Water Rights brings 'relief' for Team Bain.

“The Supreme Court overturned Justice Young on that point, saying the proposed sale is reviewable for consistency with the principles of the Treaty.
But it found government consultation on water rights after a Waitangi Tribunal recommendation was adequate, and that the partial sale of the assets “will not impair to a material extent the Crown’s ability to remedy any Treaty breach in respect of Maori interests in water”.

Just hours after the Supreme Court made overturned the High Court decision of Justice Young that the  Governments decision to 'partly sell' SOE couldn't be reviewed a clearer framework is exposed of how the Supreme Court appears to have radicalized the role of the Courts in the administration of government. I can only speculate that there might have been a constitutional crisis had the Supreme Court not dismissed the appeal. That bears some more consideration, yet we may never know because the government said they had not plan 'b' but were quite clearly on track as showing a constructive 'willingness' to preserve the position of the appellants which proved irresistible to the Supreme Court.

Meanwhile on the face of it the Supreme Court has said that Government decisions are reviewable to ensure they are consistent with the principles of The Treaty of Waitangi. In today's decision, the Supreme Court accepted that the government had done sufficient work and had sufficient resources to ensure that any ultimate arrangements made with individual Maori over 'water rights' were adequate to preserve the interests of those appealing, and that partly selling the SOEs would have no effect on reaching agreements consistent with the principles of the Treaty. While at the same time it seems to have 'opened' the door on the prospect that individual agreements or failure to reach agreement can still be looked at by the Courts. 

Of course for 'Bain watchers' the decision is also very interesting. It now seems settled that Government must abide by the principles of the Treaty and to this point I can't see how that decision is distinguished in anyway from abiding by the principles of our Bill of Rights, natural justice and so forth which form the basis of David Bain's application for Judicial Review on the decision of the Minister of Justice to not accept the review of Justice Binnie on the compensation question of David Bain, and also the recommendation or finding of innocence of David on the balance of probability.

I imagine team Bain will be encouraged both by the decision and by the recognition of the Court of the steps that the Crown made to ensure that existing Maori water claims were acknowledged along with those that might arise in the future. That might well now be a precedent the current government may need to acknowledge in the Bain JR process, that they are seen to be ensuring the rights of David and the fairness of his treatment. In other words an opposite of the way they have acted to this point by excluding David from the process whilst 'protecting' the interests of the Crown and other parties associated with the Crown. In fact an absolute reversal on the way they have acted since receiving Binnie's report. It looks like the Crown will have to 'fall in line' and act consistently both with natural justice, The Bill of Rights but also with the way they 'preserved' the right of Maori in respect of the Treaty throughout their dealings with water rights.

Robin's suicide note, a pattern of deceit?

Anybody familiar with the Bain case knows something about the suicide note, particularly the words 'deserved to stay,' giving rise to endless arguments from the twisted sisters with the claim that Robin wouldn't have used the word 'deserved' but rather 'deserves' - tense apparently being all important. Personally the words on the suicide note means little to me because it doesn't overcome evidence against Robin in the lounge scene, whether it was either word doesn't exonerate Robin from all the evidence still emerging about him. But was the word even used?...

Cox, initial statement to the police: The message on the computer read "Sorry you are the only one who deserves to stay”.

Cox, evidence in chief first trial:  It showed a message on the screen of the computer. That read: SORRY, YOU ARE THE ONLY ONE WHO DESERVED TO STAY.

Kevin Wayne Anderson, Evidence in chief, first trial: I then entered the alcove itself, I looked through the gap in the curtains and I could see a message that was recorded on the computer and it was displayed on the screen. The message read: SORRY, YOU ARE THE ONLY ONE WHO DESERVED TO STAY.

Milton Weir, evidence in chief, first trial: During the examination of Robin Bain, as to the alcove shown in room A on the southern side, the pathologist Mr Dempster actually looked into the alcove first; as a result of what he said I looked in there and noticed a message on the computer. I have recorded in my notebook SORRY, YOU ARE THE ONLY ONE WHO DESERVED TO STAY.

