Murders of Ben Smart and Olivia Hope

In his police statements on the third and fifth of January, Guy Wallace (the driver of the water taxi) described the unknown man with whom Hope and Smart left his water-taxi as having two days growth on his face, possibly arm tattoos, wiry build, 5'9", short dark wavy hair, being scruffy in appearance and wearing a levi shirt with jeans. Wallace maintained that the man on his taxi was the same man he and other staff had served in the lounge bar earlier in the evening.

Wallace was subsequently shown two photographs of Watson in montages when he was interviewed by police on 9 January 1998 but he said he did not recognise anyone in the photographs.[9] Police then changed the photo of Watson in the montage using a different one in which he had his eyes half closed. This became known as the 'blink photo'.[10] On 20 April 1998, Wallace was shown a new montage, known as montage B, containing the blink photo. Not realising this was Watson, Wallace said this could be the 'mystery' man on the boat - but said that while "the eyes were the same as the man he had seen on the night, the hair of the man in photograph 3 was too short and his appearance was generally too 'tidy'."[11]^{: para 4.31}

After the trial, Wallace was adamant the police misled him over the photo and said he believed Watson was innocent and he had inadvertently contributed to the incarceration of an innocent man. He maintained this position in multiple interviews and in an affidavit until his death in March 2021.[12] Roslyn (Roz) McNeilly, who was bar manager at Furneaux Lodge on New Year's Eve, also identified Watson from the blink photo in montage B. Once she saw a picture of Watson taken that night showing him to be clean shaven, she also recanted, and signed an affidavit stating she had made a mistake identifying him.[11]^: 89[13]

Wallace said he felt tremendous pressure from police and the media during the investigation. He was interrogated by the detectives from Christchurch CIB who initially suggested he was somehow responsible for the disappearance of the teenagers. As a result of accusations against him by the police, some locals began treating him with suspicion. People he knew began to think he was guilty and shunned him. He said that in the initial stages of the investigation, the police were desperate to arrest someone, and it could easily have been him: "I know in my heart of hearts, if he [Scott] wasn't in there, I'd be doing time. It's just that simple."[14]

Wallace told police and the media that he had dropped Smart and Hope off at wooden ketch (a boat with two masts). On 3 January 1998, Wallace drew a sketch for police of what he thought the boat he dropped the duo onto looked like. He drew a yacht with two masts and wrote "38-40 foot ketch?" on the drawing, underlining the word "ketch?" twice.[12] He described the ketch as well-maintained, built of timber, with a thick blue stripe on the hull, and several round portholes with brass surrounds. He also said it was rafted in a group of between three and five other vessels.[15]

Police seized Watson's sloop, Blade, on 12 January to the surprise of many following the case. Compared to descriptions of the mystery ketch, Blade was small, had a steel (not timber) hull, no portholes, no blue strip, and had only one mast.[16] Police analysed thousands of photos taken on New Year's Eve and interviewed all of the boat skippers, but were unable to corroborate Wallace's reports of a ketch in the Endeavour Inlet that night, or find any of the "three to five" vessels it was rafted to.

However, in the following weeks there were a number of sightings of a two-masted ketch in the Marlborough Sounds area reported to the police, including one account from a former police officer with 40 years' experience.[17] A number of witnesses who came forward with sightings of a ketch were either told their information was not wanted, or their statements were not followed up. Former detective Mike Chappell, who worked on the case, later claimed officers were told not to follow up sightings of two-masted ketches.[7]

Later in the investigation, lead investigator Rob Pope would say that Watson "stood out like dog's balls" and "had the right sort of agenda and pedigree", apparently referring to his criminal record.[18] Watson had 48 criminal convictions at the time, mainly from when he was a teenager for burglary, theft, cannabis offences, two counts of possessing an offensive weapon and one for assault when he was 16. Watson had been imprisoned for two short periods in 1989 and 1990, but had seemingly cleaned up his act in his 20's, having just one conviction in the eight years leading up to 1998.[7][19]

Watson was being interviewed by Detective Tom Fitzgerald on 12 January when Police seized Blade and executed search warrants on the homes of his parents and sister. During the interview, one week into the investigation, Fitzgerald made it clear that police considered Watson their main suspect.[20]

