From the outset Joe Karam has sought to impress upon the public certain ideas about the Bain case.  Two key items are the original police investigation which he has consistently labeled as a "complete and utter shambles" and Robin Bain whom he has consistently labeled as a shabby old man who committed incest.  Any successful propaganda campaign involves the repetition of certain slogans, which after saturated exposure take on a life of their own and become accepted "realities".  We are all familiar with TV advertisements and slogans such as "life is better with coke" or "Relax with L-Z-boy".  These work simply through regular exposure.

Propaganda campaign influences jury in 2009 retrial

A reading of the Police Complaints Authority Report which reports on an investigation made into the police handling of the case that was put into place in response to Joe Karam's book David and Goliath, does not support the idea that the original investigation was a "complete and utter shambles".  Unless we are to believe that all government institutions are totally self-serving and protecting of each other, then it would appear that the investigation was carried out according to prescribed rules.  There were some mistakes and some aspects of the investigation that could have been done better, and if one was to give the investigation a university grade then it would not score an A+ but would be more in the region of a C+ or B-.  The Bain household may have been a complete and utter shambles, but the investigation certainly wasn't.  Joe Karam opportunistically seized upon the untidy state of the house which was a very vivid image in the public imagination and used it to describe the investigation too.  The investigation suffered by proximity to this very untidy house and there is no doubt that the mess in the house contributed to the ability of the police officers to do a good job.  Karam's success with this propaganda piece was so complete, that even people who disagreed with his conclusions regarding guilt and innocence in the Bain case, became convinced that the investigation was indeed a shambles.

Robin Bain: Michael Guest, David Bain's legal counsel in the original trial, knew about the rumours of incest but decided against using them in David Bain's defence, largely because David was not prepared to corroborate them and the witness, Dean Cottle, was deemed unreliable by the judge, something which proved true a second time round when he failed to turn up for the retrial in 2009.  Indeed Guest is recorded as saying that David himself said that it was unlikely that Robin committed incest and at no time over the last decade has David made any statement in support of this idea.  At the end of the day, there is insufficient evidence to say either way whether Robin Bain committed incest or not.  The only evidence suggesting this is hearsay.   However, this doesn't stop the perennial propagandist, Joe Karam, from promoting the idea that Robin Bain committed incest and, in addition was clinically depressed, seldom took a shower and stank.  When countries wage war against each other it is important for them to vilify the enemy.  That makes it easier for soldiers to kill them.  Similarly for Joe Karam, in order to achieve success he chose to vilify Robin Bain and he succeeded, to the extent that Michael Reed stated publicly in a Close Up programme in 2010 that Robin was "a dirty old man" and Paul Holmes in a Herald article of June 2009 states the incest as an indisputable fact.

If you think that the original police investigation was a shambles or that Robin Bain committed incest then my opinion is that you are the victim of a very successful propaganda campaign, but then, just like people who buy Coke or L-Z-boys, you might like the brand, in this case the Joe Karam brand.

Wikipedia has a comprehensive definition of propaganda: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Propaganda which acts as a good reference in analysing the Bain case and its promotion.

Firstly, as a ex-all black, Karam started out with a celebrity status, which established the foundation for a cult of personality.  He then went about publishing and promoting his ideas to the greatest extent possible, obfuscating the evidence, promoting the same arguments ad nauseum, appealing to the common man and using virtue words and selective truths.  He did this with the following publications:

Karam published two books: David and Goliath (1997) and Bain and Beyond (2000) and one booklet: Innocent: Seven Critical Flaws in the Wrongful Conviction of David Bain (2001) and in the late 1990’s and early 2000’s actively promoted his version of events on the Holmes Show and in speaking tours around the country.  The latter is recorded on page 41 of Bain and Beyond.

The book David and Goliath was reprinted in 2007 on the eve of the announcement of the retrial and remained in print up to and during the trial.  The Solicitor General considered this action to be “extremely irresponsible”. 

In the book David and Goliath the chapter What do I think happened (page 213) is based on speculation or fiction and is an invention of the author’s imagination, based allegedly on the evidence. 

The Police Complaints Authority Report of 1997 – 98 recorded dozens of omissions, errors and misrepresentations in the Plaintiff’s book David and Goliath.  Despite this authoritative report the Plaintiff reprinted the book in 2000, 2003 and 2007 without acknowledging let alone correcting any of these mistakes.

The PCA report concluded that the original police investigation was satisfactory and that the bulk of the Plaintiff’s allegations were unfounded.

The booklet : Innocent: Seven Critical Flaws in the Wrongful Conviction of David Bain contains, misrepresentations, assumptions, exaggerations and obfuscations such as:

 “Flaw 1. A series of elementary blunders in the days following the killings led police to arrest David Bain prematurely on the basis of suspicions and evidence that have since disintegrated.  Flaw 2. This raised the need, in preparation for trial, to suppress vital evidence. Flaw 3. This in turn led on to the ingenious argument put forward by the Crown, “the three points of the triangle”. Flaws 4,5,6. All three points are now seriously blunted if not totally destroyed.  Flaw 7. Independent legal opinion now, is that perjury was committed by one of the officers in charge of the case on a vital piece of evidence.” (page 10), and;

“The failure of the police enquiry team to do simple things properly, according to their own HOMICIDE DETECTIVE MANUAL, set in motion the train of events that sent the entire investigation off the rails.  Some of the most significant blunders and oversights are: 1. FIREARMS DISCHARGE TESTS: In blatant contradiction of the police manual, they failed to protect either the hands or clothing of Robin and David Bain in order to conduct Firearms Discharge Residue Tests. This, despite the fact that a junior detective asked the Officer in Charge of the case to ensure such procedures were in place early (9am on the first morning) in the inquiry. EFFECT: Had these tests been done according to proper procedure they would have certainly demonstrated who fired the murder weapon and there would have been no mystery at all.” (page 11), and;

