Found Not Guilty - but who is convinced?

Defence creates confusion to point the finger at Robin Bain

After a three-month retrial, the David Bain jury had to consider whether there was reasonable doubt over eight crucial areas of evidence.

Either the Crown has proved that David committed the five murders or there is reasonable doubt and the five counts result in acquittal," Justice Graham Panckhurst told the Bain jury.

And so, after a murder retrial lasting more than three months, which heard evidence from 184 witnesses, reviewed statements, graphics, photographs, film and an audio of David Bain's 111 call on the morning of 20 June 1994, the case boiled down to a fundamental question: Did David kill five members of his family, or did his father Robin shoot them before turning the gun on himself, as the defence argued through the long days of testimony.

The judge put it this way: Was it proven beyond reasonable doubt that David killed his family, which meant the Crown had proven, beyond reasonable doubt, that it was not a case of suicide?

Yesterday, after deliberating for less than a day, the five men and seven women jurors answered Justice Panckhurst's question: Not guilty, on each of the counts. David Bain, who had spent more than 12 years behind bars, was a free man.