bain investigation. He merely expected the reader, despite a wealth of information to the contrary, to accept the Bain inquiry had been a 'textbook investigation.' This despite police officers under oath at the trial testifying otherwise.

Of the fanciful weaving by mvb he relied on the fact that David and his mother were planning to build a new house and to exclude David, a direct lie when compared to evidence where David had said that his hope was for his parents to reconcile. So is it the evidence that lies from the pages of the trial transcript or is it mvb? Does he propose that the  genuine evidence is ignored in favour of discredited theories that resulted in one mis- trial followed by a trial where 5 not guilty verdicts were returned. I'm sure he does, because that has been his modus operandi for many years, spreading untruths about the Bain case and therefore feeding the persecution against David.

So mvb had warmed up without touching on any realities of the case that should give him, or anyone, pause before advertising his 'opinion.' Then we have the opinion that David's speech came across 'like a speech from a charismatic preacher' and the delegates (excluding mvb of course with his deep insights and experience of the case) found him (David) 'impressive and charming.' Of course mvb had rendered his opinion in such a way that he wasn't 'taken in' but that the less informed may very well have been. Quite why David needed to sermonise wasn't pointed out by mvb, and so was left hanging in such a way that David had 'conned' the conference but not the 'enlightened' van beynan.

Mvb finished by another sideways swipe at David's advocate Joe Karam, describing him as being emotional as though being moved, as had a vast part of the audience, according to mvb's own description, was somehow odd or perhaps even conniving. Mvb rounded off with some direct reporting of what David said in his presentation as though forgetting for a moment his role as offering an opinion compared to direct reporting. It should be noted that mvb has been adopted in some sense by the hate-sites who greedily accept what ever he says that is negative about Joe or David. To this point mvb has never put the public perception right because he is yet delve deeply into the Bain case, and in particular the evidence against Robin, until, or if he does, there will be many that see mvb as linked to persuading the public of the views of the hate-sites. Opinion? possibly, fair and objective reporting - not by any stretch.