Debbie Porteous

Girls and young women are becoming increasingly violent and society should change the way it deals with them, a social anthropologist says.

David Bain told school friends he could rape a woman and use his paper round as an alibi, according to Crown evidence never heard by the jury.

A segment of a tape of David Bain's 111 call was not played to the jury at his murder retrial because it contained what the Crown alleged could be interpreted as a confession.

A van handed over to Dunedin's Maori wardens yesterday will make their job a lot easier, they say.

Prospective witness in the David Bain retrial Dean Cottle was well aware he was being subpoenaed and had driven away to avoid it, despite his comments to the contrary, says the private investigator who went to serve him with papers.

Northeast winds gusting to more than 100kmh buffeted Dunedin yesterday, sending rubbish, windows and trees flying.

In Christchurch yesterday at 4.45pm, every conceivable cranny of High Court 1 was crammed with people holding their collective breaths waiting for the bomb to drop.

In the past three years the New Zealand Police force has "refreshed" its approach to community policing. Debbie Porteous looks at how this new proactive approach to crime prevention beats a reactive strategy.

David Bain was convicted of murdering five members of his family in 1995, yesterday he was found not guilty. Debbie Porteous reports on what has been described by defence lawyer Michael Reed QC as the "most extraordinary case in New Zealand legal history".

The retrial of David Bain has cost the country more than $2.6 million in legal aid and costs to the police and the courts, and probably millions more if the hours various police, court and prosecution legal staff put in to the case are counted.

It may not be a flamboyant sort of job, but Dunedin community constable Jan Craig said the job was not just having cups of tea with old ladies, either.

David Bain walked to the High Court at Christchurch yesterday for the 57th time since his second trial started.

The jury in the trial of David Bain, accused of murdering five members of his family in 1994, has retired for the night.

The jury in the David Bain retrial is returning with a verdict. Further details coming...

A 15 year trip was nearing its end and the jury was given an awesome responsibility to decide whether David Bain went home tomorrow, penniless but free, his defence lawyer said.

Top New Zealand lawyer Nigel Hampton QC believes that in the event of a hung jury in the David Bain retrial, a further trial would be likely.

Perhaps the most significant comment David Bain made to friends after the murders of this family was that he always ended up hurting the ones he loved, Crown counsel Keiran Raftery said as he concluded the Crown's closing arguments at the retrial of David Bain this afternoon.

Demand from people wanting their own supply of eggs and a few pretty hens for the garden resulted in a queue at the Great Dunedin Poultry Show at the weekend.

Two teenage boy racers were clocked illegally racing at speeds up to 122kmh on a busy 50kmh street in Dunedin, about 9pm on Friday.