The Dunedin Police - how to not solve a murder.

With all the evidence available to the Dunedin Police when Robin Bain was found in a highly probable suicide situation, rifle nearby, upward shot to the head, they found it easier to lay the blame elsewhere. Not only for his own death but for that of his wife and three of his children. Some 'easier' time would prove it to be.

Those police were not going to be duped by obvious evidence, they were going to search deeply into evidence which made no sense and use that. Just because Robin Bain had bruised and bloody hands,  with blood smears on the palms, a nose bleed and his blood vacuumed into the rifle from a close contact shot, allegations of incest made against him, observations of a deterioration in his mental health, the fact he was 'closed' out by his own family and living 2 nights a week in caravan outside his home and the other 5 some distance away at his school where he just happened to also live in caravan which by no means would be unusual for a school headmaster on the rocks, just because it was plainly obvious that he had killed himself, his wife and 3 of his children it was 'obvious' he couldn't be guilty.

Except that's not what a Jury decided. The only reason a Jury decided that Robin didn't kill his family, in fact overlooked the forensic proof against him was because of a Lawyer. These days if the police try to frame somebody and it doesn't work it's a Lawyer's fault. If you've not been able to make similar observations I suggest you consider the 'power' now being attributed to Michael Reed QC defender of Robin's son David, a Lawyer with experience primarily in civil cases but somehow able to 'mersmerise' a Jury with common sense rather than fantasy. Now it is Reed that is to 'blame' for Robin being guilty of killing his family. Primarily because he bewitched the Jury with uncomfortable facts that police ignored and expected a fully informed Jury to also ignore.

Well it must be very difficult to ignore such simple things as comparing two men's hands to determine which of the two had likely been involved in the killing. That comparison obviously influenced the Jury, Robin's hands battered and bruised with blood smears on his palms indicating he'd been in contact with blood before his death. David on the other hand had no cuts, bruises or blood to his hands, so unlike his father was not a candidate as to having been involved in the tragic fight his younger brother Stephen fought in a vain attempt to save himself. Of course such evidence is no magician's trick, not skilful oration stitching together some illusion but hard, bitter evidence as to who was the killer.

Equally, when Kent Parker and the now 'run away' Victor Purkiss chortled with glee that they were going to easily defend Joe Karam's defamation suit against them on the basis of truth and honest opinion, citing having taken advice from a 'defamation expert' it wasn't some magic trick that saw those 'defences' dissolved into inanity - it was Parker himself agreeing that his opinions in defaming Karam were not based on truth, nor indeed could 'honest opinion' be based on absurdity. Absurdity such as the Crown case against David Bain.  Immediately Parker's followers said that he was being victimised by a 'powerful' Lawyer Reed. Of course that overlooks the fact that Parker had been assisted by what Reed termed as 'academic' Lawyer Price from Wellington. Moreover it overlooks that Parker has claimed to be a professional person with a professional education along with political aspirations - in other words no naïve babe in the woods.

So where does it start? In the lounge at Every Street of course where a man lay dead with a rifle nearby, a bullet risen into his brain from close contact that left gsr and soot around the entry wound to his forehead, a man whose hands told the story of his own death and that of his family. That's where it started, only to later divert into absurdity when the officer in charge of the case, now retired Detective Inspector Peter Robinson, overlooked years of police experience and ignored the hands of the dead Robin Bain to the point of not even sampling and testing the blood on his hands, or the 'fresh' blood on a towel in the laundry that years later proved to be Robin's. The same man of course who never questioned 'mystery' evidence showing up 'after hours.' The very same person said to be involved with prostitutes in a city brothel and under whose watch Laniet Bain's electronic diary of clients disappeared.

Is any of that the work of a mesmerising Lawyer? No, none of it at all. Just as a fingerprint 'expert' lying to a Jury to help them 'understand' is also not the work of a Lawyer defending a man for his stolen freedom. It wasn't Reed that came up with the laughable assertion that David Bain interrupted 'his' murdering spree to do a paper round. A paper round during which he 'ensured' that he was seen as to prove an 'alibi.' In fact it was some lunatic in the police that thought that one up and considered the Courts and the New Zealand public so stupid that they would not connect the fact that 'needing' to be seen was incongruous when measured against the physical proof of papers in letter boxes that morning 'proving' their delivery. So who was mesmerising who, who indeed.