Sunday, September 16, 2012

Van Beynan - Why the silence.

Nobody could ever say that Martin Van Beynan has ever held back in anyway on the Bain case. He is the foremost media person to have written extensively on the case. All of his writing has large characterised his unfailing view of David guilt, much like vb earlier unfailing view of the guilt of Peter Ellis for which I understand he later apologised.

vb has asked the public to accept his opinion that the Christchurch Jury got it wrong but that the earlier Jury in Dunedin who had much evidence hidden from them got it right. vb has been extravagant his use of metaphors that could turn minor or aged blood smears to clothing to being 'covered in blood.' He has written 'vivid' reports on the manner and conduct of the Christchurch Jury alleging misconduct and worse but never explained why he never brought such conduct to the attention of the Court or how nobody else in NZ appears to have noticed the conduct including a High Court Judge presiding over the trial.

It appears that vb is a law graduate, following which he became a Court reporter presumably able to use his training to bring clarity to a day's Court proceedings or some complexity of evidence. But in the Bain case he appears to have done neither. As an example I am still unaware that the man who deemed himself the person 'that sat through almost the entire trial' has ever written about the blood smears found on Robin's hands, never reported that David had no scratches on his chest when strip searched by police Doctor Pryder the morning on the killings - yet he has never seen fit to point this out or contradict that 'David had fresh injuries from the fight with Stephen.' As far as I can tell vb has never written about the preposterous assertion that 'David had used his paper run as an alibi.' He has never look closely at the comparisons between the condition of David's undamaged hands and Robin's damaged hands on the morning of the murders. Some things he has entirely missed out while exaggerating others that have been at the least unbalanced reported, and possibility at its worst biased reporter. Without fail any biased reporting as always been against David.

A law graduate would know not to stalk a Jury. But a law graduate that did stalk a Jury, or Juror, and was only warned to desist by police would give a public impression that he held a confidence that for some reason he was above the law. I'm struck now by the silence from vb, he must know, as surely do most of the country, that it his highly likely that a specially appointed Commissioner has found that David, a target of vb's for over a decade, has been deemed on the test of the balance of probabilities. vb got it wrong. His one sided reporting was therefore wrong, his insulting question at the Perth International Justice Conference was also wrong. The impression he gave of being completely one-sided against David and Karam is shown vividly now as a failure at his feet.

A number of commentators, including lawyers, in this past  week have reconciled their previous views on the Bain case to alignment with the recommendation purportedly made by Ian Binnie the retired Judge and Commissioner to the Crown on this matter. But I wonder why vb hasn't, particularly with his track work against David Bain. One could assume that if the impression of bias was only presumption we would have heard an apology or some kind of recognition of Binnie's report from Martin. Yet on the other hand, reading the hate-sites one sees, that some members continue to send discredited material to vb in a way that suggests that he has been a champion of their cause and they look for leadership.

I'm very interested in this. I see the 'finding' of the lens 'after hours,' the 'lost' electronic diary belonging to Laniet, the partial and corrected evidence of Mrs Laney and Mr Sanderson, no less sinister that the thought that there has been media manipulation against David every bit as significant as the rest of the formula that resulted in the Miscarriage of Justice administered against him by our own authorities.

3 comments:

  1. Very interesting post. I think the problem runs deeper than van Beynen. If we go back to 2009, when his original piece was published, I recall that attempts made to counter van Beynen and set the record straight. These articles were never published by the Press, which was unfortunate.
    Even more disturbing, is the Press Council's refusal to uphold complaints against the opinion piece. The net result was to allow van Beynen's views to go unchallenged, thereby poisoning the minds of the ill-informed. That's why the Binnie report has been met with disbelief in some quarters.

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  2. As one who corresponded both with The Press and the Press Council, I totally agree.

    I was stunned by the conservative, probably self-protecting stance of the Press Council. I was firmly given the impression that there purpose was to protect their members, not interested in the greater public good or able to appreciate that any attack on David, the Jury, etc needed to have a balance applied. Even an article dissecting the nonsense being published would have at least recognised there was another side to the Bain case - one which vb, The Press and Press Council it seems, wanted buried.

    I'm waiting to read Binnie's report. I'm sure I'll be taking the Press Council to task again because of the content of that report.

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  3. MVB isn't missing in action. He's been busy collecting dirt on a fake building designer. Sadly, because of his disgusting record of misrepresenting information, when I saw his story on TV, I immediately thought "I wonder how much of this is true".

    He is no longer a credible journalist. All his own doing. Pity he doesn't appear to be man enough to say "sorry, it appears I was wrong".

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