By James Murray and Jerram Watts
It is the foremost murder mystery in New Zealand legal history and today David Bain supporter Joe Karam is going toe-to-toe with RadioLIVE talkback host Michael Laws over the evidence in last year’s retrial.
Mr Karam challenged Mr Laws to the debate after he rang up to complain about RadioLIVE's coverage of the documentary The Investigator Special: The Case against Robin Bain.
Ex-Mediaworks chief executive Brent Impey is adjudicating.
The debate is live on RadioLIVE between 9am and 12 – you can listen online at radiolive.co.nz or read live updates of the debate here.
See photos of Michael Laws and Joe Karam's debate here
The following are a mixture of direct quotes and paraphrasing
12.00pm: The full time whistle blows - it's all over. Both men have wrapped up and concluded the debate. Brent Impey has presented the results of the online poll. Thousands took part; 83 percent voted that David did it, 17 percent that Robin did it.
11.55am: Laws - there are only two possible murderers - Robin or David. By process of elimination, or by evidence, it is clear David was the murderer. Lets check the physical evidence - on a balance of scales, it isn't just a small margin that the evidence points to David. There is a lack of evidence that points to Robin. The reality is that this man acted in a completely bizarre way if he had to murder his family, kill them all, physically struggle to strangle his son, change into fresh clothes, write a note to David, then shot himself. This is an implausible, impossible scenario. So when we look at the evidence it points to David. The blood on David's shirt was from Stephen, an eye witness testimony, the testimony of David intimidating his family with his gun, Robins body appeared to have been moved, the injuries on Davids body and face. There is a bid underway to compensate Bain for wrongful imprisonment but we must always remember that the jury found, it found David Bain was not guilty. It asked a question around beyond reasonable doubt. It is clear to me the jury came to the decision that was out of kilter with public opinion. I regret deeply that a dead man is unable to defend himself. There is no evidence that points to Robin, it points that David Bain is a guilty man, and a very lucky one.
11.50am: Karam - Regardless of what Michael wishes to say, and he had to call me a liar to defeat the argument. I want to put this into perspective. There were two pieces of skin found in Stephen's bedroom, they found no answer and the skin was destroyed. A lab in Melbourne had the test tubes in which the tubes were held. The skin was from David's graze on his knee. The testing done on just what was remaining in the test tubes that the skin had been in, was that skin was from Stephen Bain. On Robin Bain's hands were discreet blood and staining, if they collected that blood then testing subsequently would have now done exactly what the skin test did that Robin Bain had the blood under his fingernails, was depressed and disheveled, who had been forced to live in destitute circumstances, wasn't welcome in the house, who might have been sexually abusing his daughter, and his daughter was going to come out and tell everyone what was happening. That sent him over the top and caused this tragedy, and a dreadful police inquiry led to a premature arrest of David. At the time David was arrested there was not one bit of evidence against him. No blood testing had been done, David could not have turned on the computer, they only found that out after his arrest. Police don't like to be wrong. I know David Bain better than anyone in this country. He is a lovely innocent guy.
11.43am: Laws - if there is one thing Joe and I could agree on it is this - the way the jury system in New Zealand is structured in a way that was never going to derive the truth. Its a competition between the prosecution and defence, the defence had to prove he was guilty beyond reasonable doubt. Robin or David - you've got to be able to say 'who was it between these two people?'.
11.38am: Caller Meg asks why Robin would do the washing in the morning. Karam - why is a difficult question. David had been doing an early morning paper run for five years, when he came home he was usually covered in mud and was sweaty and he normally came home and put the wash on every morning. The only unusual thing was that he happened to wash some blood-stained clothes. Laws - but David put his palm print in blood on the washing machine. Karam - at the last trial and the first and second, the washing machine expert said there is no evidence that if the washing machine was put on at 6.35am that it could not have stopped by 7.30am - when the police arrived. Laws - whose palm print was on the washing machine? Karam - if you did the washing your palm print would be on the machine too.
