Coddington on Bain

Deborah Coddington reminds us of the true victims in the Bain case:

The first thing to strike me was that in the celebration which followed Bain’s release, the fact that five people died in a most horrible, gruesome manner was overlooked. Stephen Bain, especially, went through unimaginable terror as he fought his murderer before being half-strangled with his own T-shirt and incapacitated. He was only 14. Arawa, 19 years old, woke before she was slaughtered, possibly from hearing Stephen screaming, and was shot through the top of the head while praying or pleading for her life. These horrible details must still haunt the remaining Cullen-Bain extended family, but they – along with Solicitor-General David Collins, QC – have retained a dignified silence in the face of pack-mentality journalism.

Indeed.

Coddington also reviews the 164 pages from the Crown submission to the Privy Council and points out it was not only the appellant who had fresh evidence:

The Crown submissions also contain fresh allegations, which make fascinating reading. For instance, the broken glasses found in Stephen Bain’s bedroom which belonged to Margaret Bain were known, according to the Crown, to have been used by David Bain up until two days before the murders. They were of no use to Robin Bain, according to the Crown.

And Coddington asks:

I just can’t understand how Robin Bain could have woken up at his usual time of around 6.30am, get dressed, fetch the paper, shoot five members of his family, clean up some of the blood, change into his school-teaching clothes and put his bloody garments in the washing machine, possibly leave the property to dispose of the white cloth, type a note on the computer, then kneel down and shoot himself, all as a 58-year-old with a full bladder, and all by the time David returned from his paper run at – he says – precisely 6.42/6.43 am. Furthermore, by covering his tracks, Robin would have known suspicion would immediately focus on David, the one son he said should be spared.