David Bain. Picture from his blogsite
David Bain. Picture from his blogsite
The jury came in, with a verdict that many of us always believed was a foregone conclusion (but were prohibited by the courts from declaring): It would be impossible to convict David Bain of murdering anyone in his peculiar family. The Privy Council strongly hinted at this long ago, using language couched in terms that avoided any hint of foreign interference, but left it to our rulers to decide. In its 2007 decision, the Privy Council concluded that a “serious miscarriage of justice” had occurred in the original trial. But true to form, the dolts who lay down or administer the law in New Zealand made the wrong decision, and brought about the greatest miscarriage of justice in this nation’s history. The victims included not only Bain and the jury, who had to relive the whole grisly, ghastly experience, and the police who after the verdict sniffily closed the case and defiantly stated they were satisfied with their investigation – in spite of the jury’s judgment that it was nowhere near good enough.

The victims were, in truth, each and every one of us, for we must now pay countless millions of dollars for this outrageous farce, which was a 21st Century version of David versus Goliath.

Justice should be blind, but it is easily wrecked by short-sighted politicians. Picture from Dreamstime.com
Justice should be blind, but it is easily wrecked by short-sighted politicians. Picture from Dreamstime.com
It has often been suggested that there is simply not enough legal wisdom in our tiny, under-populated country to have justified the scrapping of recourse to the Privy Council, replacing it instead with a local Supreme Court. It is sobering to remember that, had Bain not had the opportunity of taking his case to London, he would most likely still be languishing in a cell. How many others like him are rotting in jail, having had their human rights compromised by incompetent politicians? For reasons of so-called sovereignty and independence, we ditched a massive reservoir of ancient legal expertise. This rash decision will come back to haunt us, with every new alleged case of wrongful conviction.

Some of the deluded left-wingers who wanted an end to Privy Council influence in New Zealand were the same people who foolishly decided to put Bain on trial again. Now that he is rightly freed and exonerated, it is their heads that should roll. They are responsible for raiding the public purse to no good purpose and making our legal system appear cruel, crude and unfair.

Unfortunately, they’ll probably get away with it. As an abuser of public trust, for example, we might accuse Dr Michael Cullen, the Attorney-General beneath whose half-closed eyes this terrible blunder was made. He has already been tossed out by an electorate that was sick and tired of nine years’ fiscal misrule, punctuated by his government’s regular introductions of bad law, over both of which he loftily presided. The highly-paid public servants who starred in the Bain debacle must also be named and shamed. You can be sure that all these people’s taxpayer-funded pensions will be paid, even though they might, deservedly, suffer sleepless nights.

Former Solicitor-General David Collins, who decided to retry David Bain. Where is he now?
Former Solicitor-General David Collins, who decided to retry David Bain. Where is he now?
Bain, with almost one third of his life wasted by injustice and imprisonment, cuts a pathetic and penniless figure who now faces yet another trial he can ill afford: the quest for reparation and the recovery of an estate to which others in his family helped themselves after he was convicted. Once again, our State presents a hard, merciless face to a victim, since under the law he must prove that he had nothing whatever to do with the killings in order to receive compensation for what has now been clearly established as wrongful imprisonment. That is a near-impossibility, and it is the consequence of another awful law that reeks of persecution and parsimony.

Perhaps, after more years of struggle, Bain will succeed in gaining some kind of recompense for a life destroyed by State-funded blunderers. In that case, we as taxpayers will once again pay an enormous price. It would be amazing, but fairer and less expensive for everyone, if the State truly admitted its failure and defeat, and negotiated to compensate this man without further dispute.

David Bain joins the Berrymans and countless others in the club of true victims of a deeply flawed justice system. Sadly, the new administration, in the shape of “Madame Blunderbuss” Judith Collins and her misguided policies, offers little hope of progress.

It all goes to support what we said only recently: The law in New Zealand is an ass, created by donkeys and administered by careless fools who – in almost every respect imaginable – play fast and loose with citizens’ lives, as well as their money.

If you’re ashamed of what was done to David Bain in your name, take a look at

http://www.davidbainfund.co.nz/cms/Home/tabid/38/Default.aspx