For years the Crown held what they claimed was an ace card in the false prosecution of David Bain that he had killed his entire family: bloody footprints throughout the murder scene which were said to be David's but which were ultimately proven to belong to his father Robin. The 'ace' proved to be a major reason for the 'house of cards' Crown case which collapsed against David at his retrial. Suddenly, what had been described as 'full prints' at the murder scene in the first trial needed to be made bigger at the retrial because they plainly were not David's. Additionally, the very basic fact that a 'walking' print was larger (as opposed to smaller) than a stationary print completely removed the possibility of any of the prints being found in the scene belonging to anyone but Robin.
Ordinarily that would be enough, but because the Crown and supporters of the memory of the late Robin Bain are nothing if not desperate to show that despite all the odds, and a hefty majority of polled public opinion accepting David's innocence, not only do they need argue that the prints that once were complete are in fact not complete, they also need to claim that the tests applied to prints made by David in a laboratory situation were manipulated because the scientist, Dr Anna Sandiford, conducting the tests thought that David was a 'nice boy' after meeting him. Whilst those Robin supporters, Ralph Taylor a veteran hate-siter from Counterspin (the site found to have defamed Joe Karam and others), and a second supporter Dennis Horne (best known for crash landing his plane twice in a short time, the second time when unable to appreciate that water is not dry land and certainly not a surface that a plane can use as a runway) have obviously convinced themselves that proving Robin's innocence is simply a matter of singing mantras and accusing scientists, Judges, Lawyers and specialist investigators as either corrupt, crazy or plain dumb.
How does one combat absolute nutters prepared to say anything, who started with the over powering belief (to their minds) that 'right thinking' New Zealanders knew that David was guilty and Robin was innocent. Those who denied that Robin's dna was found deep inside the rifle, vacuumed in by atmospheric pressure from an upward contact suicide shot rebalancing the barrel to atmospheric pressure after the bullet discharge, who also denied that David had been strip searched before caving in to over whelming evidence otherwise and 'adjusting' the story to David being the subject of a 'medical examination' noting every part of his body but from behind a blanket, a preposterous stretch of reality to anyone but the bewildered Robin supporters. I recall describing that claim as the 'dance of the seven blankets' to the hate-siters who clearly seem aroused by the idea of strip searches, naked men and animals.
Well there is no way to combat the nutters because they will merely fabricate something as stupid as above where I pointed out that Horne and Taylor 'negated' scientific evidence as being the work of someone who thought David was a 'nice boy.' However, and of course, the task ahead of David Bain is far less reliant on needing to overcome the bizarre rants of some very twisted sisters who inhabit the twilight world of the hate-sites, but rather to build upon the general acceptance that David Bain is innocent, found not guilty by a Jury, later supported by an independent audit of the case by Ian Binnie QC who confirmed the Jury's finding on the balance of probabilities - which included the footprint evidence of Dr Sandiford but which however was unable to take into account the endorsement for Sandiford's findings shown in the photos above.
The print to the left is a laboratory print from the foot of David Bain, the other is print lifted from the murder scene. Both prints have been brought to scale, that is to a common size in order to observe if in fact they were made by the same foot. Look at the 2 for differences which to my untrained eye are extremely obvious, I will come back to this later because the door before any reader at this point must be identified.
The Crown case against David Bain has been disassembled. In my opinion it began with Joe Karam questioning the finding of a lens in the room of Stephen Bain by a now ex police officer Milton Weir who wasn't tasked with the job, he 'found' the lens 'after hours' despite the room having been methodically searched by other officers previously. This was the same Milton Weir who knew the lens didn't come from the glasses of David Bain but who was 'happy' for evidence to be given at the trial that the lens was David's. False evidence which impacted upon the credibility of David who was forced to tell the Jury that it was not a lens from his glasses against a false claim by the Crown that they were. Since then there have been further discoveries - that 'scratch' said to be on David's chest and therefore proof of his being in a fight with Stephen was not noted in the strip search conducted by the Police Doctor hours after the murders, because it wasn't there. Also significantly, previously ignored by Martin van Beynen, a reporter self described as an 'expert' on the Bain case, along with the strip search was that Robin's dna was found in the rifle clearly indicating by accepted scientific research an upward contact shot to Robin's head indicating by a massive scientific probability of over 90% that it was a suicide shot. These were things which the public did not know and which only began to come to light after the Privy Council hearing which found that David's conviction was an actual miscarriage of Justice.
