OPINION:
The conviction of Scott Watson is infested in doubt – I care about justice and fairness and this case is an affront to me. He should not be in jail one moment longer, writes broadcaster Paul Henry, who describes the case as ‘our collective shame’.
A few weeks ago, on a beautiful day cruising the Hauraki Gulf with friends on Olive, my wonderful boat, a diagnostic warning of sorts flashed up on the starboard engine screen that usually displays information constantly reminding me all is well.
It’s not the first time this has happened. Every time it does, I immediately explore the possibilities the engine is about to explode into a million tiny pieces, only to have it assure me everything is perfectly in harmony.
And that’s how it seems and how it always performs. It’s what I want to believe.
But nonetheless, I am aware in the background some unfortunate anomaly is playing out and periodically disturbing my peace.
Something else that periodically disturbs me and has done so for an embarrassingly long time started to play out exactly 25 years ago this weekend at Endeavour Inlet in the Marlborough Sounds.
It’s a quarter of a century ago on New Year’s morning that people were beginning to notice a young couple was not around. Twenty-one-year-old Ben Smart and 17-year-old Olivia Hope would never be seen again.
They were on their way into New Zealand’s criminal history record - as murder victims.
Their bodies would never be examined because they would never be found. Witnesses to their murder would never be questioned because there were none.
In fact, were it not for creative policing, all we would have is a mystery disappearance.
This is a story well told. In multiple books, articles and documentaries the details have been picked over, questioned and challenged.
So, why does it haunt me as unfinished business … the very worst kind of business?
I was a network newsreader with Radio New Zealand two and a half decades ago, working out of the old Broadcasting House at the end of The Terrace next to the Beehive in Wellington.
I well remember the relief bouncing off the walls of the large newsroom that at this, the quietest news time of the year, in one of the quietest news countries on the planet, something was “going down”.
As the story played out, I also remember feeling more than a little disturbed by the course of events. I recall saying to a sub-editor, who was explaining to me how easily confused witnesses can become, how unreliable they can be … that just sometimes - if it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it could be a duck. (Not a sloop.)
Scott Watson was not placed on this earth to make policing an easy task. With just under 50 convictions prior to him “apparently” committing double murder, he was nothing but an easy target for police suspicion and public condemnation.
Detective Inspector Rob Pope was charged with leading Operation Tam, the investigation into the disappearance of Olivia and Ben. It was named after the vessel, Tamarack, that Olivia and friends had rented for their New Year’s celebrations.
Pope arrived in the Sounds on January 5 and took over on the 6th.
The police almost immediately focused on one young trouble-maker. A focus that would not waiver throughout the investigation. It was a gut feeling.
Pope was a good cop and he trusted his gut. Now gut feelings can often be correct but in this case, I believe it created a tunnel vision that excluded every road that did not in some way lead to Watson.
I strongly believe it’s a gut feeling that perverted the course of justice.
The Scott Watson Button was pushed sometime during Pope’s first two days in charge.
On January 8, 1998, Pope applied for a warrant to seize Watson’s boat, Blade, a small steel sloop and on the 12th the boat was lifted from the water in the full media glare.
It was just one of the many tip-offs and asides that alerted a willing and at times irresponsible media to start the public besmirching campaign that would ultimately convict Watson well before he went to trial.
I am not going to litigate the entire case here. I could but I don’t have the heartbeats to write the words and you probably don’t have sufficient heartbeats to read them on this joyous New Year’s weekend. As I have said, the footwork has well been laid by multiple authors. I will, though, dance lightly over some of the more prominent points of this case.
Against Watson, there is zero what I call “hard evidence”.
It is all circumstantial. But even the circumstantial evidence is riddled with doubt and relies so heavily on the broad conjecture that I believe much of it should have been ruled inadmissible.
Firstly, none of the key witnesses identified Scott Watson as the “mystery man” who is considered the perpetrator of the crime. In fact, several specifically ruled him out.
None of the key witnesses identified Blade as the “mystery vessel” the couple boarded with the mystery man.
In fact, all witnesses ruled out Blade, saying she was completely different to the ketch the couple boarded, with one saying the only similarity between them was they both floated!
This is vital. If Blade was not the vessel then Watson was not the killer.
The ketch was close to identically described by numerous witnesses.
I’m happy to call them expert witnesses. These were people who knew boats. Boatbuilders and others with a lifetime on or near the water.
Pope ultimately said the ketch never existed. Witnesses to it were virtually ridiculed by the Tam team. I believe this was a very real line of inquiry that was shut down far too soon.
By now Scott Watson was public enemy number one.
He was being demonised through the media along with his family. Police were using what I believe were underhand tactics to coerce and intimidate witnesses to identify Watson.
Such as the “blink photo” of Watson. This photo was introduced after no one identified Watson in the first montage. It’s a very poor likeness taken during a blink.
His eyes looked a little like the eyes described by those that saw the mystery man.
Guy Wallace, the water taxi driver who delivered Ben and Olivia to their fate, very reluctantly conceded this and so it was considered a positive identification of Watson.