11.36am: Caller asks if Robin's bladder was full when he was found dead. Karam - the crown in the first trial overstated the urine in the bladder. The doctor said no conclusions could be draw from that. A urologist said it is not uncommon for men to carry around up to 3.5-4 litres of urine in their bladder. In the closing address the issue of the bladder was not even mentioned. Laws - 400ml of urine is a significant amount. If I had that an woke up in the morning, I would be a little uncomfortable. Karam - all the bladder story shows is the little evidence they have.
11.33am: Martin Van Beynan of the Christchurch Press calls up and says he wants to rectify some things he said about him. There was no blood found under Robin's fingernail, there was red substance seen under his nails, for Joe to say there was blood under the fingernail. Martin admits they had a discussion at 2am... Impey cuts Martin off, the debate was getting out of hand - very passionate men going at it!
11.21am: Caller Cherry - the police investigation was shocking, there wasn't conclusive evidence. My main comment is concerning Robin who was unstable - what about his message on the computer which said 'I'm sorry, you're the only one who deserves to stay'. Karam - it's a funny thing about that computer, the crown tried to hide some things. We took a snap of the video message, on the video you couldn't see the message. The message was written: "Sorry, you are the only one who deserved to stay". Which is a very pedantic way of writing a message, the sort of style is of an old-fashioned school teacher. We had several letters from Robin which carries the same style. Laws - Joe can't have it both ways, either he is completely psychotic and irrational. The issue is there is the homicidal maniac, lost is completely, this is why he did it. He pops the entire family, takes off all his clothes, get into a new a fresh set and then he types on the computer while David's away - oh you deserve to live, which means he had a special relationship with David. You can't have it both ways, he's either off his trolley or he has planned this. Why did he let David live? Karam - because David wasn't home. He might have been sitting in the alcove preparing to kill David, he might have realised his insanity and offed himself. Laws - this person went through an incredibly murderous rampage, then according to your theory, took off his bloody clothes and then decided to put new clothes on, write a note to David and says goodbye.
11.11am: Caller - If i had to be a juror listening to this evidence, I would take that into consideration. I would clearly be on the side of David being innocent. Karam - well, you're on the right side. The one's that don't, trot out myths and ignore hard facts. The smearing of blood all over Robin's hands, it was the Crown's own scientists in the trial accepted it was smeared blood stains that must have come from somewhere else. Laws - I have to say there has been no report of what Joe has said. Karam - points to evidence and reports of blood smears on Robin's hands. Laws - what I'm saying is that the only blood is Robin's. There is blood splattered everywhere, up the curtains and on the walls. You haven't proven that that blood is anyone else's other than Robin's. Karam - how did that blood get there? Laws - you don't just freeze and die. Was there any evidence presented to the trial that the blood was anyone else's other than Robins? Karam - No, but an officer said in hindsight all the blood should have been collected and tested. Laws - it doesn't prove David didn't do it.
11.10am: Caller Dave - Joe, when this first happened, there was a boyfriend that was involved. Was it him? Karam - the only caveat I'd put on that is that the police investigation was so hopeless it couldn't be viable.
10.56am: Karam - the reason Robin killed his family was because the incest was being exposed. Mrs Bain went into the bank and cleaned Robin's account out completely, in the middle of winter on a Sunday night. No one has ever suggested that he deliberately decided to spare David. Laws - are you joking? Karam - He didn't necessarily have a plan, and I don't think he had a plan. Laws - if there was any blood there it was Robin's and he had been shot by David, there was certainly Stephen's blood on David. Everything was connected to David!
10.53am: Impey steps in and says all the jury had to do was prove that the Crown case did not prove beyond reasonable doubt that Bain did it.
10.50am: Caller Margaret - brings the jury into question and says it was flawed. Laws - a juror wrote to the Press and said they didn't think Robin Bain was guilty, but had to prove Bain was guilty beyond doubt. Karam - the only thing a jury can do is what the judge tells them. They jury couldn't get guilty or not guilty. Laws - the fact that David has to prove his innocence to get compensation. I believe he got a very lucky jury.
10.46am: The debate is getting heated so Impey stands in and tempers it temporarily. Calls will soon be taken from the public.
