Bain defence lawyer speaks out 

Source: NZPAMichael Reed QC, David Bain's head defence lawyer

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Michael Reed QC says Robin Bain was always the person who killed five members of the Bain family in Dunedin in 1994 and he should have been the focus of the police inquiry from day one.

David Bain's chief defence lawyer told Mark Sainsbury that while the judge placed a lot of emphasis on reasonable doubt he believes more attention should have been given to Robin Bain, who "could never be excluded".

Reed says David is overwhelmed and "not coping at the moment" and has had to endure three months in court "seeing his family on the morgue table".

Reed says the prosecution was not strong enough but had enormous resource available while the legally-aided defence team had to fight hard against 130 Crown witnesses.

While acknowledging he was "always nervous of a jury result", Reed says he was very confident of the case right through and never for a moment believed David Bain was the killer.

Reed says it was a "very silly" decision to run another trial after the Privy Council quashed the original convictions.

"All this time, all this money, all this stress...what a waste."

But Reed had strong praise for the 54 defence witnesses, some of whom had to be brought to New Zealand from overseas at considerable cost.

Reed says the defence will pursue compensation because there has been a substantial miscarriage of justice and he hopes the Cabinet will be generous. And Reed hopes family members who got money from the estate give some of it back.

"He's 37...never had a life...he's such a nice guy, he's a gentleman, he's courteous, he's got a great sense of homour."

Joe Karam's son Matt was a junior member of the defence team and admits it was difficult at times to separate the personal from the professional, especially "when you've got your old man as part of the team".

Matt has been aware of the case since he was 16 and his dad Joe took up David Bain's cause. He says he has never had any doubts about David's innocence and that was why he was happy to be inviolved in the legal team.

He describes the relationship between Joe and David as amazing.