Black Hands

Stuff reports:

It was a crime that gripped the nation and more than 25 years later, the circumstances of what really happened at the Bain family home on Dunedin’s Every Street remains a mystery.

On June 20, 1994, parents Margaret and Robin Bain, along with three of their children – Arawa, Laniet and Stephen – were fatally shot. Eldest son David Bain was found guilty of the murders at a trial in 1995, but was later acquitted at a new trial in 2009.

Inspired by the Stuff podcast Black Hands, a new TVNZ 1 drama turns the focus on the Bain family.

But Joel Tobeck (The Luminaries, The Doctor Blake Mysteries, One Lane Bridge), who stars as patriarch Robin Bain, says this ireading s not a ‘whodunit’. Instead, Black Hands tells the story of the family in the 16 months preceding the murders.

I don’t think we will ever know who killed them. David Bain has been found not guilty beyond reasonable doubt. An independent review has said on the balance of probabilities it was more likely David than Robin. We will never know.

Hence I am glad the drama is not trying to claim who killed the Bains, but bring the victims alive. Whether they were killed by their father or brother, they deserved so much better.