Some more fine bits of logic from the Karam-Laws debate.  In the attached audio you will hear how hearsay testimony relating to David Bain can be easily dismissed as boyish pranks, while any hearsay testimony relating to Robin Bain must be accepted without hesitation. 

In the debate, Karam argues that the testimony made by Kirsten Koch (who desribed how Arawa said that David was threatening members of the family with his gun) can be explained in terms of an 18-19 year old boy walking around the house playing with his gun innocently.  In making this statement he omits the fact that Kirsten's testimony originates from the same year as the murders at which time David was 22.  Similarly Mark Buckley's evidence of an act that David reveals he has planned to undertake while using the paper run as an alibi, is also written off as adolescent hijinks.  Karam does get this testimony correct in that it does date from David's school years but clearly the implications of the testimony mean nothing to him.

When it comes to hearsay testimony relating to Robin Bain, within the same four minute period, Karam emphatically elevates it to the highest level of seriousness.  In describing witness testimony of a person who knew Arawa when she was 9-10 years old, rather than writing the behaviour off as normal pubertal or pre-pubertal exploration, he latches onto every implication available in his version of the events for maximum incrimination against Robin.  Since this was done pre-trial then we are not likely to ever know what actually took place but we can know for sure that Karam's version of events is full of misrepresentations.  We know this because he says of the judge in the pre-trial hearing that  "the judge accepted that 9 yr old testimony was true".  This has to be incorrect, because no judge would ever say that.  A judge might say that the witness appears to be reliable, but in this instance, it is not his job to judge truthfulness.  That's a jury's job.  A reliable witness can give incorrect or misleading evidence and there are some rules regarding hearsay which the judge chose to use in this case because as we know, this evidence was ruled inadmissable.

Why does Karam accept hearsay testimony regarding Robin Bain but dismiss hearsay evidence regarding David Bain?  The simple answer is because he wants to.

In this audio you will also hear Karam say that Arawa was dux, when in actual fact she was head girl.  While this is only a small mistake, it makes you aware that Karam may not be very good at retaining detail.  In an investigation of this type, the ability to remember detail is important.  There is only a finite amount of detail that needs to be remembered.  However, judging on the mistakes that Karam made in his book David and Goliath, and specifically the detail about the clothes that Arawa was wearing when she was found it seems apparent that he is not very good at getting the facts right in the first place.  If the facts are wrong first up then they are going to be remembered wrong.  The more incorrect facts behind an argument then the less robust will be the conclusions arrived at as a result of that argument.  Our civilization did not get to where it is by people coming to conclusions the way that Karam does.