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A police officer has admitted making an "error of judgment" by moving a key exhibit at the Bain family homicide scene in Dunedin and not mentioning it until this week.
Constable Terry Van Turnhout told the court on Monday that he moved the spectacles found on a chair in David Bain's bedroom on the morning of June 20, 1994 when five Bain family members were found dead.
Van Turnhout said he had been sent into Bain's bedroom to "observe, note, and record any of his words". Bain was pale and lying down, and Van Turnhout thought he was in shock.
At 8.15am - about 45 minutes after police arrived at the crime scene - Bain said: "I've got to get up. I go to the university. I study music. I sing." He said Bain repeatedly tried to get up, but kept lying down again.
He asked for his glasses which were on a chair. Van Turnhout picked them up but then realised he was in a crime scene and replaced them.
He told Bain they would get his glasses later. The glasses had no lenses in the frame, but one lens was on the chair.
Later in the morning, another officer asked if anything had been touched in the room, and Van Turnhout did not say that he had touched the glasses.
H e said he had not said anything about touching the glasses because he feared censure from his superiors.
"I was worried that I had picked them up. I didn't know what their significance was or would be," he said.
"I had no idea that at a later date they would become significant. I was worried about being criticised for having done so. I made an error of judgment."
He only became aware of the significance of the glasses years later when Bain supporter Joe Karam mentioned them in a book, he said.
The Crown says Bain killed the family and sustained injuries, including the broken glasses, during a struggle with his brother.
Bain, now 36, is on retrial for the murders of father Robin, 58, mother Margaret, 50, sisters Arawa, 19, Laniet, 18 and brother Stephen, 14.