Rumours about the Watson family began to swirl in the small town of Picton, as well as in national media. Later, Watson would accuse police of influencing media coverage of the case, suggesting they leaked rumours to reporters that his family were criminals, that he was a guilty man and that he had an incestuous relationship with his sister. Gerald Hope, Olivia's father, also asserted that the police deliberately leaked details of Watson's criminal history and were responsible for the unsubstantiated suggestions of incest.[7]

Watson also alleged that the police followed and intimidated members of his family.[20] Police obtained warrants to tap the phone phone lines of Watson and his family from February until his arrest, in an investigation known as "Operation Celt". Police recorded 70-plus hours of conversations and during that time they regularly fed Watson’s former girlfriend questions to ask hoping he would incriminate himself. Watson was described by a police representative as "smug" during these conversations, but never said anything to indicate he was involved.[21]

Prior to his arrest, the media were free to report police comments and actions which demonstrated that Watson was the prime suspect without fear of jeopardising a fair trial. They arrested him on 15 June 1998, six months after his yacht was pulled from the water in full view of bystanders and media.[22] According to journalist, Mike White, during this six month period, police allowed unsubstantiated gossip about Watson’s family to circulate including rumours was that Watson was sleeping with his sister. In an interview with Paul Henry, Mike White agreed that the media were manipulated and said: "I don't think the media asked enough questions. We were thinking that we had to support the police and we were doing the right thing by doing that."[23]

Police denied starting these rumours, but Gerald Hope (Olivia's father), says the police constantly told him and his family how bad the Watsons were. Watson was advised by his lawyer not to speak publicly so the media relied entirely on one-sided comments from the police and the victims' families. When interviewed by Mike White 18 years later, Watson said: "Every comment he'd made was reinterpreted to sound sinister, every action he'd taken was twisted to seem suspicious".[20]

The crown claimed that during the police's forensic investigation of Blade, they found a blanket from which a number of human hairs were later recovered.[1] Susan Vintiner, a forensic biologist testified in court that one hair was matched to Olivia Hope through DNA testing.[29] Mitochondrial DNA analysis on the hairs was conducted in Australia and the United Kingdom. Police never received the level of validation they were seeking from these tests that the hairs belonged to Olivia, but still presented the results as evidence at Watson's trial.[30]

Watson's counsel questioned the chain of custody regarding the hair, suggesting Vintiner may have mixed up the hair samples by examining known hair from Olivia on the same table and day as she examined the samples taken from Blade. They also pointed out there was a 1 cm hole in the evidence bag containing Olivia's hair which could add to the risk of contamination. Vintiner testified at the trial that cross contamination is an explanation that "needs to be considered".[31] The accuracy of the hair testing has been questioned by other experts during appeals in the years following Watson's trial.[32]

A crucial aspect of the prosecution case came from two prisoners whose names were suppressed and were referred to as Witnesses A & B. They both claimed they met Watson in prison when he was on remand and said he told them he was responsible for Ben and Olivia's disappearance.

Despite his damning testimony, witness A subsequently admitted to a number of lawyers, and to the NZ Herald, that he lied in court. At the time he was receiving death threats from a gang member and was coming up for parole. Police visited him at least 10 times over a 12 month period leading up to the trial and pressured him into making false accusations in his testimony. Witness A said he "chose to help the police in the hope they would be able to save him".[11]

Witness B said he and Watson interacted on numerous occasions and became good friends in Addington Prison.[33] In fact, witness B was never in the same cell as Watson and "had little opportunity to develop any close relationship with Watson such that a confession might be made".[7] It was later revealed that on his release from prison, this witness was granted the use of a car and cellphone for his testimony by the police.[11]

Author John Goulter described the evidence of Witnesses A and B as a "bombshell" and said it had a dramatic impact on everyone in court.[28]

Watson was convicted of the murders in September 1999 after an eleven-week trial[34] and sentenced to life imprisonment with a minimum non-parole period of seventeen years.[1] Watson told the jury "You're wrong" when the verdict was read out in court and has continued to insist he is innocent since conviction.[35]

