Jim Hopkins: Force or farce - it's a reasonable doubt

Our jury was hung. Three went one way, two the other, one couldn't decide.

Which is much the way it was, you imagine, all over New Zealand last Saturday night, when everyone was talking, with great vehemence and authority, about the same thing.

A trial, the trial - and we all had a view. Not that it mattered, mind, whatever it was.

In the end it will be hubris as much as any human verdict that finally determines the merits of this matter. Best then to close the case or, at least, put aside its particulars. If there is more light to be shed upon them, it will be time and character that do so.

Instead of endlessly rehashing the contradictory evidence of alleged experts (how can they be if they all disagree?) we could more profitably ponder the underlying reasons, some of them irrational, that have undoubtedly influenced many in the court of public opinion.

A single indignant remark on Saturday night perfectly expressed at least one of those reasons. And it has to be a cause of concern, for the public at large and those in charge of the public at large.

"I just don't trust the police," said the lady on the other side of the table. "They're useless."

She was probably in her late 60s (though you'd never ask, of course) and didn't obviously appear belligerent or bohemian.

Not exactly tweed skirt and sturdy brogues but definitely heading in that direction; someone well-acquainted with the inner workings of the Country Women's Institute, shall we say.

Yet there she was, giving vent to an anti-establishment view quite out of keeping with her demeanour. Nor was she alone in her sedition.

Rueful nods endorsed her scepticism. Other cases were mentioned, other names came up - Scott Watson, Mark Lundy, that guy in Wellington, you know, the one who's going to the Privy Council.

Everyone had a story. Everyone had read a book or seen a TV programme revisiting some trial or other where the verdict remained in dispute. And everyone had some doubt about the guilt of somebody.

It's impossible to know how many people suspect the competence of the police to investigate major crimes. But it's reasonable to suggest the percentage is statistically significant.

One conversation at one party on one Saturday night can't be proof - but it can be a pointer.

And what it points to is something corrosive and damaging, something that needs to be addressed. Something we should be talking about - not in private but in public.

And the police probably need to start the conversation. First by acknowledging there is an undercurrent of distrust in the community they serve. And second by conceding they're aware of its cause.

Because they must be. They have to be. Most of the rest of us are. To the extent that there is a disjunct, a breach of faith and a fracture of trust, it all goes back to the Arthur Allan Thomas case or, more particularly, the cartridge that was planted to secure a conviction.

It wasn't the first time dodgy evidence arrived in court. But it was the first time it became quite so public and quite so significant. It was the first time a local journalist pursued a case so tenaciously.

It was the first time an overseas author jetted in to promote his literary revelations. It was the first time one of our trials became a movie. It was the first time the culture and conduct of the police - and their ability to investigate matters as complex as murder - were openly called into question.

It was really the first time the police were tried and found wanting. As they have been ever since.

The continued relitigating of cases, the repeated implications of ineptitude or worse merely demonstrate how pervasive the atmosphere of suspicion and doubt still is.

The Bain case may be the most recent example, but it won't be the last. There will be others and there will be other Joe Karams as well, each convinced beyond reasonable doubt that the police have bungled their investigations or, worse still, planted evidence in order to get their man.

That was the allegation confirmed in the Thomas case and it was an allegation made yet again during the Bain trial. Its stigma still haunts the police and still troubles the public.

We've spent long enough not talking about it. It's time to begin an open conversation. The police need to acknowledge they've never admitted their failing in the Thomas case, however difficult it may be - for them and us.

The one thing they can trust is our wish to trust them. We want to be confident of their competence.

And they should be confident that admitting failure won't entrench suspicion. But it will begin to dispel unreasonable doubt.