|
The Evening Post
May 3, 1997
Truth is the casualty
Letter to the Editor
by Noeline Gannaway, Newtown
Joe Karam’s newly
published book David And Goliath (The Post, April 19) will be welcomed by
those who have believed all along that David Bain was wrongly convicted of
killing his family in 1994.
It appears that the mountain of evidence against David, collected by the
police, was not effectively challenged by his defence, and key evidence was
not considered.
Too often truth has been a casualty of our adversarial criminal justice
system inherited from English common law.
This is the system that has imprisoned David Bain, David Tamahere, John
Barlow and Peter Ellis, and it has largely lost public confidence.
It is time to discard this adversarial approach, so open to corruption, in
favour of something closer to the European model, where the investigating
judge directs an extended inquiry. If the truth is deemed unknowable, the
defendant gets the benefit of the doubt.
Hopefully, Joe Karam's book will speed up the reform process.
|
