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A question mark is hanging over David Bain's murder retrial after claims inadequate legal aid funding has been made available to fight the charges.
The row is expected to delay the case, which had been scheduled for May next year - and his legal team has warned "a worst-case scenario" could be that Bain fights the charges without any legal representation at all.
The Legal Services Agency has rejected an application by Bain's defence team for more legal aid funding, claiming while the trial is "complex", it is no more complex than other trials it has funded in the past.
Currently Bain has legal aid funding for lead counsel Michael Reed, QC, Helen Cull, QC, lawyer Paul Morton and supporter Joe Karam.
The request was to provide funding to increase the defence team by another four solicitors, who would primarily be employed to help analyse the more than 100,000 pages of evidence.
Adding to the cost of the trial is the number of defence witnesses Bain's legal team plans to call. In the original trial there were only three, including Bain - for the retrial, up to 100 are expected to be called.
The Crown has a team of detectives, three firms of solicitors and research and administrative staff working on the retrial. The whole case is expected to cost taxpayers up to $15 million, with around $4 million of that devoted to legal aid. An extra four defence counsel would add at least a further $500,000 to the total bill.
The highest New Zealand legal aid criminal case payout was $623,740 for Scott Watson, convicted of the Marlborough Sounds murders.
Bain is facing a retrial on charges of murdering his parents and three siblings in Dunedin in 1994, after the Privy Council quashed his convictions in May.
Karam told the Herald on Sunday that without extra legal aid funding the defence would not be in a position to properly represent Bain - and may have to withdraw from the case entirely.
"With the resources we have been granted we cannot mount a proper defence and therefore cannot proceed with the case," Karam said.
"Just to read the 100,000 pages of material we have would take one person a year if he took one minute a page. There is nothing cute or tactical about this.
"David Bain cannot properly be defended with the resources that we have got."
Bain's defence team will challenge the Legal Service Agency's decision and should they fail there, the matter will have to go to the High Court. That process will almost certainly delay the May trial.
"We don't want to quit this. This is not about us getting more money, it is about us getting more resources," Karam said.
New Zealand Law Society vice-president Gary Gotleib said the Crown and the defence had to have the same resources available to them if there was to be a fair trial.
