The Supreme Court has lifted a suppression on part of the 111 emergency call David Bain made after five members of his family were killed.
The suppressed words are alleged to be: "I shot the prick".
Chief Justice Sian Elias said it was important to note that the words were unclear, which is why they were not allowed in the court case itself.
Stand by for more on this ...
UPDATE: Here's the Supreme Court ruling (pdf) - Joe Karam is holding a press conference this afternoon. Bain's lawyer is saying it's "nothing", and that to suggest that it is incriminating is "bullshit".
OK - we've had a quick read through the Supreme Court ruling. Michael Reed QC has just said on RadioLive that seven experts couldn't agree whether Bain said these words or not, or whether they were indeed words at all. However Justice Panckhurst ruled the evidence as admissable, and as an area on which the jury could make a finding, under his direction. The Court of Appeal agreed with Panckhurst J, which is how this case came to be in the Supreme Court.
Now, as we have said often, we are not legal experts. But it seems to us that if both a High Court judge and the Court of Appeal saw that this tape had evidential merit, it is not, as Michael Reed QC rather huffily told RadioLive, "bullshit". We will update again after Karam has had his say, doubtless, of course, still ticking over the meter for legal aid.
9 comments:
dear oh dear oh dear...those 12 mental deficients in Christchurch making the wrong call, and now this? bang him up again...
Unbelievable that this was suppressed, whatever the reasons.
It is the job of the jury to take into account all of the evidence. Not just some of it.
Quite right pdm - but it seems that the evidence that the jury heard was only that which would lead them to concluding that the charges had not been proven beyond reasonable doubt.
Margaret Wilson's beloved Supreme Court has passed its first test, just as she intended that it would.
Wonder if Joe Karam now has some real doubts, he just seems too trusting.
There's no point in having a jury if the evidence is censored and concealed from them. They are supposed to decide from the evidence what the facts are, while the judge is there to guide them on points of law.This seems to be what Judge Pankhurst intended to do before he was overuled.
I have just been having a look over at Trade Me (Opinion) and there is a suggestion there that David was planning to rape a jogger at the time of the murders. This was also suppressed it seems.
The whole trial seems to have one great big sham and a waste of taxpayers money.
Evidence is not included in trials if it is rumour, cannot be corroborated or from a dodgy source and that's how it should be. That's why we didn't hear anything from the man making the claims of the Laniet/incest issue and the high school rape alibi comments were rightly witheld since they too were hearsay. Heresay is not evidence. In the case of "...I shot the prick... " it was judged that the sounds were so muffled they could not reasonably be concluded to have specific meaning.
The court of MSM is not the highest in NZ and should not be re-trying cases. That the jury may be intellectually incapable could be true and is a point of debate in any case, but lynching Bain is equally absurd.
Do you or do you not recognise NZ law and the power of the justice system?
The jury system is flawed and long
overdue to be tossed out. Three
judges sitting on the case would
have quickly re convicted Bain.
The French system is far and away
the best. The average jury member
would not know the time of day, do
not know the law or legal system,
have no expertise or proper
judgement.
Anon - I certainly recognise NZ Laws and the justice sytem and usually respect it.
However, the decision in this case does not sit easy with me. At best the Prosecution seem to have been stupid and out manouvered. At worst the defence engineered a result that is different to what it would have been had all of the available evidence been presented in court.
As INV2 inferred above - Margaret Wilson's Supreme Court provided the result she intended by getting rid of the Privy Council.
As an aside Anon could you pleaes identify yourself with a nom de plume as most of us do. There are three anonymous postings on this thread - are they all by the same contributor?
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