On 20 June 1994, Robin and Margaret Bain and three of their four childrenArawa, Laniet, and Stephenwere shot to death in Dunedin, New Zealand. The only suspects were David Cullen Bain, the eldest son and only survivor, and Robin Bain, the father.David Bain V The Queen - Privy Council Judgment, Privy Council, 11 May 2007 para 8 David Bain, aged 22, was charged with five counts of murder. In May 1995, he was convicted on each of the five counts and sentenced to mandatory life in prison with a minimum non-parole period of sixteen years.
David's case was taken up by businessman and former rugby player Joe Karam. In 2007, his legal team, guided by Karam, successfully appealed to the Privy Council, arguing that Robin Bain was involved in an incestuous relationship with one of his daughters. When this was about to be disclosed, he killed everyone in his family except David and then committed suicide. The Privy Council declared there had been a 'substantial miscarriage of justice'. Bain was released on bail in May 2007. The retrial in June 2009 ended with his acquittal on all charges.
The case has been described as "the most widely discussed and divisive in New Zealand's criminal history".A Case that divides a nation, Stuff, Speculation about it continued long after David was acquitted, including whether or not he should receive compensation for the years he spent in prison. Ian Binnie, a retired justice of the Supreme Court of Canada, was appointed in November 2011 to review the circumstances and advise the government on whether compensation should be paid. Binnie concluded that the Dunedin police made 'egregious errors' and that the 'extraordinary circumstances' in the case justified the payment of compensation. This report was rejected by the Minister of Justice, Judith Collins, on advice from the police,Report recommending Bain compensation is 'flawed', NZ Herald, 13 December 2012 the Solicitor-GeneralRequest for the Callinan report on David Bain’s compensation claim, Office of the Ombudsman, para 5 and High Court Judge Robert Fisher.
Following Judith Collins' resignation, in March 2015 the government appointed Ian Callinan, a retired justice of the High Court of Australia, to conduct a second review of David's compensation claim. Callinan concluded that David was not innocent on the balance of probabilities. David's legal team indicated they would contest the report's findings in Court. The Government offered David an ex gratia payment of $925,000 to put an end to the drawn out dispute over compensation, which David accepted (with Karam saying that David did so “reluctantly”).Joe Karam: David Bain payout a 'bittersweet pill to swallow', NZ Herald, 5 August 2016
Family background Robin Irving Bain and Margaret Arawa Cullen were married in 1969 in Dunedin, New Zealand. They had four children: David (born 1972), Arawa (born 1974), Laniet (born 1976), and Stephen (born 1980). In 1991 Robin became the principal of Taieri Beach School.
In June 1994, the family lived at 65 Every Street, Andersons Bay, Dunedin. The house was old and 'semi-derelict'. Photographs presented at the trial showed most of the rooms were squalid and messy with the family's belongings strewn in disorderly heaps. At the time of the murders, Robin and Margaret were estranged. Margaret Bain had developed an interest in new-age spiritualism. She referred to her husband as "a son of Belial – one of the Four Crown Princes of Hell".Report For The Minister Of Justice On Compensation Claim By David Cullen Bain By Hon Ian Binnie QC, 30 August 2012, para 31. They used to fight and bicker, and shortly before the murders Margaret told an acquaintance that she would shoot Robin if she could.The perfect family, Stuff Interactives She refused to let him sleep in the house, so he often slept in the back of his van near the school. When he came home on weekends, he slept in a caravan in the garden.
At David Bain's third Court of Appeal hearing, fellow teachers described Robin at the time of the killings as "deeply depressed, to the point of impairing his ability to do his job of teaching children." Cyril Wilden, a former teacher and registered psychologist visited the Taieri School, and noted that "Robin appeared to be increasingly disorganised and struggling to cope." There were piles of unopened mail on his desk and his classroom was ‘dishevelled, disorganised and untidy’.David Bain V The Queen - Privy Council Judgment, Privy Council, 11 May 2007, Scoop, paras 41-43
Laniet had been flatting in Dunedin but also lived with her father in the Taieri schoolhouse.David Bain V The Queen - Privy Council Judgment, Privy Council, 11 May 2007, para 3 She returned to the family residence on the Sunday evening of 19 June, the day before the murders, to attend a family meeting. At David Bain's retrial, witnesses said the meeting was called because Laniet, aged 18 at the time, wanted to disclose that her father had been committing incest with her prior to the murders.Bain's sister Laniet was to tell of incest, NZ Herald, 16 May 2009
David Bain was studying music and classics at Otago University and had a part-time job delivering morning newspapers. Arawa was attending teachers' training college (formerly Otago Teachers' College, later Otago University, School of Education) and Stephen was at high school.
Deaths On the morning of 20 June 1994, after returning from his morning paper run, David called the 111 emergency number at 7:09 am in a distressed state and told the operator: "They're all dead, they're all dead."