10.38am: Karam - After the tragedy, none of these people ever surfaced. All of a sudden, lo and behold they come trotting out. The business of David supposedly being intimated with the gun, was one time this girl happened to be at the house. Boys play games, he might have been walking around with his brother, nobody was scared of David. The so called 'rape', which was a gross media beatup, the word 'rape' had not got into his statement. What 17-year-old boy does not have dreams of doing all sorts of things to girls - Laws - consenting girls though. Karam - this witness remembered the story for the first time 20 years after it happened. The actual precision of the memory is called into question. This guy knows a lot of the detectives and he had 15 years to come and tell them. This is not even evidence. The fact of the matter is that it seems very clear now that Mr Robin Bain was molesting his other daughter. Laws - there was no evidence he was molesting Aroha or Laniette. You are trying to tell me, you wouldn't convict anybody in the country on the evidence you just brought up? Oh no, you haven't done the investigation. We all know that Laniette is really weird. Don't you think that if she was being molested there would be more than that. There was no investigation of Robin Bain ever. There was no complaint to the cops. Karam - Aroha said she had family secrets that she couldn't speak of, on one occasion she rang her crying and said she wished her father would 'eff off''. Another witness said Aroha hated her father because of what he had done. What I am saying is the fact of the matter is there are a vast amount of people who think Laniette is a fantasist. Laws - all this is slightly irrelevant. Laniette was potty, she wasn't raped, she didn't have a black baby! Karam - how do you know?. Laws - oh, Joe! Karam - one of the things that happen to family members is they are ashamed and disgraced and don't want to talk to them.
10.36am: Laws - there were the 3 friends of Laniette who said that Laniette had mentioned to her that she physically feared for her safety from David. Then others gave evidence, in his younger days, that David said he could use his paper round as an alibi. This proves that David was not as pure as driven snow. Two sisters talked to their associates that there was an issue around David's stability.
10.30am: Laws - there was suppressed evidence on the prosecution side though too. There is a view that David couldn't possibly have murdered because he's a lovely boy. What there was clearly evidence was that he wasn't lovely at all. She told that to three of her friends, there was the case of him waving the gun, the fact he was clearly with the gun for some time. Then there is the rape allegations. One of the tow men, Mark Buckley, was going to testify that David had planned the rape so carefully that he would use his paper route as an alibi. It was ruled inadmissible. I think Joe and I would both have preferred that all evidence was placed before the jury, but this does show that David was scary to his sister. One witness says she knows David was intimidating the family with the gun.
10.25: Karam - There was a vast amount of evidence that was presented to the judge. Suppressed means it was kept from the public view, there was a vast amount of evidence that both sides tested, and the New Evidence Act 2006 came into play. Now, the media after David Bain's not guilty verdict, started complaining about evidence that was suppressed, but it was actually admissible, to try and undermine the not guilty verdict. The same journalists listened to all the hearings, one of the witnesses that was suppressed was a person who the judge said - 'I am left in no doubt of the reliability of the witness's account'. The witness said she vividly recalled Aroha telling her she said if she felt her vagina she could put her finger in there. Aroha said that her father had shown her how to do this. The two girls were 10 at the time. At the same hearing the judge also ruled out another defence witness who was a close friend of Robin and Margaret Bain. Her testimony said she and Margaret was extremely concerned about Robin's mental health, she was so concerned about him she said 'I am scared he might obtain a gun and shoot the whole family'. The judge said the evidence was not admissible in the trial and so it was didn't stand. The rationale was that, even though he accepted the truth, it didn't go to the point of proving it or not.
10.17am: Karam - Let's step back a little bit. If you came home and came across the scene you've seen and found their family dead, a few questions you might like to ask yourself. David would be very likely to faint, he did faint, he crashed down and banged his head. Laws - that's an invention. Karam - the officer who was with David when he fainted and crashed down, saw him crash down, and it was the constable who gave this evidence - that's the evidence in the trial. Laws - no, that's the explanation. I have read of the officer. David did not say 'I fainted'. Karam - people don't know when they faint sometimes. Laws - Under cross examination why would he come up with 'I don't know', when he was charged with murder?
