KEY POINTS:
Allegations that police swore misleading affidavits to gain warrants to bug convicted double murderer Scott Watson's yacht and telephones are being considered by the Police Complaints Authority.
The complaint, lodged by Auckland author Keith Hunter about the conduct of murder-investigation head Detective Inspector Rob Pope, is due to be answered shortly and could raise further questions about Watson's conviction for killing Ben Smart and Olivia Hope in the Marlborough Sounds 10 years ago.
Among those who have voiced growing doubts over the conviction of Watson are the father of Olivia Hope, two key police witnesses and a former detective on the investigation. MPs Rodney Hide and Nandor Tanczos have also called for an inquiry.
However, in keeping with police policy on closed cases, Pope, now a deputy commissioner, has repeatedly declined Herald on Sunday requests for interviews.
Hunter sent Pope a copy of his book Trial by Trickery with a letter in June, which was in turn forwarded to the PCA the following month.
Despite not reading it, Pope later said there was "nothing new" in the book.
The PCA then requested a copy of Hunter's two-hour documentary, Murder on the Blade, and the author laid a formal complaint with the authority in August.
Affidavits sworn by police, and obtained by Watson's father Chris under the Official Information Act, form the basis for part of that complaint.
The sworn affidavits asked the Wellington High Court for interception warrants to allow police to place listening devices on, or "bug", the telephone, home and yacht of Scott Watson.
In the four-weekly documents which started in February 1998, Detective Inspector Pope stated police believed Watson had murdered the missing pair for a number of reasons, including that he matched witness descriptions of the "mystery man" last seen with them on the water taxi.
"The water taxi driver, Guy Wallace, and passengers on the Naiad at approximately 4am on 1 January 1998, [Hayden] Morresey and [Sarah] Dyer, described a person of similar description to Scott Watson as being dropped off the water taxi in the company of Olivia Hope and Ben Smart near where Scott Watson's yacht was rafted," Pope stated in the February 18 affidavit.
But neither Wallace nor Morresey described a person similar to Watson at any time. Dyer had not given a description of the mystery man.
In a police interview recorded on January 4, 1998, Wallace said the man who got on board with Olivia and Ben was about 32 years old, with wavy brown hair and two days' facial hair growth, wearing a green Levi shirt.
Later, Wallace identified a drinker in the Furneaux Lodge as the man he took on the water-taxi with Ben and Olivia to the mystery yacht.
Furneaux Lodge bar manager Rozlynn McNeilly told police on January 8, that the "mystery man" drinking at the bar was someone in his mid-30s with two days' stubble, with scruffy hair "like he hadn't seen a hairdresser for a while".
Morresey, one of the passengers on the Naiad, described his fellow passenger as having straggly, shoulder length hair which, he said, needed a cut. Another affidavit, filed on July 28 to oppose bail for Watson, said police were in possession of photographic evidence suggesting that Watson was unshaven and had scruffy hair while at Furneaux Lodge. No such photograph was ever produced.
But a photograph of Watson, taken at 9.30pm on New Year's Eve on board a neighbouring boat, the Mina Cornelia, showed him with short and tidy hair and freshly shaven.
A spokesman for National Police Headquarters declined requests to speak to Deputy Commissioner Pope.
"Thank you very much for the kind offer to provide some balance and fairness to the story. We are aware there have been about four complaints on the case lodged with the PCA.
"We feel that it would also be inappropriate to comment before they have made public their findings."
Last month, Olivia Hope's father Gerald told the Herald on Sunday that he had serious doubts over Watson's double murder conviction.
"What we got was a conviction, but we never got the truth," Hope said. "Nothing ever was confirmed. It was all circumstantial; there was no hard evidence. And that's where my greatest doubts lie. I'm not saying [Scott Watson] is not guilty. What I'm saying is let's clear up the doubt."
Two other police witnesses - Wallace and McNeilly - have also retracted their key evidence identifying Watson as the "mystery man" in the bar.
Last week, former detective Michael Chappell, who worked on the case, said he was ashamed to have been part of the police investigation - and believed Watson was innocent.