Dempster, evidence in chief, first trial: I recollect the message on the screen. That ws the message "sorry you are the only who deserves to stay”

We can see from above that Cox gives two versions, the initial one using the word 'deserves' and the second after he was prevailed upon or 'corrected?' it becomes 'deserved.'

The old partnership Weir and Anderson unanimous on the word 'deserved' throughout. Of course Weir admitted misleading the first Jury and Anderson gave evidence in the second trial, but not the first, that David had asked for 'his' glasses to be passed to him on the morning of the tragedy. So 15 years for that to  come out, right smack on cue when the Crown were most desperate to tie Margaret Bain's old glasses to the killings. This despite there being no evidence that they were used in anyway that morning, in fact when they were said to be mysteriously found by Weir, after hours, in a room that had already been thoroughly searched by officers assigned to the job - they were dust covered. Interestingly enough the Crown contended the glasses had been used by David on a killing spree and were broken when Steven 'fought back.' The Crown said that the glasses corresponded to 'injuries' found on David's face which only became visible after he had collapsed beside his bed and the wall later in the morning, except that the 'injuries' were to the opposite side of David's face than that from which the lens had been dislodged.

Anderson told the second Jury he had never raised the evidence before (David asking for 'his' glasses) because he didn't want to be 'criticised' for moving evidence that morning when he was assigned to 'watch' David. So he clearly omitted the 'fact,' and his duty, according to his own account, despite that it could be argued that it was critical to the Crown's case and only emerged at time when the Crown case was in terminal collapse. But the glasses 'controversy' doesn't finished there because Weir had been told the true ownership of the glasses before the first trial. 'Some how' that evidence got buried and the result was damaging to David's credibility because he was in conflict with the entered 'by consent' evidence of Sanderson whose first unaltered statement was that they were David's glasses. Later he was to discover that he was mistaken and that the glasses were in fact an on old pair of Margaret's. He told Weir of this and naively anticipated that his evidence would be altered as Weir confirmed. Clearly, Sanderson didn't know then 'evidence' couldn't be simply altered he had to re-sworn. Sanderson would have had no reason not to believe Weir on that day, but I'm fairly positive he would never take his word again at anything more than face value.

Some readers will know that the 'evidence' of the ownership of the glasses was among the considerations of the Privy Council when they determined that David's first trial was an Actual Miscarriage Of Justice. So when Anderson 'admitted' handling the glasses on the morning of the killings but keeping quiet about it for over a decade it continued on as being one of the more controversial issues of the handling and gathering of evidence in the Bain case. So much so that I can't believe the evidence of Anderson about handing the glasses to David, not just because of the length of time it took him to 'admit' what he claimed happened, not only because of the mystery finding of the lens in Steven's room after hours, and by an officer not tasked with the job, but because, most firmly at the very least, that the glasses were broken and had no lens at all in them. So to take Anderson seriously David was not only asking for and claiming ownership of glasses but he was asking for a pair that had no lens at all in them and could have only been a prop in a Marx Brother's movie and not in a Crown case for murder.

Lastly above, we have the account of Dr Dempster. He was the Crown Pathologist that urged the Crown before the retrial to consider if they should go ahead, by then he was familiar with the PC Judgement and also had experience of a body gurgling after death. Of course he appeared to be on the outer after that, with the Crown even finding other pathologists to contradict Dempster's evidence as to the close/contact shot in a bizarre exhibition of demonstrating the savaging of their own case. Some will know that those two pathologists put pressure on Dempster to 'review' his evidence. So for my money when Dempster says the word was 'deserves' I'd go for it. As for Weir and Anderson, partners in opportunistic silence, from which part of a MOJ is formed, thumbs down to their 'recollections.'

Just more to digest for those that don't think that there wasn't and isn't a concerted effort to continue to persecute David Bain, lies at every turn - even now, and joined in by a Minister of Justice.

Judith Collins undone, by herself.

