PCA Report paragraphs 83-85. Title from David and Goliath p34.

83. Dr AG Dempster was the pathologist in the Bain case. He is a respected and highly competent practitioner with particular experience in gun shot wounds. He was called in early on the case but Mr Karam alleges he was kept sitting in the street for hours "twiddling his thumbs" before being admitted into the house to . commence examination of the bodies. It is suggested that during that time important tests which would have cleared David from suspicion were not conducted and the opportunity to gain vital information was lost. In written submissions considered at the meeting on 25 July 1997, Mr Karam suggested the bodies [other than Robin's] would not have been warm at 7.45am if they were killed at 4-5am as the Crown suggested. He said this would be especially so in respect of Stephen's almost naked body.

84. Our investigation does not support these contentions. Dr Dempster arrived at the scene at 10.04am, after a briefing at the Police Station, and was admitted into the house at 12.04pm. [During the interval he returned home to get warm clothing.] As said earlier, it was important that everything should be put in place to ensure the pathologist could do his work without further risk of damaging key evidence whether on the carpet or elsewhere. Bearing in mind the importance of blood spots on garments, [Arawa is a case in point where blood spots ran across the thigh and lower leg it would have been regrettable if the pathologist had smudged or transferred blood while disarranging clothes to take rectal body temperatures]. As Detective Sergeant Weir saw it, the need to preserve the scene and bodies undisturbed at that point outweighed the advanta~es of taking body temperatures. Detective Senior Sergeant Doyle concurred.  In his experience core body tests are only a broad indication of the time of death and taking them can cause considerable disarrangement of clothing and the risk of cross contamination. Preservation of the position of bodies and other objects within the scene were more important to him at that time than gaining an advance indication of the time of death.

85. Dr Thomson confirms core body temperatures are not accurate, however, he believes they can be valuable in indicating an approximate range of times within which death is likely to have occurred. In his view there would have been some value in taking body temperatures when Dr Dempster gained entry at 1204 hours but the equipment available [rectal thermometer] would have meant substantial movement. He agrees the possible consequences of this could well have outweighed the temperature recordings at that time. While he believes that a temperature recording taken after 1200 hours may have been useful, in retrospect, Dr Thomson has no doubt that earlier access to the scene and an earlier set of temperature recordin~ would have provided more useful information on thetiming of death. 43 Dr Dempster has said determining time of death by body temperatures has a range of error which is quite significant and would not permit precise pinpointing of the time of death. He says the literature suggests that with a single temperature and good knowledge of the environment [such as the air temperature being reasonably constant] it is possible to establish time of death to an accuracy rate of plus or minus 2.8 hours for about 12-14 hours after death. He believed there was little point in taking temperatures at the Bain house because the bodies had already cooled significantly.