10.10am: Karam - On the night of the verdicts, a Christchurch journo was sitting next to me during the trial, he has been a staunch defender of the Robin Bain is innocent camp going as far back as 1997. Interestingly, he turned up at my hotel room at about 2am and knocked on the door and announced he turned up to give me a copy of the Press, so i invited him in and I said to him 'I know you think David is guilty, you saw all the evidence, give me an explanation'. He said 'I can't'. The injury to Robin's hand was less than 12 hours old. Laws - the bruise could have arrived in a completely innocent way, and Joe suggests it was procured in a malicious way that pointed him to being the murderer. The difference was that David had significant bruises on his face, and during the 1994 trial David couldn't account for the bruises on his face or the scratches on his body. Karam - for us to have a sensible debate, I hope you would be at least prepared to accept the facts as they are. The scratches on his body, if there were any, weren't there on the day of the murders. The doctor examined him and said they weren't there. Laws - when he was asked by the police he couldn't account for them. They are damning because they show he was in a recent conflict, that conflict was with Stephen. David couldn't provide an explanation as to the bruises on his face, the evidence from the Crown was that he got that from killing Stephen.
9.57am: Laws - Joe's argued, I don't know why, that the contact wound proves the Robin committed suicide. It's irrelevant. If David held the gun to his father's head that could have made the contact wound. Robin didn't see David - one presumes he didn't see him. Karam - this is my point, take in what I'm saying. The blood on the top of his shoes, which we didn't find until 2008, proves he can't have been kneeling down, because if you are kneeling down, the top of your shoe cant have blood dropped on it. Laws - I don't think that proves anything, you've just been shot, you're spewing blood and fallen over, it can get everywhere, you are misrepresenting everything!
9.50am: Laws - Yes it does, it is incredulous to everybody that no one can leave prints. The prints are Davids. He was carrying the gun! David's prints in blood from his left hand were found on the murder weapon. Karam - they found no human DNA whatsoever in the area tested. Laws - the fingerprints are indisputably David's. Karam - you have a view which is not shared by about 7 forensic experts who gave evidence, even Kim Jones, the police's own fingerprint evidence, that it is very unlikely that you will find the perpetrator's fingerprints on the gun. Laws - there were other fingerprints on the gun, Stephen's, on the bottom of the silencer. On the murder weapon there are David's and Stephen's but Robin's weren't able to be identified.
9.49am: Karam - The fact is that prints are only left in 10 percent of cases. In this case, the failure of the police was they should have taken a photograph to be compared to show whose they weren't. Mr Bruce, in that doco, it was quite possible to hold the gun around the barrel, he made no fingerprints where he held the gun, up around the silencer. The fingerprint argument proves nothing.
9.48am: Karam - the historical data is that identifiable prints are only found on the murder weapon in 10 percent of cases. There were fingerprints all over the gun, they couldn't say whose they were. Laws - you can't say there weren't David's! Karam - you can't say there weren't Robin's!.
9.45am: Karam - By the end of the trial the fingerprints were agreed to not in blood. Laws - the reality is there wasn't a fingerprint at all. Karam - on the gun were 9 or 10 fingerprints, smudged all over the gun - would you please listen to me? Laws - I would if you weren't lying Joe.
9.44am: Laws - It's ridiculous to presume Robin killed the family. His fingerprints weren't on the gun.
9.37am: Karam - There were residual smears of blood all over Robin's hands. There was blood smears on his right hand, this blood, no one has ever been able to explain how it got there, they could offer no explanation for this blood - the only explanation is that this hand wore the bloody gloves. Michael, you may well be asking, how does he not know this? You must ask your colleagues in the media why they trotted out nonsense about David Bain. The bloody footprints can not have been made by David, it is impossible, we will discuss that in more detail if you wish. The officers in charge of the trial said whoever made the footprints was almost certainly the killer. Michael mentioned there was a fight with Stephen and how would Robin Bain be able to overcome him? He was 75kg and Stephen was 52kg. The suggestion is a myth that Robin would not have been able to overpower Stephen; if there was any struggle, Stephen had a shot through his hand, before the fight started, he was severely incapacitated by a bullet. The myth had been perpetrated by myth perpetrators.