From the Otago Daily Times today:

The retired Canadian judge appointed to assess David Bain's compensation claim, noted the Justice Minister had ''strong views on this case'', released emails reveal.Emails between parties involved in the compensation bid have been released by the office of Judith Collins following an Official Information Act request.
Those emails include an exchange involving retired judge of the Supreme Court of Canada Justice Ian Binnie and the minister's office.
In a flurry of emails late last year, Justice Binnie rejected a suggestion that the minister had raised the prospect of his report being peer reviewed.
''I do not recall any mention made at my meeting with the minister about `peer review'.''
Later in the same email he wrote, ''I appreciated that the minister has strong views on the case but I suggest that if a modicum of good will is to be shown it would be best shown on all sides''.
This email came after the prime minister announced that Justice Binnie's report would be the subject of a peer review.
Ms Collins' predecessor, Simon Power, commissioned the initial report after Mr Bain claimed compensation in 2010. However, Ms Collins publicly criticised the report, saying it needed to be peer reviewed by New Zealand QC and former High Court judge Robert Fisher.
''It lacked a robustness of reasoning used to justify its conclusions,'' she said in December.
Late last month, long-time Bain advocate, Joe Karam confirmed Mr Bain had filed a claim in the High Court at Auckland seeking a judicial review of the actions of the Justice Minister. The claim concerns her actions after she received the report from Justice Binnie, who found that on the balance of probabilities Mr Bain was innocent, and the process behind the report from Robert Fisher QC. Justice Binnie's claim he did not recall any mention of his report being peer reviewed during his meeting with the minister was rejected.
Ms Collins' office replied ''she considered you had gone beyond the terms of your instructions and that she intended to have your advice peer reviewed.
''The minister does not wish to make an issue of this point, it is of more importance to move forward with consideration of Mr Bain's application as swiftly as possible.''
Both Mr Karam and Ms Collins declined to comment to the Otago Daily Times on the released emails, as the matter was before the court.
- hamish.mcneilly@odt.co.nz [2]

Collins undone, by herself? Looks that way. Fairly safe bet that this email among others released by the Minister was done in the record time of a matter of hours as were the documents sought by The Truth in December 2012 and reportedly released after hours in a total time of only five hours to coincide with a publication time in which David Bain was called a liar. The released 'new' information was 19 years old, yet it was released in record time compared to the normal 21 days estimated for such a process to take. It's evident that the material released to The Truth would appear to the unwitting as confirming reasons for Collins extraordinary actions last year in dealing with David's compensation claim.

The ODT information on the other hand gives an insight as to the real truth of the matter anticipated by the less hysterical. We see Collins and Binnie at odds over whether or not Binnie was told that his report was going to be 'peer' reviewed by a ex Judge junior to Binnie in every respect. Collins appears to brush over this in an effort to move the point of interest else where, yet in fact her treatment of the report is now under Judicial Review and it's clear that Binnie is firm that he was not kept in the loop or given the opportunity to answer any criticisms that the Minister had worked herself into a frenzy over. However, if that weren't bad enough, it seems that Binnie had formed the view that the Minister had strong views on the case and suggested that she show a 'modicum' of good will to all sides. That is the crux of the Judicial Review to some extent, no good will shown to the applicant and a Ministerial view that there were sides - hers and Bains.

Sure, there were two parties involved David and the Crown representing the Ministry of Justice and the Police but surely not 'sides' in the Minister's impartial and fair mind. Not in theory anyway, even for those that could mistake the Minister's bristling antagonism and threats made to David, or her foot stomping as to whose decision it was. In effect the Minister's decision was going be similar to a Judicial decision by a Judge using all the principles of fairness, natural justice and so on yet here it is revealed that the Minister not only had strong views on the Bain case but that she also had lost sight of not only her own role but also any modicums of fairness that ought to have been applied.

I'd suspect there  would be even a small chance that a loopy hate-siter would see what the Minister was up to but I suspect few of the public hadn't seen through her contempt and possibly even hate for David Bain even before the release of this document in particular, and no doubt more of the same to come. Was Judith Collins just breath takingly arrogant, and full of contempt for the public and her duty to them? I'd say yes. I'd also say that she did the Country a favour by displaying her arrogance and contempt before her dreams of leading the National party were realised. She appears to have counted her chickens before they hatched and to hold views that others like Binnie and Karam for example can just be trampled over. Well, she's not the King yet and going on this is unlikely ever to become the King - everybody benefits from that. She lives in the wrong era, and believes in absolute power. She would be either King or tyrant, but now people are forewarned to the threats as to their rights and freedoms and many will defend those before this 'pretender' takes her imaginary Throne.

