Bain trial: Witness tells of stress disorder

A psychiatrist says David Bain showed no signs of being mentally ill, but had developed post-traumatic stress disorder after the deaths of his family.

Bain did not display features typical of a psychopath, and gaps in his memory from the day of the killings were not unusual considering the situation, his High Court murder trial was told yesterday in Christchurch.

Philip Brinded said the stress disorder and amnesia could arise in either the killer or a distressed person who came home to find his family dead.

The court also heard more evidence yesterday of Bain's sister Laniet claiming to have suffered sexual abuse at the hands of her father, Robin, and of Laniet's fear that her sister Arawa, 19, might also have been abused.

A witness, who lived in the same boarding house, said Laniet, 18, feared her father, yet was jealous of his relationship with her brother David.

David Bain, 37, is on trial for murdering his parents and three siblings in their Dunedin home on June 20, 1994. His defence team argue that Robin Bain, 58, shot dead the family and then himself after fearing incest with his daughter would be exposed.

Dr Brinded said he was initially asked by Bain's lawyers in 1994 to examine him in prison. He ruled out any mental disorder.

He went on to treat Bain over several years, helping him deal with the post-traumatic stress disorder, and Bain showed signs of improvement.

"He would always become very distressed when talking about the events of the day that his family died. However his accounts of that remained consistent with what he had told me at the time of [1995] trial."

Bain had been unable to account for about 20 minutes after he says he got home to find his family dead. He initially told police he did not see the bodies of his siblings, but months later was able to remember finding them.

Dr Brinded: "The issue with respect to 'post-traumatic amnesia' is that it is unhelpful with respect to determining guilt or innocence. And its existence in a case like this is not surprising."

Dr Brinded agreed with prosecutor Kieran Raftery that one psychiatrist's study found 70 per cent of murderers questioned had suffered some form of amnesia in relation to the events.

The witness regarding Laniet said she told him in 1994 that she was working as a prostitute and her "pimp" had threatened to expose this to her family.

She also said her father was "doing things that weren't appropriate".

"She mentioned that he was touching her in ways that he shouldn't have been. She was very fearful that the same thing may happen, or was happening, to Arawa. I think she wanted her out of that situation."

Laniet was afraid of going anywhere near the family home or her father, and was very jealous of David.

"From what I could gather, she seemed to think that the father had a lot of involvement with David, sports and hunting and fishing ... she felt, I think, a wee bit left out in that area."

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