This is despite the fact police had a photo of Watson taken on the night which clearly shows someone quite different from the multiple descriptions of the mystery man.
I believe Wallace’s positive identification would today be held inadmissible.
This may well be tested when what may be Watson’s last chance at redemption plays out in the Court of Appeal in May. The blink photo is completely different from the photofit picture Wallace signed off on of the mystery man.
Roz McNeilly was the bar manager at Furneaux Lodge, the venue for the New Year party. She served the mystery man throughout the evening and early morning.
She also noted the eyes in Watson’s “blink” photo. She was aware this other photo of Watson - taken just moments before he went to the lodge to party - existed and asked police if she could see it.
Police refused to show her.
In my opinion, they were transfixed on constructing a case around Watson.
This alone, I believe, highlights the tunnel vision of the Tam team. Subsequent to Scott’s conviction, Roz has seen the photo and is adamant he was not the mystery man.
Surely refusing access to this photo is obstruction of justice?
For Watson’s everyday activities, we’re demonised. We were told he had repainted Blade in order to disguise her. The fact is the plan to repaint a section of the topsides was in place for months, with paint ordered and delivered well before Christmas to the place where he had intended to paint.
We were told he had virtually forensically cleaned Blade to wipe away the scene of the crime. It turns out he had wiped about 30 per cent of the hard surfaces.
We’re talking about a double murder on a small steel boat. I don’t know but I would imagine that could make quite a mess. That might require a much more rigorous effort.
One blood stain was found inside Blade. It belonged to Scott’s sister, Sandy.
Sandy had helped Scott clean the boat before Christmas.
Scratch marks on the underside of the cabin hatch on Blade resulted in a hideous picture being promoted.
That of Olivia trapped, in fear for her life, frantically scratching at a locked escape route to freedom.
The fact is there was no way to lock the hatch and the scratch marks travelled the complete distance from end to end of the underside of the hatch. They could only have been made when the hatch was open.
Trouble is, once told, - just like the invention of nuclear weapons - it can’t be unknown. Watson himself maintained it was his nieces – Sandy’s daughters – who had scratched the hatch when playing on Blade before Christmas.
Police persisted, regardless, with the “trapped” line.
There were two witnesses to Watson confessing to the murders while in jail. Judges warn juries to treat with little weight jailhouse informants.
Despite that, a study in Britain found many jurors actually place considerable stock in these witnesses, under the mistaken belief they are impartial.
In Watson’s case, within a year of his conviction, one of the two narks had completely recanted his statement. He said he fabricated it to help his situation as he was being threatened in prison and needed out.
The other informant claimed to have a close relationship with Watson but in reality, they were never in the same cell and had little or no chance to become close.
When this witness was released from jail he was given the use of a car and a phone for his “help”.
As I said before … for Watson to be guilty of this crime he had to be the mystery man. He had to be on the water taxi with Ben and Olivia. He had to have invited them on to Blade to spend the night.
Another major problem for Operation Tam was the fact multiple witnesses testified to Watson returning to Blade well before the water taxi with Ben and Olivia onboard left the lodge.
Blade was not sitting by herself in a deserted bay. The small sloop was, in fact, rafted up to two other small boats at anchor in a busy bay.
When a drunk Watson climbed aboard Blade he woke up others. They clearly referenced his arrival. None of them referenced a second arrival.
This is important as the Crown introduced the “two-trip” theory. A drunk Watson, they said, must have somehow returned to the lodge so that he could then return on the water taxi with Ben and Olivia.
They told the jury it was not important how Watson got back to the lodge. He could have been picked up by another returning boat or taken a dinghy. No dinghy was missing.
The Crown contested they did not need to prove how he returned. Isn’t that a little like saying … we don’t have to prove guilt?
You must prove innocence! It’s also odd no one mere feet away heard or felt anything of a double murder taking place.
Remember, there is not one solid piece of evidence implicating Watson in this crime.
There is almost no evidence of a crime at all, other than a mystery disappearance that has endured a quarter century. The fact that there is no evidence of what happened to Olivia and Ben or their bodies, in itself suggests foul play.
The closest to actual evidence implicating Watson are the two blonde hairs, almost certainly Olivia’s, allegedly found on Watson’s Tiger Blanket, onboard Blade.
In itself, it is incredible that if the pair had boarded Blade, the two hairs were all the evidence of their presence. But if Olivia had been on board with Watson, that’s guilt right there. Watson has always claimed he never met Ben or Olivia.
In May, Watson has what could well be his best - and probably his last chance - to clear his name. Or at least start that process. The Court of Appeal will review two aspects of the case.
Firstly the “blink” photo, which I’ve already said should have been held inadmissible, and more importantly the forensic evidence. In particular, the two blonde hairs, most likely Olivia’s.
Rob Pope implied more than once in interviews that it was the blonde hairs that were the single most significant aspects of the case police amassed against Scott Watson. And he’s right.