If van beynen ever publicly discloses why he left out significant information and other critical information pointing to David's evidence from his 'court reports' he may also tell the public why he was involved with the hate-siters in a campaign against jurors from David's successful retrial which resulted in he, van beynen, being ordered to stop harassing a jury member at a time when the hate-siters were 'tracking down' jurors in order to expose them as having corrupted the not guilty verdict in someway. So here describes the door, that which leads to stage 2 of the Bain case, the point where those whose evidence and findings supporting David's innocence have entered following the rejection of a past Minister of Justice of an independent inquiry seeking to Judge David's innocence on the balance of probabilities.
When the evidence of Anna Sandiford, David Giles (who located in a photograph evidence of a mark on Robin's thumb that match the lips of the rifle's magazine, distinct because of a curve - showing that Robin had highly probably loaded the rifle which was used in his death), and others including the report's author an international Jurist of high standing there was only going to be one reaction, that was this was the new doorway leading to the triumph of science over the black arts of rumour, secrecy and deceit. Binnie's report had been observed in a further report by David Fisher QC (called into help an irate Minister of Justice demonstrating that her bias was all consuming) to likely have been benefitted from a Bayesian test of key evidence - something Binnie had already clearly done, but which has since been achieved in an international peer reviewed published paper that indicates, having used the Bayesian method indicating a probability of above 97% that Robin Bain suicided. These are professional people, experts in their fields who had been rebuffed by a non practising lawyer who aspired by public opinion and 'tough' image to be Prime Minister of the Country, someone who may have felt it important to curry favour with Crown Law and the police. The ex Minister Judith Collins had misjudged the fight, this was not a skirmish where might is right, this was a test of the truth and those I loosely call the scientists and professionals were more than up to the task shorn of political ambition or the hope of winning favour.
Whilst a new application is underway by the Bain team for compensation for David having spent nearly 15 years in prison on fabricated and hidden evidence the public can indeed look forward to an even clearer picture emerging as to the innocence of David Bain, ironically, one could say, that relies on photos and other evidence formally overlooked or left unconnected to the importance of the truth. One such photo is on the right above, I understand never put into evidence, and much like the photos discovered in an audit by the Crown Pathologist Doctor Dempster before the retrial that showed Robin Bain died with smears of blood on his palms. What the photo shows when compared to the photo of the left of David's footprint is that it is not made by the same foot. Going back to the question for both of David's juries 'was it Robin or was it David,' the photo tells us that indeed it was Robin who left bloody footprints throughout the murder scene.
Some readers will have already seen that the 'shape' of the two feet is characteristically different, in fact when brought to scale Robin's print is unable to be kept within the two yellow lines drawn parallel to the print of David's foot. I would argue this evidence alone proves David's innocence, the bloody prints were not made by him, the shape of a foot does not change, while it will extend through walking through a shift of weight th ankle does not somehow disconnect allowing the feet bones to form into a fresh shape only to then 'return' to it's original shape. If anyone wants to reconfigure the heel of Robin's foot print back between the yellow lines they will find, that the 'realignment' causes the toes outside the yellow lines. A foot simply has no significant sideways flexibility, that movement is relied upon by the flexibility of the ankle, the foot itself does not change shape, of course neither do the shape of prints.
Whether this aspect of the 'bloody' footprints is further analysed in the new bid for compensation remains to be seen but one thing it clearly shows if it is produced it will be rebuffed by the Crown in some way, scorned by the sisters as the work of someone who 'liked' David, or other similar, unscientific nonsense. Such reactions to this type of new evidence in the Bain case - show that the Crown are sudden 'experts' on evidence they were not capable of finding in 2 decades and underlines the reason why miscarriages of Justice occur in NZ, it's one thing to be wrong but apparently an impossibility to admit being so. Millions and millions of dollars later, and another photo from the Crown's own files that show they were wrong, absolutely wrong and won't admit it.
