From the New Zealand Times:
Mainly Callinan's report relitigates the points and arguments Bain must answer if he is to convince the country his father was the shooter rather than him.
It's often forgotten that the equation in the Bain case is whether it was David or Robin who took the lives of five family members.
Over the 22 years since the shootings, a wealth of information and conjecture has emerged to form a formidable amount of material to consider. But Bain was always going to struggle to explain satisfactorily certain points which are summarised below.
1. A lens found in his brother Stephen's room matched damaged spectacles found in his room.
Callinan: "None of the applicant's contentions with respect to the glasses address the absence of any satisfactory explanation by the applicant (Bain) of the presence of the distorted frame with one lens in it which was found in his room."
2. David had injuries – scratches, bruises and abrasions to his head and knee – consistent with a fight.
"Noticeable and sore bruising on the front/side of Bain's head is quite unexplained. I do not accept Bain's supporters' theory that it must have occurred when he fainted in his bedroom," Callinan said.
Callinan said Bain had the physical ability to subdue his feisty brother. He had "a considerably greater physical capacity to overpower his valiant brother in his ultimately futile fight for his life. Strength and remorseless determination would have been necessary to strangle him almost to death with his own T-shirt".
In contrast Robin Bain was seen as frail and "wasted".
3. David's fingerprints were found on the rifle. They looked to have been made by his fingers covered in blood.
Callinan said he was unable to accept Bain supporter Joe Karam's submission that the evidence was clear that the fingerprints were not in blood and were not suspicious. He was also unpersuaded the fingerprint blood was rabbit or possum blood from a hunting trip because the prints would not have survived the handling required to shoot the family.
"The fingerprints are, however, capable of constituting credible evidence of pointing to the guilt of Bain."
4. Stephen's blood was found on David's clothes.
Callinan said it was an incontestable fact that Bain's clothing was found to have the blood of one or more of his siblings on it.
5. If Robin was the killer, his behaviour was implausible and highly unusual including wearing David's gloves and getting changed from the clothes he wore during the shooting into old clothes to shoot himself.
Callinan said minor injuries to Robin's hands were consistent with odd jobs over the weekend, "not the sorts of injuries that were likely to have been sustained in attempting to strangle Stephen to death and in overpowering him as he fought for his life".
He was not impressed by the evidence of small smears of blood on Robin's hands and he did not regard the evidence of Robin's full bladder meaningless as the defence alleged.
Callinan also questioned why Robin would take the trouble to shower or wash if he was going to take his own life.
6. Bain's inability to explain what he was doing for 20 minutes after he returned from his paper run.
Callinan referred to the comment that "blacking out" was a popular excuse.
Callinan: "In effect his mind in this regard was "blacked out". The undoubted fact is, however, that Bain did not, as one might reasonably expect, immediately telephone emergency services. That expectation is raised in a situation in which, as he claimed at the trial, he had heard gurgling sounds from Laniet. Most people would think that if she were gurgling there might be a chance that she might possibly still be alive and respond to emergency treatment."
7. Bain gave inconsistent accounts of what happened and bizarre behaviour after the shootings.
Callinan outlined inconsistencies in David's various statements.
"Both in tone and in some matters of substance; Bain's evidence at his 1995 trial differed from the various statements he made to police officers."
In other parts of the report Callinan dealt with the defence's contention Bain lacked any motive to shoot his family and that Robin had every motive since his daughter Laniet was about to reveal their incestuous relationship.
Callinan said Robin's alleged motive did not explain why David was spared and Stephen and sister Arawa were shot. He found the hearsay evidence of the incest unreliable and described Laniet as a "fabulist".
Bain's expressed hatred of his father, his wish to see him excluded from the household and fights with him over a chainsaw were pertinent. Callinan gave more weight to evidence showing a motive for David than the evidence for Robin's motive.
"There are aspects of Bain's behaviour which were, in my opinion, unusual, bizarre even. His resentment of his father, and his adversarial stance towards him, and description of the division of the family into two camps, either for Mrs Bain or against her, struck me as unusual. He was certainly very, almost obsessively, attached to his mother, and to building and occupying the grand home in prospect with her.
"His own evidence attests to the fact that he regarded himself as being in a contest with his father for domination of the household."
Callinan did not accept Robin was clinically depressed as the defence alleged although he accepted he may have been in a state of distress or unhappiness.
The former Australian judge was not nearly as scathing of the police investigation as Binnie was. Referring to tests not done and potential evidence disposed of he said:
"That does not mean that a doubt is able to be elevated to a probability on the basis of a loss, or destruction, or alteration of something that could possibly have had evidentiary value."
Failure did not make affirmative evidence, he said.
"One problem with some of Mr Karam's criticisms that are valid is that they are in respect of matters and tests, which if available might be just as likely to be inculpatory of Bain as exculpatory."
Recent claims by the defence of a breakthrough in the case – a suggestion marks on Robin's thumb were soot from the magazine – failed to win Callinan over.
"The Crown response is at least as persuasive as . . . Bain's defence arguments," he said.
It was swayed, he said, by the fact the marks were visible in the fingerprint forms, he said.
Sooty marks would not have appeared on the forms.
He said the apparent suicide note left by Robin on the family computer was inexplicably cryptic and unusual.
He found it odd Robin would wear gloves to shoot the family as he had no need "to conceal his purpose".
Callinan was critical of the expert evidence in the case.
"I have to say that expert evidence adduced on behalf of Bain, or elicited in cross-examination, which pointed to possibilities, even reasonable possibilities has failed to establish possibilities as probabilities."
Real life was different to crime stories, Callinan said in conclusion.
"People in real life and the courts that adjudicate upon conflicting facts know that all of the questions cannot always be answered, and all of the issues neatly resolved. This is such a case. Addressing the sole question that I am asked, and confining myself strictly to it, my answer is that Bain has not proved on the balance of probabilities that he did not kill his siblings and his parents on the morning of the 20th of June 1994."