Hate-siters, lost in Paradise.

Since 2008 I have been crossing swords with the hate-sites. I think I'm fairly qualified to describe their tactics and that which brings them together in a single word: hate. Most people have a line of restraint, a point they seldom would go past, a point at which they might disassociate themselves from their fellows having felt things had gone too far. Young men, particularly troubled young men often have few boundaries to their behaviour and seek out others who are like minded. Time, or experiences, maturity, self awareness often bring home restraints and the ability to withdraw from social circles were boundaries are few and far between and where expected codes of conduct are violence, law breaking or drug taking and so on.

So who would the average hate-siter be? Typically older, not extremely bright and with a 'right' to act immorally in any number of ways. Probably foremost lying, then personal attacks. Just two quick characteristics until someone looks a little deeper. The hate-siters campaign is "Justice' for the dead Robin Bain and broadly the 'victims.' Of course the hangbainers in supporting the victims have no qualms about rubbishing Robin's wife and his daughters to the point of calling them liars and so on in such a fashion that it could be said the hate-siters victimise the victims. But lying is the interesting word, they call the victims liars. The call David Bain a liar, in fact everybody not agreeing with them is a liar. By virtue of the opposition to the 'cause,' all being liars, then it appears it is important that the hate-siters identify them, their families and associates where ever possible. The next bit is difficult to accept but easy to explain, because everyone else are apparently liars and that the hangers are not liars themselves, but in fact sort of apostles for the dead Robin and his family, who also happen to be liars - then it okay for the 'gifted ones' to lie themselves. If they didn't lie the real liars would get away with telling lies and therefore they would be persecuting the dead father. Of course the 'relationship' with the dead father was important but not as important as being a 'right thinking New Zealander.'

Being right thinking is actually the right to first of all lie, and then to stalk opponents. Part of that 'enlightenment' is to show no concern for other 'sisters' breaking the law or lying. In 4 years I've never seen a hate-siter distance themselves from the action of other hate-siters. No other part of society, apart possibly from gangs, willingly accepts the behavior of law breaking and other social codes. It's the Law of the Cult at work. People (cults) who hold to a concept that they are right and that everyone else is wrong, so allowing them to justify the actions of themselves personally and others whom they 'associate' with. The personal attacks are the 'acting out' of being right, the victims of this 'acting out' are not actually victims at all but a type of collateral not to be distinguished in any human way apart from their relationship with the 'target' liar. This is the dispassion of psychopathy,  the ability to be unable to see a victim as anything other than a 'target' in a greater war, whether that victim is involved directly against 'the cause,' or not, it doesn't matter. Landing 'hit's on the personalities of the opposition is in some weird way accounting for what is 'wrong' or what 'fails' in the persecutors argument. In short, targeting the opposition, proves the argument of the demented few. Well, at least in their own small minds. Small minds in which  one hate-participant feeds off the other, but never distances them self from errant behaviour, never, never, never - because the ability to discern right from wrong is lost in being 'right.' Nothing exists other than being right, it becomes their very existence and the reason why the hate-campaigners supporting the late David Bain keep re-appearing using new names or new guises and apparently unaware of the obvious - that there are only a few members of the sites that remain, and of that few  have been able to moderate their behaviour, so much so that the case is there are few nominees as to who each 'new' person or 'attacker' might be. While the sisters appear to whole heartedly believe they are right, they also whole heartedly believe that they don't identify themselves or one another as they play their only tune, lie and hunt.

I hope this guy gets a go.

A Christchurch policeman wants the force to grant him diversion after he grabbed a man by the scruff of the neck because he had gone through his mobile phone contents.

Name suppression was lifted for Sergeant Craig Elliot Prior when he appeared in Christchurch District Court on Tuesday and admitted a charge of assault, the Christchurch Court News website reports.

The court was told that in November, Prior was an officer called to a domestic dispute and accidentally left his mobile phone behind.

The person at the house phoned in to say he had been through the phone, found it interesting, and photographed the contents.

