David Bain trial hears of sockprint mystery

ESR forensic scientist Kevan Walsh in the witness stand at Christchurch High Court. Pool photo

Scientific tests showed Robin Bain could have left bloody sockprints in his home, a forensic expert told the Bain trial yesterday.

The issue of the sockprints re-emerged in the High Court at Christchurch yesterday where David Bain, 37, is on trial for killing his parents and three siblings in June, 1994.

His defence team says David's father, Robin, 58, shot the family before turning the .22 rifle on himself, and that if Robin left the sockprints, David could not be the killer.

Yesterday ESR forensic scientist Kevan Walsh presented to the court the results of testing which showed someone with a foot the size of Robin's would leave a bloody sockprint close to the size of those found in the hall and a bedroom of the Bains' Dunedin home.

Different testing also showed someone with a foot the size of David's could have left the prints.

Mr Walsh also gave evidence yesterday in line with other experts that the rifle that inflicted Robin's fatal wound would have been fired when it was some distance from his head, rather than against his head as it would have to have been had he committed suicide as the defence says he did.

Having seen photographs of Robin's wound, Mr Walsh said his opinion was that the shot was most likely fired from more than 20cm away. .

The bloody sockprints were found in the Bain house using luminol, a chemical that reacts with blood and glows, and the complete prints were measured by forensic scientist Peter Hentschel in 1994 at 280mm long.

Mr Walsh carried out tests several years later using the measurements of David's foot, at 300mm long, and Robin's foot, at 270mm. In his tests, people with feet the same size wore socks coated in pig blood to create prints for comparison.

He found that a foot the size of Robin's, once looked at with luminol, left an average print size of 279mm standing, and 282mm walking.

Testing on a walking foot the size of David's left sockprints no less than 280mm, and mostly between 290 and 300mm, though these were not viewed with luminol which could make them longer.

Evidence has been given of blood on David's socks after the killings, but not on the socks Robin was wearing when found dead.

Mr Walsh also did tests to see if a spent cartridge ejected from a rifle in the lounge, where Robin was found, could have travelled through curtains to an adjoining computer alcove.

This relates to a spent cartridge found in the alcove, and whether this could have come from Robin shooting himself, or from David shooting his father from the alcove.

"With the firearm on the lounge side of the curtains ... the cartridge case was more likely to have struck the curtain and fallen to the floor in front of the curtain," Mr Walsh said.

However, his tests showed it was possible for the case to have ended up on the other side of the curtains.

The prosecution hit back yesterday at the defence suggestion that the rifle used in the shootings jammed with misfed bullets five times that fatal day.

The defence says one of these misfed bullets was on the floor next to Robin's body, and if David had misfired and had had to reload, Robin would surely have tried to escape.

Questioned by prosecutor Kieran Raftery, Mr Walsh said he believed the bullet was not misfed, but fell from a nearby ammunition magazine.