David Bain's lawyer says computer evidence nonsense

David Bain's lawyer said that some of the computer evidence was 'just an absolute nonsense'. Photo / Simon Baker

A police computer expert has been accused of presenting nonsensical evidence, akin to Alice in Wonderland, in the High Court murder trial of David Bain.

The witness, Maarten Kleintjes, the national manager of the police electronic crime laboratory, yesterday defended his analysis of the computer from Bain's home which had the message "Sorry you are the only one who deserved to stay" written on it.

Bain, 36, is accused of writing the message to frame his father, Robin, on the morning of June 20, 1994, after shooting dead Robin, his mother, Margaret, and his siblings, Laniet, Arawa and Stephen.

But Bain's defence team says the message could not have been written by him, and was by Robin, who they claim shot four members of his family before turning the rifle on himself.

Exactly when the message was written on the computer cannot be established, but complex evidence has been debated in court on when the computer was started. This timing is important in relation to sightings of Bain on his paper run that morning.

Mr Kleintjes prepared a series of theoretical calculations based on data from a cloned version of the Bain computer and timings from a police detective's watch. Part of his calculations were guessing and assumption, he told the court.

On Thursday, computer expert Martin Cox told how the computer clock was not set, so he recorded the time he saved the message on June 21 from the detective's watch.

Mr Kleintjes described the unset computer clock as acting like a stopwatch from when it was turned on until the message was saved.

Mr Cox used the time difference to establish what time the computer would have been turned on. The result he produced was 6.44am. But after agreeing that the detective's watch had been estimated to be two minutes fast, he agreed it would be about 6.42am.

Mr Kleintjes said he found after deeper computer analysis that the time difference Mr Cox had calculated was out by a further 54 seconds.

This would push the turn-on time back to 6.41.06am.

With the time the message was saved now uncertain, Mr Kleintjes said he took various factors into account to produce tables showing when Mr Cox might have done this.

Bain's lawyer, Michael Reed, QC, asked Mr Kleintjes why he had included in his tables timings for saving the message that were simply impossible.

He suggested that a timing in one particular table was "just an absolute nonsense".

Mr Kleintjes: "No, I don't agree with that."

His work included extreme figures only possible in theory "but you have to take the extremes into account to reach the reality", Mr Kleintjes said. "The truth will lie somewhere in the middle."

Mr Reed earlier interjected over a figure to be put forward by Mr Kleintjes, saying it was based purely on a guess. "It's Alice in Wonderland."

Mr Kleintjes said he took into account that the detective's analogue watch had no second hand to record seconds accurately, the watch hands jumped in 10-second increments, and the rectangular shape of the watch meant that, depending on the angle from which it was viewed, it could be read as displaying different times.

He also established that after the computer was turned on, it took 13 seconds for the time on the battery-powered hardware clock to be transferred to the computer system clock, and 31 seconds for the Microsoft Word program to be loaded to allow someone to begin typing.

These factors could further influence the turn-on time.

THE WEEK IN SUMMARY:

Monday, March 16

The court hears for the first time from statements Bain made to the police, in which he tells of arriving home from his paper run to find his parents dead.

Emergency services witnesses give evidence of Bain talking about "black hands" coming to get him, and wanting to get to university on the day of the killings.

Former policeman Terry van Turnhout reveals for the first time that he picked up a pair of glasses without lenses in Bain's room - information he had withheld since the day of the killings.

Tuesday, March 17

The 111 call Bain made is played to the court, in which Bain tells the ambulance operator: "They're all dead. I came home and they're all dead".

Bain cannot explain to police how he knew his whole family were dead at that time, and a 25-minute gap between getting home and calling emergency services.

The ambulance operator says he has no trouble getting information from Bain, while a Telecom operator says Bain told her to "f*** up and shut up" when she tried to calm him down.

Wednesday, March 18

Video footage, including graphic images of the Bain family lying dead, is shown to the court.

The court hears from police officers about the circumstances in which the bodies were found, and the bullet wounds they had suffered.

Milton Weir, formerly a detective sergeant in charge of the Bain house "crime scene", tells of blood throughout the house, including bloody footprints in the hallway which may prove crucial in the case.

Thursday, March 19

Complex evidence begins about the Bain family computer, on which the message: "Sorry you are the only one who deserved to stay" is written.

Evidence is debated over when the message was saved and computer turned on, and Bain's defence team argue mistaken timings mean he could not have written the message to frame his father Robin.

Detective Jenepher Glover gives evidence of finding dozens of rounds of .22 ammunition found in Bain's wardrobe - ammunition fitting the rifle found next to Robin Bain's body.