The phone contained much private, privileged, and personal information, including photographs and details of his children, Prior's lawyer Jonathan Eaton said.

When police returned to the house, Prior reached through a gate and held the man by the scruff of the neck and asked about the phone and what photographs had been taken.

Police need to decide by April whether or not to grant Prior diversion.

http://nz.news.yahoo.com/a/-/top-stories/16064860/chch-policeman-wants-diversion-for-assault/


He's pleaded guilty and asked for diversion. I know the country expects a great deal of the police and rightly so. It's less clear that they can not be expected to be reasonably protective of their families, or at least, as in this case, have the normal sensitivity toward feeling protective against anybody generally who might have raised things about Craig Elliot's family, but more specifically against somebody who essentially mocked the officer involved about private information found on his phone. If the photos and other sensitive material actually existed in the storage capacity of the phone then the person that spoke of them to Craig Elliot must have accessed them, following whether or not Craig then acted reasonably should have a test applied comparable to any husband, wife, mother or father looking out for the interests of their own. As the title says,  I hope this man gets a fair go.

The King's 'Powers' are dead, long live the people.

Borrowed from 'Cynic.'

'Baroness Hale said in 2011:
"Innocence as such is not a concept known to our criminal justice system. We distinguish between the guilty and the not guilty. A person is only guilty if the state can prove his guilt beyond reasonable doubt… if it can be conclusively shown that the state was not entitled to punish a person, it seems to me that he should be entitled to compensation for having been punished. He does not have to prove his innocence at his trial and it seems wrong in principle that he should be required to prove his innocence now."
"Now" being when being compensated for wrongful imprisonment.

That seems logical, fair and 'just'.
There is concern in the UK that people may be compensated when inadmissible evidence 'proves' their factual guilt despite a not guilty verdict. The machinations of Crown Law and the Minister on the Bain case suggests that not only do they agree with these reservations, but that they think that David Bain is guilty - possibly persuaded of that by the inadmissible evidence. However, Ian Binnie had all of that in front of him - all the inadmissible evidence and the rulings about it. Nonetheless he found Bain innocent.
So I'm with the Baroness on this one. If we allow politicians and Crown Law to 'know better' than the 'innocent until proven guilty' for any purpose, including the awarding of compensation, then we may as well do away with the concept altogether.

Judicial review is at the heart of the divide between the judiciary and the executive: the means of keeping the politicians from abusing their power. Those people who are questioning the purpose of this judicial review should think carefully about which of their basic rights they are happy to allow to be sacrificed to the whims of political manoeuvring.
If the Minister of Justice is allowed to manipulate a justice process for political ends, without any outcry from those who should be outraged, where will it go next? The Police already consider themselves above the law: this will merely strengthen that belief. If Crown law and crown prosecutors are asinvested in a belief in Bain's guilt as they clearly are, they are not meeting the basic requirement of their office - a dispassionate and unbiased presentation of truth. Thus the Crown cannot be trusted to act in our best interests. The judiciary need to compel them to manage their beliefs and stick to their jobs.'


I totally agree 'cynic.' Of course this wasteland where the 'not guilty' are  also 'the guilty' in the minds of the police, and in this case the Minister, sees a further an absolute punishment applied: the stripping of access to the Courts for Justice. I'm unaware of any other process by which rights to go to the Judiciary are removed. Surely it is every persons right to take a case for examination, particularly where a person has been punished by the Courts for offences that were unproven against him if one party had not abused the process and in fact struck at the heart of everything which marks New Zealand as a democracy. The police hid and destroyed evidence in a deliberate way to make a case against David Bain, but in their haste and contempt didn't realise the attending narrative was bizarre, inconsistent with facts and logic, and would one day be seen as clearly ridiculous. When Collins sat down with those representing this travesty of Justice, she also became a person representing the travesty, but with more contempt than the original perpetrators because she publicly declared that it was her decision, that she need not convince a Court, Judges or a Jury - simply decide because it was within her powers. In her arrogance she threw Justice aside and looked to rise above us all as a true tyrant. She also did it secretly, she was tidying things up 'for the boys.' Tidying things up for wasting 15 or more million dollars on a trial that could only have one result and victimising the same innocent person again.

