David Bain said he could be the killer - uncle

Teacher Paul Hewson says Laniet Bain told him she was raped. Photo / Supplied

David Bain listed himself among the possible killers after five of his family were shot dead, a court has heard.

Bain's uncle John Boyd told the High Court at Christchurch about a conversation the pair had a day after the killings. Bain, 37, is on trial for the murders, but says his father, Robin, 58, was responsible.

"At one stage he said: 'If it was my father, I can never forgive him,"' Mr Boyd said. "I asked him what he meant by 'if'. And he said, well, it was either his father, him, or someone from outside the house.

"And I said to him: 'Well, we know it really wasn't anyone from outside the house, don't we?' And he said yes."

Bain is accused of using his .22 rifle to kill his parents and three siblings in their Dunedin home on June 20, 1994. His defence team says his father shot the rest of the family before turning the gun on himself.

The court also heard yesterday about claims made by David's sister Laniet, 18, that she had been raped, had a black baby, and had tried to commit suicide.

Mr Boyd said his conversation with Bain took place in the early hours of June 21. He said he told Bain that if his father had been the killer, he had to forgive him "because he wasn't in his right mind obviously".

He said he asked Bain if he had been under any particular stress recently, and Bain said he had not.

"He also came out with some spasmodic comments like 'you've heard about the black hands, haven't you?' I had heard discussion about the apparent swirling of black hands that had taken the bodies away that he had seen. I didn't pursue that."

Another uncle of Bain's, Michael Bain, said that when he saw his nephew on June 23, 1994, he found him very welcoming, quite cheerful and "relaxed". David Bain gave him a "wry smile" and they hugged. Bain was arrested the next day.

The two uncles were executors of Robin and his wife Margaret's wills and arranged for a valuation of the family property which found it would be worth more without the house. They approached David Bain about having the house destroyed and they both told the court yesterday that Bain agreed.

The defence says important evidence was lost when the house was destroyed by fire by the Fire Service at the request of the Bain Family Trust.

Paul Hewson, a teacher at Dunedin's Bayfield High School, told the court Laniet Bain was a pupil at the school, and they had conversations in which she was surprisingly open.

"The first thing she told me was that she had a child, which she had in Papua New Guinea. She said she had been raped over there, and she said the child was black."

The Bain family had lived in Papua New Guinea doing missionary work before returning to New Zealand in 1988.

Mr Hewson said Laniet later changed her story and said she had had an abortion.

"I didn't know what to make of it."

Mr Hewson said Laniet also told him she had attempted to kill herself by slashing her wrists, and her older sister, Arawa, had saved her life.

Thomas Samuel, a prison officer who strip-searched Bain after his arrest for murder, told the court how he found scratch marks and some bruising around Bain's right shoulder and upper arm area.

These injuries would be consistent with someone clawing or grabbing through clothing, he said. The prosecution says Bain suffered the injuries in a violent struggle with his brother, Stephen, 14, but the defence says the injuries did not exist when Bain was examined on the day of the killings.