30 Oct 2020

Joel Tobeck on playing Robin Bain in Black Hands

From First Up, 5:48 am on 30 October 2020

The killing of the Bain family in Dunedin in June of 1994 holds a particular fascination for New Zealanders. Five members of the family were found dead by the oldest son David on the morning of June the 20th, 1994. They had all been shot.

David Bain was charged with the murders and was found guilty and convicted on each of the charges. But, after serving more than 12 years in prison, David Cullen Bain was released after the Privy Council declared there had been a "substantial miscarriage of justice" - and he was eventually acquitted on all charges at a retrial in 2009. No one else has ever been charged in the case.

A dramatisation of the lead up to the killings, based on the podcast Black Hands airs on TVNZ.

Nathan Rarere asks actor Joel Tobeck, who plays David's father, what kind of man Robin Bain was.