Wellington - A New Zealander who served more than 12 years
in prison for the murder of his parents and three siblings was found
not guilty of the mass slaughter by a jury on Friday after his second
trial.
David Bain, 37, was released in 2007 after the Privy Council in
London - then New Zealand's highest court - ruled he had been the
victim of 'a substantial miscarriage of justice' when he was first
tried in 1995 and sentenced to a minimum of 16 years in jail.
The council said the jury might have reached a different verdict
had nine points of evidence raised by Bain's lawyers at his appeal in
2007 been presented to it.
The Court of Appeal had twice refused to change the verdict and
the case went to the Privy Council after a prominent businessman and
former rugby star, Joe Karam, organized a nationwide campaign and
petition to have Bain freed.
The Privy Council did not declare him innocent and although the
solicitor-general could have abandoned the case he decided that Bain,
who was released on bail, should face another trial.
The jury returned its unanimous verdict in just under six hours
following a 13-week trial at the Christchurch High Court which heard
evidence from 184 witnesses.
Bain had again pleaded not guilty to shooting to death his father,
Robin, 58, mother Margaret, 50, sisters Arawa, 19 and Laniet, 18, and
brother Stephen, 14, at the family home in Dunedin on June 20, 1994.
Bain's defence throughout was that he was out on his morning
newspaper delivery round when his father, who was having an
incestuous affair with Laniet, killed the other family members before
turning the gun on himself.
A message left on the family computer on the morning of the
killings said, 'I'm sorry, you are the only one who deserved to stay.'
New Zealand's most well-known victim of injustice, Arthur Allan
Thomas, who served nine years in prison for a double murder in 1970
he was later ruled not to have committed, was at the court to support
Bain when the trial began. He told reporters he was there to see
justice done.
USA
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