News

David Bain's legal team misunderstands the Justice Minister's role in awarding compensation and have used court proceedings to make groundless accusations, government lawyers say.

The Bain team are attempting to challenge the decisions that Collins made in response to Justice Binnie's report on the Bain case but the Minister and cabinet have considerable discretion in making the compensation decision and are not bound by any hard and fast rules.  Government lawyers argue that the Minister is perfectly entitled to reject Binnie's report and seek a review.

The judicial review undertaken by the Bain defence against the Minister of Justice's decisions regarding the Binnie report is happening today in the High Court in Auckland.

The judicial review of the Minister of Justice's behaviour in relation to Binnie's report has been postponed until next Tuesday.

David Bain was to head to the High Court in Auckland tomorrow seeking a judicial review into the way Justice Minister Judith Collins handled a report into his case for compensation last year.

A blogger who also happens to be a gun enthusiast and a professional photographer has demonstrated how easy it is to replicate the marks on Robin's hand.  In his demonstration he shows that the marks could easily be wrinkles or cuts, and the idea that they are gun residue is unsafe.  It is also rather hard to load the magazine by using the thumb on the angle which the marks are seen.  Normally, when loading a magazine the marks will go parallel with the thumb.&nbsp

Michael Bain, Robin's brother, has come forward with a strong rejection of recent claims that Robin could have been responsible for the Bain murders, and says that the marks on Robin's hands most likely came from working on the guttering the day before or from working on a nature reserve at the school where he was principal.

A color analysis published on whaleoil indicates that the marks in the picture recently made public by the Bain defence team, and allegedly formed from gun residue, actually belong to the red spectrum.  This indicates that they are more likely to be cuts as alleged by the police, than gun residue as alleged by Karam and Co.

The Minister of Justice is in the firing line again over the way she handled Justice Binnie's report.  Opposition MP's accuse her of bias in relation to the report and the bid as a whole.  These matters are likely to be subjects of the upcoming judicial review of the matter.

Following is the list of events in relation to the compensation bid, courtesy of NZ Herald:

The Bain file

Sean Plunkett interviewed Martin Van Beynen on Radio Live about the marks on Robin Bain's thumbs which were recently highlighted in a 3rd Degree documentary as possibly incriminating Robin Bain in the murders of his family.

TV3 hosted by Melanie Reid has done an expose about new evidence, or more correctly, an observation that suggests Robin loaded the magazine of the gun.  This involves the appearance of two parallel marks on Robin's thumb that coincide with the width of the magazine and with the action required to load bullets into it.  In all 19 bullets were used in the Bain murders, using two cartridges,