STATEMENT BY DEAN COTTLE READ OUT IN COURT AT DAVID

BAINS SECOND TRIAL IN 2009.

THE COURT:
Ladies and gentlemen, as you heard yesterday Mr Cottle - Mr Dean Cottle was an
intended defence witness but is not available to be called. The background to
that is as follows. An attempt was made to serve a witness summons on him on
the 13th of May. He actively evaded service of the summons. I issued a warrant
for his arrest last week on the 21st of May, unbeknown to me at that time and
only established subsequent to last week, Mr Cottle had flown to Brisbane on the
16th of May. You
draw your own conclusions no doubt about that. So that is the background and
the reason for his unavailability. I have however ruled it is appropriate you hear
his evidence. He made a statement to the police on the 23rd of June 1994 at
11.55 am at the Criminal Investigation Branch office in Dunedin. And he said this.
BRIEF OF EVI DENCE OF DEAN ROBERT COTTLE READ BY CONSENT
Dean Robert Cottle is my full name. I reside at 82A Playfair Street, Dunedin
phone 4878342. I am presently unemployed and I am aged 27 years. I am
making this statement to Detective Malcolm Inglis about knowing Laniet Bain.
I first met Laniet about 10 months ago in a bar in Dunedin. We got talking and
got on well. After that meeting we got to know each other and became friends.
Laniet would talk to me and sometimes I would take her out for dinner. She did
tell l me that she had been a prostitute at some stage.
When I first started to see her, I would see her maybe three or four times a week.
Towards the end of April I was seeing her less and it had been about three or four
weeks since I 'd l last seen her, but in the times we had together she used to tell
me things. She was a nice girl and we got on well.
About the family, she told me that her father had been having sex with her and
this had been happening for years, but he was still doing this as I believed it. She
told me that she wouldn't go to bed until 3 am and knew this. She didn't want it
coming out what had happened to her, I wasn't to tell anyone. It was one of the
reasons for her leaving home. She was also fed up with everything. Her mother
was hassling her and they used to sit around and each take turns at talking to
God.
She first moved into a flat in Kaikorai Valley off Nairn Street. There were nohopers in there and I told her that she should get out of that address. She moved
out of that flat and into the Russell Street address. It could've been the start of
March. She used to go up to Alexandra with the family. She also told me that her
sister Arawa had been involved in some prostitution. I presumed that she had
told her sister what she had been doing. I asked what her sister had thought of
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that and she had replied, Not much", as she'd done a couple of jobs herself. I
didn't push it anymore and let it drop.
She was also involved with cannabis but I'm not interested in that. I decided on
Friday 17 June to give her a ring and see what she was up to. I phoned the family
home as I knew that she was moving out of Russell Street and I thought that she
had moved home. I spoke to her mother and she gave me the phone number to
get hold of her. I had told her that it was a friend trying to get hold of her.
I phoned the number and they answered "Taieri Beach School. I presumed that
it was her father that answered the phone and I was surprised as I didn't think
she would be back with her father. He told me that she was in town somewhere
and he thought that she would be back at about seven.
Later that day I was driving through town and I saw Laniet coming out of a coffee
shop, it was in the afternoon. It was the coffee shop that is on George Street past
Frederick Street, heading north on the right-hand side. It has a big noticeboard
and is dark with students using it. I stopped and spoke to her on the footpath for
about five, ten minutes. She told me that she was going to make a new start of
everything and that her parents had been questioning her about what she was
doing. She said that she was going to tell l them everything and make a clean
start of things. I said that if she wanted to talk, to give me a ring or if she wanted
to go out for dinner.
She had always been very, very scared of her parents finding out what she was
doing. I thought by saying that, she was going to tell her parents about
prostitution. That was about all we said. I don't think it would have taken longer
than five minutes. I didn't see any friends that she could have been with. She
didn't talk much about the rest of the family but it seemed quite normal that she
got on with her brothers and sister as well, that she was closer to Arawa.
I never met David, I only ever saw him once when I picked her up outside the
Trust Bank Theatre in King Edward Street. She said That's my brother. She only
did those shows to keep everyone happy, she didn't like doing them. Ever since
Ive known her, all she has wanted to do is go back to Papua New Guinea. She
really liked it over there.
The night she told me about what her father had done to her, she also told me
before this that something had happened to her in Papua New Guinea. She didn't
say what but I presumed she meant something sexual. After that she started
crying and told me about what her father did to her. Just thinking back on it, I'm
not sure if it was Friday. I think it was Friday but if you check their phone you will
see a call from me. She seemed quite a level-headed girl to me. I've read this
statement and its true and correct, and its signed D. R. Cottle.
THE COURT:

Now on the 26th of June 1995, Mr Cottle made an affidavit, that is a sworn
statement, and in it he said this in relation to the statement that Ive just read to
you.
FURTHER EVI DENCE OF DEAN ROBERT COTTLE READ BY CONSENT:
I wish to add some more detail to the statement. Laniet was clearly agitated on
the Friday afternoon before the killings. She told me that she was going home
that weekend to tell the family everything about what had been occurring. She
also said, I'm going to put a stop to everything. She actually used the term that
she was sick of, everyone getting up her. She did not actually refer to the
incest with her father during the Friday conversation. She also told me that the
incestuous relationship with her father had commenced in Papua New Guinea.