“FLAW NUMBER FIVE:  Robin was almost certainly incestuously molesting his daughter Laniet. She told associates that this had been going on for many years. She told numerous people that this had been the case. In fact a prominent member of the Dunedin male choir has stated his suspicions of this behaviour were common knowledge. The Otago Daily times reported in July 1996 that a neighbour of the Bains told the Police that talk of incest was commonplace. Taking into account these factors, one can see a concurrence of circumstances that make it obvious who was responsible for this terrible tragedy. We have a 58 year old man, subject to a bitter exile from his wife and family. He is dejected, humiliated and depressed. He is in exactly the state of mind that is susceptible to cracking under all the pressure that came to bear on that night. We have the trigger that caused him to crack: Laniet goes home and tells her mother everything, exactly as she told her friends she would. Mrs Bain confronts her husband or he overhears a conversation. The rest they say is history. There is so much evidence of the incest between Robin and his daughter that it is impossible to ignore. It is a matter of record that she told people she intended to go home and change her life. And on that fateful night she did. In summary it can be said without contradiction, that no motive, no mental predisposition, or precipitating circumstance has ever been put forward in relation to David Bain, yet each of those elements presents themselves with Robin. And so to physical evidence against Robin Bain, of which the Crown said there was none:    As already described, there was blood on Robin's hand that was neither preserved nor tested. There were bruises and abrasions both his hands commensurate with the Crown's claim of a struggle with Stephen Bain. He was in the process of reading a book found beside the bed about a series of family killings.   He was a well known (in contrast to David Bain) as a dedicated computer buff hence the use of the computer to leave his final message.” (page 24) And;

“The Crown's much touted “mountain of evidence” against David Bain is now reduced to rubble” (page 28) and;

“David's version of events has never wavered. He co-operated willingly with the Police. Indeed he was interviewed by them at length on three occasions in the days prior to his arrest and did not prevaricate on any point.  Yet he still stands convicted of the most heinous crime imaginable, on evidence which would barely be sufficient to suspect him, let alone gain a conviction.” (page 29). 

All the excerpts above include exaggerations and misrepresentations: The evidence against David Bain in 2001 was not “disintegrated” or “reduced to rubble”, there was no “suppression of evidence”, the police investigation did not go “off the rails”, there is no certainty about allegations of Robin Bain’s incest, and further claims of evidence for Robin Bain’s alleged incest are exaggerated, David Bain may not have prevaricated in the police interviews but his story did not correspond with the 111 call regarding whose rooms he had visited upon discovering the murders and later he prevaricated regarding whose glasses he customarily wore.

View part of the booklet

In the RadioLive debate of 6 August 2010 between the Plaintiff and talk show host Michael Laws, the Plaintiff is recorded as imparting words that say the following:

Hearsay evidence regarding David Bain’s activities prior to the murders should be considered innocent and blameless while hearsay evidence regarding Robin Bain’s activities prior to the murders should be taken literally and further assumptions made.

Robin Bain did not have a full bladder of 400ml because the human bladder can hold up to 3-4 litres at a time.

David Bain hit his head while falling when in the presence of the police officers.  This is counter to the testimony provided by Constable Andrews in the retrial.

The effects of this propaganda campaign can be seen in the response of Paul Holmes, with whom Karam became closely associated as a friend.  This clearly demonstrates the success of the campaign in elevating fallacies to the status of fact, in the eyes of Paul Holmes at least, which would then be accepted by his thousands of readers. 

Following the retrial verdict, on Sunday June 7 the Auckland Herald published an editorial article written by Paul Holmes stating hearsay evidence about Robin Bain as fact and claiming that “the prosecution never found anyone to say David had begun to behave oddly”, which is incorrect.  Court transcripts and media reporting of the trial indicate otherwise.

The success of the campaign is also evidenced in a possible contaminated jury pool, where jurors come to the trial with prejudicial viewpoints created by Karam's media exposure.

After the 2009 retrial:

Two jury members were seen to go to the after retrial party held by the Bain Defence.

One jury member was seen to hug David Bain.

One jury member is known to have had contact with the plaintiff after the trial in a manner which was not accidental.

Karam was very selective in terms of what information he heeded.  In 1997 he commissioned an armourer to do firearms tests in Melbourne and declined to uplift the results which concluded that Robin Bain could not have committed suicide.

No successful propaganda campaign can go without some means of suppressing detractors.  In Karam's case he has made good use of defamation threats to silence critics and thereby manage the news.  Prior to these proceedings being filed, the plaintiff had previously either threatened and/or filed defamation proceedings in relation to the following:

In 1997, Woman's Day journalist Chris Cooke for an article about alleged association between two prostitutes and David Bain.  The Plaintiff settled out of court for a sum of $50,000, reported in his book Bain and Beyond;

In 2003, North and South, Rosemary Mcleod, Magnificent Obsession article, in which the author describes many similar things about Karam as can be found in the defamation proceedings against counterspin.  The publisher settled out of court for an undisclosed sum.

In 2003, Judith Wolfe and Trevor Reeves, defamation threat prior to publication of In the Grip of Evil The Bain murders, which was a book alleging the opposite argument to that supported by the Karam: that David Bain committed the murders;

In 2010 TVNZ programmed to screen a repeat of Bryan Bruce A Question of Justice, which is about the Bain case and in which the presenter expresses clear support for conclusions about the case which are contrary to those held by the Plaintiff.  The screening was withheld for legal reasons. 

In early 2010, the Plaintiff made defamation threats against the Sunday Star Times, to prevent publication of advertisements for the petition opposing compensation for David Bain which were to be placed by members of the JFRB group.