Bain family members never heard policeman's comment, court told

Laniet Bain was killed with four other members of her family in June 1994. Her brother David is on trial for the murders. Photo / NZ Magazines

Two Bain family members have testified they never heard a police officer say at a meeting on the afternoon of the Bain family funerals, "David is the enemy and we are going to get him".

The testimony was given on the last day of evidence in the three-month retrial of David Cullen Bain in the High Court in Christchurch today, after the defence had closed its case.

Bain is accused of shooting dead his father Robin, mother Margaret and siblings Arawa, Laniet and Stephen at their Every St, Dunedin, home in June 1994.

Two family members were recalled to give evidence about the meeting held at the Dunedin police station on the afternoon of the funerals in June 1994.

Michael Mayson, a cousin of David's father Robin Bain, gave evidence for the defence earlier in the trial and said that a police officer at the meeting said, "David is the enemy and we are going to get him".

Both of the family members recalled today said they did not hear that comment, and would have been very upset if they had.

They said that the police had been very compassionate, concerned, and respectful of them and of David Bain.

A senior fingerprint officer was recalled by the crown prosecutors to give further evidence.

Kim Jones said he still believed the fingerprints on the rifle used in the Bain family murders were in blood, and produced photographs of experiments he had done with his own blood and another rifle.

After 130 crown witnesses, 54 defence witnesses and more than 3700 pages of transcript the evidence finished today.

Justice Graham Panckhurst thanked the jury on behalf of counsel and himself.

He said it had been a long haul to complete the evidence, and that from time to time the jury had been inconvenienced. He said he was grateful for their attention.

He adjourned the court until 10am on Tuesday, when the Crown will make its closing address, with the defence address on Wednesday and his own summing up on Thursday.

The jury members were asked to decide whether they want to be sequestered while they are deliberating their verdict, but the judge warned them that whichever way they decided, he could over-rule their decision after talking to all counsel.

Earlier today Dean Cottle, who evaded a summons to appear as a defence witness by leaving New Zealand, had his statement read to the court.

Cottle said he met Laniet Bain about August 1993, that they got on well and became friends.

She had told him that her father had been having sex with her for years, and it was still going on.

It was one of the reasons she had left home. She was also fed up with her mother hassling her, and that the family sat around and had turns talking to God.

She told him her older sister Arawa had been involved in some prostitution, but didn't think much of it. She said she had done some jobs herself.

She was involved in cannabis use, he said.

On the Friday before the deaths he phoned her home and spoke to her mother.

She gave him a phone number for Laniet and when he rang he was surprised when he thought her father answered, as he didn't think she would be back with him.

Later that day he saw Laniet coming out of coffee shop.

He stopped and spoke to her and she told him she was going to make a new start of everything.

She was going to tell her family everything, she said. She was scared of her parents finding out what she was doing.

He said she told him she wanted to go back to Papua New Guinea, but said that something had happened to her there.

She started crying and told him about what her father had done to her, he said.

On June 26 1995, he added more detail to his statement.

Laniet was agitated on the Friday afternoon before her death, he said.

She said she was going to put a stop to everything, she was sick of everyone "getting up her".

She told him the incestuous relationship with her father had started in Papua New Guinea.

- NZPA