David Bain fights back.

There had been a building anxiety over the situation that David found himself in as the result of the neutral "Judge Judy' deliberating over his future hand in hand with the two primary groups who sent him to prison for 13 years after the deliberate act of 'an actual Misscarriage of Justice.' While David was the applicant in a bid for compensation for his years in prison, the Minister for all intents treated him as if she were Queen and he was held in the Tower of London while she devised ways to avoid paying him for his mistreatment, aided of course by the perpetrators of that mistreatment the police and The Crown. While the Minister sought a 'peer' review of the Binnie report that David was Innocent on the Balance of Probabilities she kept everybody in the dark apart from both the Crown and police,later she would be seen to have worked with them whilst excluding the applicant.

Contrast that situation with Ian Binnie's way of going about his work, all information he received he copied to the other parties having  taken advice from the former Minister of Justice that the Crown were also to be treated as a party to the application from David Bain. He acted with absolute fairness and impartiality, while the Minister who would soon attack his report publicly, after looking to extinguish it's merit privately, acted absolutely without fairness and impartiality. When her 'dark' deeds were finally exposed not only did she attack Binne but she also attacked David Bain in an odd sort of 'motherly' role, expressing that he might not
'like' things in a report that said he was innocent - what would David not like about having been found not innocent on the BOP - to answer that one would have to go to a very dark place indeed - the mind of the Minister of Justice, the person tasked with overseeing one of the most important Government portfolios: the fair administration of Justice.

A Minister who had in previous months looked to have taken a firm grip on the an important portfolio suddenly had become the 'attack dog' for the police and Crown and there was no longer any 'air' of neutrality, only of venom. So for some watchers like myself there seem to be a point raised, the distinction of how long David Bain would stand cap in hand before his 'neutral' tormentor. It appeared even among those with no view of the Bain case, ambivalence to it and even those that thought David guilty that there was disquiet about the spectacle of a Minister predicting long delays in David's applications and speaking to he, and his support team only through the media, that unfairness was at work. What was he to do?

Most people know the point that is reached when a person, having had enough of feeling of being treated badly or unfairly that there dignity is offended or they simply lose their cool and say something as relatively benign as 'stick it up your jumper' or in the case of more seasoned veterans up another more intimate place. That point had long since arrived in my opinion, I'd say around last November or December, perhaps even 2009, but of course no legal remedy, particularly as one as 'complex' as questioning the unbridled use of power against a citizen stripped of their normal rights can happen overnight. I've written else where, and much earlier here on this blog of my resistance to a man or woman damaged by the state, or state powers, in some way to have to go to the Crown head bowed seeking some redress. It seems to me to completely against the kiwi instinct of fairness and is the reason I've always supported the case of Susan Couch against Corrections that was finally settled last year. Why I, like others, still remain disturbed about the Crewe case, the Ellis case, Watson case, because all these people damaged by the state get reduced to fighting an immovable beast while having their hands tied behind their backs. And that immovable beast is the people's own government, just like Judith Collins is the political head of a Justice system that is set in place to ultimately serve and protect those I mention above, but which in fact offers them pity and excuses while fighting them tooth and nail to prevent them receiving redress from the very party that caused immeasurable damage in their lives. Anybody who has had family fight for NZ in wars would harbour some reserve that one of the reasons their family members fought was to see fairness remain strong in our own homelands, fought that that the freedoms of their descendants would be enhanced and improved as a just society became more concerned about rights and the treatment of it's citizens.

Perhaps that is going somewhat too far in ideology - something I will let any readers consider. But in the meantime, as I hope it sinks into other kiwi's minds, we have seen David Bain knocked down by the Minister charged with his fair and just treatment, she has bullied threatened and cautioned him in pubic, spoken about her powers to 'decide' on his future, obviously feeling that her 'powers' were untouchable and able to be used in any way that she decided - because nobody would tell her 'the temporary King or Queen' what to do, or even dare to question her - well on Wednesday David did exactly that, and has arrived where I thought he should have been 4 years ago, not bowing to some 'prerogative cabinet power' but in the Courts were all men and women have the right to go for Justice.