A Dunedin detective says he picked up a pair of broken glasses from a chair in David Bain's bedroom but immediately put them down again as he realised the room was a crime scene.
Bain had asked for his glasses, saying he could not see and, as the detective had noticed the glasses on a chair in the room, he picked them up, Detective Terry Van Turnhout told the High Court in Christchurch this afternoon.
Realising that the room was a crime scene, he put the glasses back. He noticed there were no lenses in the frames although there was one lens on the seat of the chair.
A senior officer, Detective Sergeant Milton Weir came into the room just before 10am and asked if anything had been touched, and the witness said nothing apart from the pillows had been touched.
''I didn't mention the glasses. I was worried I'd picked them up - I didn't know what their significance was,'' Det Van Turnhout said. ''I had no idea they'd become significant later and I was concerned about being criticised later.
''I made an error of judgement,'' he said.
Detective Van Turnhout, then a uniformed officer, said he had been told to stay with David Bain in his bedroom on the morning of June 20, 1994 and to make notes of everything Bain did or said.
Bain, then a 22-year-old student was charged, several days later, with murdering his parents, two sisters and younger brother at the family's Every St home.
Earlier, an ambulance officer recounted how he heard David Bain say something about ''black hands coming'' the morning five of the Bain family were found dead in their Every St home.
Ambulance officer John Dick said he was adjusting a blanket and hot packs around Bain who was complaining about being cold and nauseous when he heard him start to say something.
It was very difficult to hear -''more like a whisper'', Mr Dick said.
''He said something about 'black hands are coming',''
Previously, another ambulance officer said he checked David Bain's heart rate, breathing and oxygen saturation levels and found them normal and consistent with a person resting, rather than someone who had just had a fit or was about to have a fit.
And although Bain's eyes were closed and he was not responding when spoken to, his eyelids flickered when his eye lashes were touched, ambulance officer Raymond Anderson said.
He saw Bain's arms and legs shaking but the movements were non-violent and co-ordinated, not like someone having a seizure or fit where the movement was unco-ordinated and could be very violent.
