Bain's team gives few clues in brief opening

David Bain will not give evidence in his own defence, say his lawyers, who otherwise were yesterday keeping their cards close to their chest.

Bain's defence team surprised the High Court at Christchurch yesterday by opening their case with an address that lasted only about six minutes.

It is not unusual for openings in big court cases to take hours as lawyers outline the evidence

But Helen Cull, QC, said she wanted to spare the jury a long opening.

"You have heard a lot over the last nine weeks," she told the jury.

Bain, 37, is on trial for murdering his parents and three siblings in their Dunedin family home on June 20, 1994.

His defence is that his father Robin, 58, killed his family before turning the rifle on himself.

Ms Cull told the jury they had heard all the interviews Bain gave to police in the days after the killings and the evidence he gave to his first murder trial in 1995.

"Matters are now 15 years on, there is nothing more he can contribute. He has always maintained his innocence, as you have heard. And he still does."

Ms Cull said more than 50 defence witness would be called.

They would include eminent overseas scientists, doctors and school principals, some with evidence police should have put forward.

"So, in effect, the defence is calling the evidence the police should have called, in the defence's view."

This was a reference to witnesses such as those who will say that Robin was involved in an incestuous relationship with his daughter Laniet.

Ms Cull said the defence team thought it best that the jury hear the witnesses fresh "without me laboriously outlining to you what each of the witnesses is going to say".

But the evidence of some defence witnesses has been foreshadowed in the questioning of prosecution witnesses.

This includes experts who will say Robin could have easily used the rifle next to his body to commit suicide, that Laniet, 18, could have survived long enough after being shot to be gurgling when Bain got home from his paper round, and that Robin had injuries on his body consistent with a struggle with his son Stephen.

Stephen Bain, 14, fought his killer in his bedroom before being shot in the head.

Ms Cull said the onus was all on the prosecution to show that Bain murdered his family, and that Robin was not the killer.

Before the defence opening yesterday the jury reheard the tape of a 111 call Bain made on the morning of the killings.

The jury also had a second look at video film shot inside the Bain house.

NEXT
* The High Court murder retrial of David Bain will enter its 42nd day on Monday.
* Bain's defence team opened its case yesterday, and the first of more than 50 witnesses will take the stand on Monday.
* The prosecution called evidence from 130 witnesses in its case.

THE WEEK IN SUMMARY

Monday

David Bain's uncle and aunt tell the court about an episode after the killings in which Bain went into an altered state and spoke about black hands taking away his family, and everyone dying "just like Schindler's List".

Bob and Jan Clark say Bain became upset after reading a newspaper, saying police lied to him, because some of his family were awake when killed, and the killer "had to look them in the eye and shoot them".

Mr Clark recalls driving Bain to the police station for an interview, and him saying: "I'll be glad when this is all sorted out ... I can live my life."

The defence says it has a witness who will say Bain's mother Margaret feared her husband Robin was so depressed he would get a gun and shoot the family.

Tuesday

The court hears for the first time about Bain changing his version of events to say he found the bodies of not only his parents, but his brother and two sisters as well.

In evidence read from his 1995 murder trial, Bain says he was able to recall going into the bedrooms of his siblings after sessions with a psychiatrist months later.

A family friend tells how Margaret was viewed as "slightly mental" because of strange new-age ideas about past lives, being possessed and using a pendulum to choose what she should buy.

A police fingerprint expert rejects the defence theory that Bain's fingerprints were put on the rifle used in the killings during a hunting trip months earlier. Kim Jones says ageing and subsequent handling would have destroyed the prints.

Wednesday

The court hears of statements by Bain in 1994 and 1995 in which he could not explain how his fingerprints got on the rifle or blood got on his clothing.

In evidence in his 1995 trial, Bain said he must have picked up the rifle at some stage, but he did not remember touching or seeing it.

A police forensic photographer puts a new perspective on the important issue of a spectacle lens found in Stephen Bain's bedroom, saying what one police officer had to concede was an optical illusion in a photograph was the lens.

The defence criticises police for not looking further into claims that Robin was having an incestuous relationship with his daughter Laniet, and foreshadows witnesses to give evidence about this relationship.

Thursday

The day is taken up with legal argument that cannot be reported.