The pathologist who carried out the postmortem on Princess Diana after she was killed in a car crash 12 years ago is to be a defence witness in the David Bain murder trial in Christchurch.
Jurors hearing the retrial of 37-year-old Bain for the 1994 killings of his family were told yesterday British pathologist Robert Chapman was one of two expert pathologists the defence was calling to give evidence Robin Bain could have shot himself and that the angle of the wound was not suspicious.
Dr Chapman was "famous for doing the autopsy on Princess Diana", defence counsel Michael Reed QC said during his cross-examination of specialist pathologist Alexander Dempster.
He examined her body and that of her companion, Dodi Al Fayed, when they were flown back to Britain after the crash.
On Tuesday, Dr Dempster used the .22 Winchester rifle that killed five members of the Bain family to show the court how difficult it would have been for Robin Bain to hold the weapon at the angle needed to result in the bullet wound to his head.
But Mr Reed yesterday produced photographs of tests done by a British ballistics expert showing several different positions in which a man, using the same rifle, was able to reach the trigger.
He also said Dr Chapman and Prof Stephen Cordner, of Melbourne, would give evidence the wound site - the left temple - was not an unusual one even for a right-handed person.