In the years following the trial, Olivia Hope's father, Gerald Hope expressed concerns over the investigation and trial, telling journalist Mike White that he felt "very uncomfortable about the way the Crown ran the case".[36] Olivia's sister, Amelia was called to testify at the trial about friendship rings she and Olivia had exchanged. The prosecutor continued questioning her until she broke down in tears. Gerald Hope said "It was pure theatre and the whole thing must have had a huge emotional effect on the jurors".[7]^: 51

In December 2016, Mike White facilitated two meetings between Scott Watson and Gerald Hope in Rolleston Prison. The meetings were opposed by the Corrections Department and only took place after Watson requested a judicial review of the Corrections refusal. Each meeting lasted approximately three hours. During the interview, the pair discussed concerns they had over the investigation and trial, with Hope saying "We never got the truth. We haven't got the truth yet".

Hope said that when he confronted Watson over the pressing questions he had about his circumstances on January 1, he said Watson went silent or he found his answers unconvincing. However, Mike White who was present during the interview said: "I don't think there was anything that Scott Watson evaded, or didn't want to answer. He was very open."[37] White added that Hope has had doubts about the case for a long time and that Hope rejects crucial evidence that led to Watson's conviction.[36]

Watson appealed his conviction in the Court of Appeal in April and May 2000. Three Appeal Court judges heard submissions from both the defence and the prosecution, but decided there was no new evidence to recommend a second trial.[1] They disregarded the defence's submission that the prosecution's so-called two-trip theory had appeared "out of the blue" late in the trial, stating "To prohibit the Crown from promoting a rational theory, for which there was supporting evidence, consistent with the whole nature and thrust of its case, would be a drastic step, and one to be taken only where the interests of justice would otherwise be in jeopardy.[1]

In 2009, Watson applied to the Governor-General for a Royal Prerogative of Mercy.[38][39] He sent a 22-page letter and enclosed a copy of Keith Hunter's book Trial by Trickery and documentary Murder on the Blade? [40] The Ministry of Justice appointed Kristy McDonald, QC, to provide advice on the application. She produced two reports on the case in 2011 and 2013. In summary, McDonald said: “nearly all of the ‘threads’ of the Crown’s circumstantial case have been undermined post trial” and therefore "there is no reasonable prospect that the Court of Appeal would uphold an appeal”.[41]

In 2010 journalist Keith Hunter and Scott's father, Chris Watson, made a complaint to the Independent Police Conduct Authority about police conduct in the case. The complaint alleged that the head of the inquiry, Inspector Rob Pope, ignored relevant evidence, spread rumours about Scott Watson and his family, swore false affidavits to obtain search warrants; and that the police 'bought' or pressured two prisoners into telling lies in court and that they deliberately or accidentally contaminated the hair samples found in Watson's boat.[42]

The report was highly critical of aspects of the investigation, led by present Deputy Commissioner Rob Pope. It states that the photograph montages used by police breached so many rules it "exposed the integrity of the investigation to justifiable criticism and to the drawing of inferences about intention and motivation". It also states that the police failed to pursue leads to find the "mystery ketch" seen by many witnesses — including some witnesses who believe they saw a woman who could be Olivia Hope aboard. The head of the IPCA, Justice Lowell Goddard said it was a difficult inquiry and "some actions of police fell short of best practice, and had the potential to influence witnesses".[43]

In November 2017, a second application for a Royal Prerogative of Mercy was filed on Watson's behalf by an Auckland man and ex-convict who had taken an interest in the Watson case.[44] The application concerned the reliability of the evidence relating to two blonde hairs found on a blanket on Watson's boat. It included a report by forensic scientist Sean Doyle which questioned whether the hairs were really Hope's, and criticised the way the hair samples were handled at the time of the original trial. The application was denied.[45]

In June 2020, it was reported that Watson's case would be referred back to the Court of Appeal because of continuing concern about the reliability of the forensic testing used to show the two hairs found on a blanket belonged to Olivia.[2][3][46][47][48] In May 2022, the Court also agreed that when the hearing goes ahead, Watson would be allowed to challenge whether the controversial eyewitness evidence (related to the 'blink photo') was properly obtained and should have been heard by the jury at his trial.[49] The week-long hearing will take place in June 2024.[50][51][52]