No cuts or marks were noted on Robin Bain's hands following his death because there were no cuts or marks, the Dunedin pathologist who examined his body says.
Last month, a TV3 documentary concluded parallel marks on Robin Bain's thumb were from him loading the rifle shortly before his death.
Assistant Police Commissioner Malcolm Burgess responded by re-releasing Mr Bain's fingerprints taken after his death. These showed damage to his thumb, caused, police said, by cuts to his fingers in the same place as the marks in the photo shown in the TV programme.
''Postmortem examination of Robin Bain's hands shows a number of minor abrasions and marks you would expect to find with someone familiar with manual work,'' Mr Burgess said last month.
However pathologist Dr Alexander Dempster, when asked why no cuts or marks were recorded in his original report, told the Otago Daily Times this week ''anything observed would have been noted in the report''.
Police may have been referring to minor damage to the fingerprint service rather than an actual cut, but he had not been involved directly in their latest inquiries, he said.
Earlier this month, police re-tested fingerprints taken from Mr Bain, with the gun also tested by firearms experts along with scientists from Environmental Science and Research present.
A police spokesman said those reports were expected back about mid-September.
