In the tearoom

A post from the past - not entirely dated in what it says. This item first appeared on Bloggerwave, probably in early 2007. 

The tearoom – the one where only the men go – is a place where unpolitical correctness reigns. And so do strong opinions. And shared stories, made more alive by kinetic retelling.  

It’s the place where grassroots thinking exists, and where all the liberal left-wing PC stuff seems to have barely made a dint. What it’s like for these men outside is another matter; in the tearoom opinion is at its most forthright. 

The anti-smacking bill, for instance, got a clobbering, and lots of witty remarks about what the men did or didn’t do to their own children, or had done to them. For the most part it wasn’t nearly as bad as Helen Clark and her cohorts would like to think. Most men these days are not given to smacking their kids with any degree of regularity. 

The stadium issue, here in Dunedin, gets aired almost every other day – because something turns up in the paper about it every day, and the newspaper is shared around the room in section (after the one who always reads it first has had a go). Opinions on the need for a new stadium are both pro and con, and strong in both directions. But everything is seasoned with good humour, and no one comes to blows over any of the issues.

But I think the matter that surprised me a little today was when it was announced that the Privy Council had deemed David Bain’s first trial to be a mistrial, and therefore his conviction was overturned. What it will mean for Bain in reality is another matter. It seems unlikely the police will let the matter lie. Someone who was convicted of murdering the other five members of his family early one morning isn’t likely to be let go scot free, whatever the Privy Council states. 

The tearoom, almost to a man, is convinced that he was guilty anyway. Why? There’s no obvious reason.Even those who’ve read Joe Karam’s books on the subject are still not convinced of his innocence.  

I was surprised because I’ve never believed that the case was as cut and dried as the police made out. There have always been flaws in the whole thing, and there’s absolutely no motivation for David Bain, a mild-mannered youth, to suddenly strike every one of his family down in a few short minutes. Only one other man in the room felt less comfortable with the general verdict, and he’d actually known Bain at school. 

There was talk about all the compensation Bain would get – the millions! One wit said, Well he could pay for the new stadium with all the money and then, instead of it being called the House of Pain, it could be called the House of Bain.  

At the time, the Labour Government brought in a bill to stop parents smacking their children. It wasn't as popular as the liberals made out. Helen Clark was the Prime Minister at the time. 

The Dunedin Stadium cost the city a fortune, and is still costing. It's never paid its way, and was the dream-child of people who didn't take responsibility for the cost. 

David Bain was accused of murdering his father, mother and siblings but the evidence was circumstantial and he has since been freed, and, very recently, paid the relatively small sum of $1 million, mainly to cover his legal costs and such that have accrued over various trials and re-trials. NZ is still very divided on his guilt/innocence. 

The House of Pain was the name for Carisbrook, which was replaced by the Stadium. 

Bain: the musical

The NZ Herald is playing a selected film from the archives of the V48 Hours Furious Filmmaking competition every day as they build up to this year's final at Auckland's Civic this Saturday, July 2.

I don't know how long the current movie will be available on the site, but it's a daft piece of work from a Dunedin group (including Dave Gooselink and Matt Landreth) with familiar Dunedin locations. It's a musical based on the story of Trevor Bain (no guesses as to which Bain this really refers to) and it's a non-stop piece of nonsense - almost entirely done to music. It won the prize in 2007.

Unfortunately I can't embed it, so check it out quickly....!

David Bain Again

We're never going to get to the end of the Bain saga: book rights, movie rights, and now 'suppressed evidence,' supposedly a confession heard on the recording made of David's call to 111 on the morning of the murders. The words have been regarded as indecipherable until now by a number of experts, but some detective has claimed that David says something like 'I shot the prick.'
And then there's stuff about David supposedly having said he'd use his paper round to rape a female jogger. Was this in any way related to the murders? Hardly, the conversation took place, if it took place at all, when he was still at school.
No wonder this stuff was all suppressed. All the Bain-haters have come out of the woodwork with the usual lack of ability to present anything further than a load of hearsay, and are making their presence felt in the comments on blogs everywhere.
Like it or not, the guy has been declared Not Guilty. Just as he had to endure the prison sentence on the basis of the first trial, so Joe Public has to bear the consequences of the Not Guilty verdict in this second trial.
Time to give it all a rest, people.

The David Bain case is not finished yet

It's hard to avoid reading about David Bain in the news. And to add to all the comments, here's a bit more.

There are two things that strike me as odd about the case. Firstly, the motive. While David's father might have had a motive, why would he have killed all his family apart from David? Surely there was no reason to kill his younger son, Stephen, nor his older daughter, Aroha, if his concerns were about his relationship with his other daughter, Laniet. To go round destroying all the family seems an insanity.

Even more unlikely is any motive in David's case. Here was a mild, quiet young man, a bit immature perhaps, but certainly not one who appeared to be greatly troubled by his dysfunctional family, if his behaviour in the world outside was anything to go by. Unlike other mass murderers, there was no hint of withdrawal from society, or underlying anger, or hatred of the world. Compare David to the young man who killed the students in Kansas. The two personalities are light years apart. And look at Bain when he came out of prison. Here was a man full of light and life. Certainly his pleasure at being released was huge, but wouldn't you think there'd be something else, a certain something you couldn't put your finger on? No sign of it. David Bain is either a very good actor, or he's innocent.

The other strange thing about this case is the fact that the police acquiesced in the burning down of the Bain house. This was done within a month of the murders. Apparently this was at the instigation of the Bain relatives. Doesn't this strike you as odd? There are two reasons why it's odd. Why would the police allow a major crime scene to be destroyed so early in the piece, and how come the family had the power to persuade them to do it? Note that the family have once again had a strong say in what should happen to David: he's not to be allowed to stay in the South Island. Says who?

It's crazy, but I have a suspicion there's someone else out there who knows a whole lot more about these murders. Someone who has sat in hiding for all these years, and has the guilt of five deaths on his or her head. Someone who doesn't appear to have a motive because there's never been enough investigation for motive beyond the father and the son. That might make some sense of the puzzle.