Nothing New Learned

I didn't catch the documentary on Robin Bain last night, but from the reports I’ve read I’m not sure I missed much.

I understand that the supposedly new evidence is based on discrepancies between a photocopier sales document and a witness’s testimony. That doesn’t mean that everything the witness said can be discounted. If someone giving testimony in 2009 made a mistake about who sold a photocopier in 1993, does that mean all their testimony should be disregarded?

So forgive me if I don’t get too excited by this new evidence.

The reaction of David Bain’s defence team to the documentary is no surprise. Any suggestion that Robin Bain wasn’t the murderer harms the reputation of their client, so you would expect them to rubbish the programme and its makers, regardless of the quality of any new evidence.

So we’re left none the wiser.

But it has always astonished me how certain many people are about what happened on the day of the killings, and about who was responsible. I have no idea whether David or Robin was the killer, and nothing I have read or heard during or since David’s retrial has left me any wiser. So the jury verdict was no great surprise. Their job was to determine whether David Bain was guilty beyond reasonable doubt. For all I know they may have thought he probably did it, but decided to acquit because they could not be certain.

An active movement exists to resurrect the reputation of Robin Bain, and to continue the vilification of his son. Maybe I just have old-fashioned notions about how our justice system ought to work, because I find the whole thing distasteful. David Bain spent thirteen years in jail – that’s only three years short of the minimum sixteen year non-parole period handed down to him. If he was the killer he at least served most of his sentence. And if he was innocent he has been the victim of a terrible miscarriage of justice.

There is a process in place to determine whether David Bain ought to get compensation for his time in prison, and I’d much rather we let that process run its course. Whether David Bain is entitled to compensation shouldn’t be a popularity contest.