When the police arrived they found five members of the Bain family dead, having all suffered gunshot wounds – Robin (58), his wife Margaret (50), their daughters Arawa (19) and Laniet (18), and their son Stephen (14). All had been shot from a .22-calibre Winchester Model 490 semi-automatic rifle. A message was found typed on a computer that said "sorry, you are the only one who deserved to stay". Four days later, David, aged 22, was charged with five counts of murder.
Two weeks after the murders, the house was burnt down at the request of other family members.Burning the Bain home, Te Ara In the process, the carpet containing bloody footprints was destroyed – described by Judge Ian Binnie as a 'critical' piece of evidence used to convict David. The footprints were revealed when the carpet was tested with luminol on the day of the murders. Police officers admitted at the retrial that they should have cut out and retained the carpet with the bloodied footprints.Report For The Minister Of Justice On Compensation Claim By David Cullen Bain By Hon Ian Binnie QC 30 August 2012, para 566
Legal proceedings
First trial David Bain's first trial lasted three weeks and took place at the Dunedin High Court in May 1995. The Crown case was that David shot his mother, two sisters and brother before going out on his morning paper run at about 5.45am. There was a struggle with his brother. He returned to the house about an hour later, typed a message on the computer that said "Sorry, you are the only one who deserved to stay" and then waited in the lounge for his father to come in from the caravan before shooting him in the head. He then rang emergency services.
The defence case was that Robin shot and killed his wife and children, then turned on the computer, typed in the message to his son and committed suicide. David returned from his paper round, found his family members dead and rang emergency services.
Dean Cottle, a witness who was expected to testify for the defence that Laniet was intending to expose an incestuous relationship with her father, failed to show up at court when called. Cottle provided a written statement to this effect but Justice Williamson found him unreliable as a witness and, in his absence, ruled against admission of his testimony. Whether Laniet intended to disclose allegations of incest against her father prior to the killings was not presented to the trial jury. David Bain V The Queen - Privy Council Judgment, 11 May 2007, Para 46
As a result, neither the prosecution nor the defence put forward any evidence about motive at the trial. The Crown prosecutor told the jury during his summing up, "It is beyond comprehension. We can't understand it. Your job is to work out who did it, not to worry about why it happened. We will probably never know why."Joe Karam, Trial by Ambush: The Prosecutions of David Bain, 2012 ISBN 978-1869508340 Justice Neil Williamson told the jury that the Crown said "... that these events were so bizarre and abnormal that it was impossible for the human mind to conceive of any logical or reasonable explanation".
At the conclusion of the trial, David was convicted by the jury on five counts of murder and sentenced to life imprisonment with a sixteen-year non-parole period.
Support of Joe Karam Former All Black rugby player Joe Karam became interested in the case in 1996, when he read a newspaper article about some university students trying to raise money for David's appeal by selling jam. He gave them some money and then studied the evidence presented at the original trial. He felt "something was wrong" with the case and spearheaded a lengthy campaign to have David's convictions overturned. He visited him in prison over 200 times and wrote four books about the case. Karam stated in his books that "[Bain's] innocence is the only possible conclusion"David and Goliath: the Bain family murders, (Auckland: Reed, 1997), p. 223. and that he was "totally innocent".Trial By Ambush, p. 409. Karam was subsequently described in some media as a 'freedom fighter' and his support helped bring about a retrial in 2009 at which David was found not guilty.
Karam's support for David came at considerable personal cost. He used to be a millionaire owning more than 20 investment properties. He no longer owns these. He worked fulltime on David's case up until the 2003 appeal and friends estimate he lost up to $4 million in terms of his time, loss of earnings and costs of legal and forensic experts.David's promise, NZ Herald, 20 May 2007 Journalist Amanda Spratt wrote: "Ten years down the track, the friends and fortune have gone. The woman he loved left him, he sold his home and he doesn't bother going to dinner parties any more, sick of them ending in an argument and a walk-out."Listener, 21 April 2007
Appeals The first application was made to the New Zealand Court of Appeal in 1995, principally on whether the trial judge had erred in refusing to admit Cottle's testimony. The Court refused to hear the appeal on the grounds that the "Crown case appeared very strong and the defence theory not at all plausible."
In June 1998, David petitioned the Governor-General for a pardon, which was then passed on to the Ministry of Justice. In 2000, Justice Minister Phil Goff said the investigation had shown that "a number of errors" may have occurred in the Crown's case against Bain.Bain Matters Referred To Court Of Appeal, press release by Phil Goff, 19 December 2000.
Privy Council In March 2007, David's legal team, including Karam, travelled to London to lay out nine arguments before the Privy Council as to why his convictions should be quashed. Two of the nine points concerned Robin's mental state and possible motive including the possibility that he was "facing the public revelation of very serious sex offences against his teenage daughter".Bain could be out of jail next week, New Zealand Herald, 11 May 2007. The other seven points concerned questions about particular pieces of evidence. The Privy Council said there was considerable doubt that David would have been convicted if evidence discovered post-trial had been put to the jury.