A police officer who helped former Detective Sergeant Milton Weir search 14-year-old Stephen Bain's bedroom in 1994 said today he had not seen Mr Weir ''plant'' a spectacle lens under an ice skating boot and did not believe the other officer would ''stoop that low''.
Former Detective Jacques Legros, who was recalled by the Crown to give evidence on the particular point, told Justice Graham Panckhurst and a High Court jury in Christchurch, he and Mr Weir had essentially worked ''shoulder to shoulder'' during their painstaking search of the bedroom in the days after the June 20 shootings.
They made a systematic 360 degree sweep in an anti-clockwise direction and at no time did he see Mr Weir touch anything in the area where the defence say a spectacle lens was ''planted''.
When the lens was found, under an ice-skating boot, he and Mr Weir had to wait quite a while for a police photographer so it could be photographed where it was before they could remove it.
When Mr Legros gave his evidence two weeks ago, the defence did not ask if about whether Mr Weir might have planted the lens.
And he said today, he did not believe Mr Weir had done what the defence alleged, although he agreed with Crown counsel Helen Cull QC he was not with Mr Weir ''every minute of the day''.
The surviving member of the Bain family, 37-year-old David Cullen Bain was convicted in 1995 of murdering Stephen Bain, his sisters Arawa and Laniet and his parents Robin and Margaret but is now having a second trial as a result of a Privy Council decision two years ago.
The retrial is now in its fifth week.