9.30am: Karam -The only reason I am here is because I am getting sick to the teeth of commentators, like Michael, and one documentary maker, bringing this up and trying to prove David was guilty of the tragedy. The forensic evidence is so compelling that David was innocent: If Robin Bain killed himself, he must have killed everyone else - after all the trials, the Crown were able to offer no reasonable scenario of how David would have killed Robin. They were unable to explain all the other evidence that implicates David. Did Robin Bain commit suicide - he most certainly did. The wound was a contact wound, 90 percent of wounds to the head which are contact wounds are suicide - so the odds are very heavily stacked. We know it was a contact wound is because the blood was up in the barrel - pardon me Michael, you don't need to cough every time I make a good point - there was blood on Robin Bain's shoe, it was high impact splatter. I was able to see it with my naked eye, scientists proved it was Robin's - it was on the top of the shoe, that completely dispels what the Crown relied on which was that Robin was kneeling when he was shot. Some of the blood was falling down and going up the trackpants, which means he had one leg on the chair. The only way the blood could get there was if his head was tilted severely to the left, meaning whoever shot Robin had to be lying on the floor. There was a damaged live bullet lying on the floor which was a misfeed - if David did it then he would have had to clink and clank around trying to reload the gun while Robin just waited for him to do it.
9.26am: Karam - I'd ask all the listeners to forgive me, I'm not going to be as eloquent as Michael, so if people can bear with me that would be very helpful. There is no need for me to be here today at all, I've been involved in this for 15 years and written two books about it. No jury in the world would ever convict David Bain again on the true evidence - I have been proven correct. Michael - for no doubt having a sincere belief, thinks that David is guilty, his list reminds me of the Crown's closing address of the first trial in 1995 and opening address in 2009. The points have been completely debunked. It seems parts of society are clinging to fiction of the 90s. I don't want to be here today, the last thing I thought I would be doing a year after the trial would be talking about the Bain case.
9.22am: Impey makes a sidenote to explain that David didn't have to take the stand in the trial as it was up to the prosecution to prove he committed the murder and that all the evidence was circumstantial. Karam will rebutt next.
9.20am: Laws - Bain didn't take the stand because a skillful cross examiner would have exposed his lies and the truth. If you were innocent why wouldn't you take the jury through the course of action? The only time David appeared in front of the jury he convicted himself. David's gloves were found in Stephen's room and on the murder rifle, broken spectacles in David's room, he had a number of motives and his disregard and hatred for some members of the family. He heard Laniette gurgling - only the murderer could have. The evidence points in one direction - it wasn't Robin, there is no evidence to suggest he did of any credibility. It leaves only David.
9.18am: Laws - the thing that ties David to the murder was his bloody clothing. A clear mark of association between David and his victims. A struggle with a 14-year-old boy with a struggle for his life, it is hard to believe that Robin would have the strength to wrestle him to the ground and kill him. All the evidence pointed to David, not to Robin. There was the testimony of the family to express fear of David and his disposition to violence; David had a fight with Stephen and changed his testimony about the green jumper. The big question is why didn't David Bain take the stand in his retrial?
9.15am: Laws - by process of elimination it must be Bain. The lack of evidence that would convict Robin Bain is startling. Robin Bain left no prints on the gun when he killed himself, contorted himself into an awkward position to do it; he had none of the family's blood on him, showered, then offed himself - exempting David from the massacre. When you start looking at the case against Robin Bain - that is based on the conjecture that he had an incestuous relationship with his daughter - there are several pieces of evidence which implicate David as the killer: the suppressed forensic evidence that wasn't put in front of juries, rape evidence where colleagues of David noted he detailed to them how he could perform a crime and use his paper run to create an alibi for himself.
9.12am: Laws says the reason this issue is still current is because Karam and Bain are vying for compensation for wrongful imprisonment. It is not simply because the jury found Bain not guilty, but in essence David must prove his innocence before he gets any compensation.
9.10am: Impey has introduced both speakers and given a brief synopsis of the court case against David Bain and the alleged series of events which led to Bain's arrest. Impey says Laws believes Bain is guilty and will back that this morning, Karam will, of course, be defending Bain.