I’m sitting next to a copy of the ESR notes on the forensic study of the blanket and hairs. Everything surrounding this evidence, in my view, is sloppy at best.
In short, on first inspection 400 hairs were taken from the blanket and studied. They were comparatively short and mostly dark. It was concluded none were from Olivia or Ben but that most were Scott’s and a few were Sandy’s.
Police subsequently gathered reference hairs from Olivia’s hairbrush and delivered them to ESR in Auckland. They were studied on the same bench that the blanket was sitting on. Later two hairs were found on the blanket, one 15cm and one 25cm long.
It defies belief that these hairs, so much longer than any of the 400 gathered, and blonde could have been missed the first time. It also defies belief that the reference hairs gathered by police, bagged, and delivered to ESR were never counted by either police or ESR.
On top of that, the bag containing the reference hairs had a cut in one corner - hairs could quite easily have slipped out.
This, in my view, is evidence only of the sloppy collection, handling and study of hairs rather than evidence of Olivia ever having been aboard Blade.
It should also have been inadmissible. It’s almost redundant to proffer the transference aspect of this evidence. Even if the hairs had been on Blade, that in itself does not confirm the presence of Olivia. They had all partied in one crowded location. Transference is entirely possible.
You might think it relatively clear cut, but Watson’s lawyer, Nick Chisnall, has his work cut out for him.
The Crown has deep pockets and will be throwing a lot of resources at defending the conviction. The bar to overturning a conviction is very high.
You almost need a credible confession, the discovery of bodies contradicting the police case, or at least significant new evidence to stand a chance. It’s a steep hill to climb. I personally don’t think it’s better than a 10 per cent chance of success for Watson.
Happy New Year Nick.
Watson was arrested for the murders in June 1998. He was convicted after an 11-week trial with hundreds of witnesses called in 1999. He was given a life sentence with a minimum 17-year non-parole. Watson’s been before the parole board multiple times but largely because he fails to meet the most important test he has always been denied.
You see, Watson continues to deny his crimes and as such his “core risk” at the heart of his offending has not, and cannot be addressed.
Rob Pope ended his police career, resigning in 2011, after rising to the rank of Deputy Police Commissioner.
I don’t believe Pope set out to convict an innocent man, or that he was buckling to significant pressure to solve a very prominent case. But based on the “evidence” in the case, I believe Pope led a sloppy investigation.
Happy New Year Rob.
Nothing here, none of this proves Watson’s innocence. But Watson should not have to prove his innocence. The fact is that the construction and execution of the case against him did not prove his guilt. It is quite literally infested with doubt.
Countless times over the years, as I have questioned aloud the case against him, I have been asked if I’ve ever interviewed him, met him, or tried to.
Just as there was nothing Watson could say or do to satisfy Gerald Hope, Olivia’s father, when he met him in prison to try to hunt out a resolution for his own peace of mind, there is nothing for me to gain from meeting Watson.
There is nothing I have heard about Watson that would make me want to have any kind of relationship with him. And God knows the last thing I want or need is another friend.
I actually don’t care in the least about Scott Watson. I do care about justice and fairness. As it played out, this case is an affront to me, as it should be to you.
I believe Watson was not treated fairly and as a result, he has been robbed, perhaps with entirely no justification, of his freedom for a quarter of a century. But the Hopes and Smarts have also been robbed.
This unimaginable fracture in their families’ past has been left weeping with a lack of clarity. I feel for them.
Happy New Year to Olivia and Ben’s families.
If I was one of those in any way involved with the conviction of Watson I would feel very ill at ease … Wait, I am. And I do!
Last week I finally conceded I could no longer live with the nagging knowledge all was not as it should be with my starboard engine. I could not ignore it anymore. I called experts in to review the diagnostic data.
To forensically pick over the facts. And as I suspected, in spite of the reality I could have lived with the defect - gone about my life normally with only the occasional reset necessary - I now feel a sense of relief the problem has been rectified.
Just like my starboard engine, I couldn’t ignore any longer what I believe to have been the legal defect that convicted Scott Watson of double murder and still sees him estranged from any kind of normal life a quarter of a century later.
I couldn’t put off expressing my shame that I didn’t do more with the platforms I occupied to sound this alarm a lot earlier.
Let me be quite clear … I don’t know if Scott Watson is a double murderer or not. But that’s the whole point. I should know he’s guilty and so should you.
I do know that Watson is not guilty as charged. His guilt has been far from proven “beyond all reasonable doubt”. In my view, there is nothing reasonable about the way the case against him was constructed or executed. Watson should not be behind bars for one more moment.
As it played out, he should never have been convicted at all.
The outcome, in my opinion, was a shameful police operation supported by shameful media coverage and a public hungry for the next instalment. These factors convicted Scott Watson, long before the eyes of the jury first met his in the courtroom.
Fair justice and Watson didn’t stand a chance back then and I fear nothing much has changed today.
Happy New Year Scott.
Glen Wright continues to deny the offending and claims the victims conspired against him.