December 30, 2024 • 29 mins
While The Front Page is on summer break, we’re taking a look back at some of the biggest news stories and top-rated episodes from the podcast in 2024.
The disappearances of Ben Smart and Olivia Hope on New Year’s Day 1998 remain one of New Zealand’s infamous cases.
Scott Watson has spent the last 25 years behind bars after being convicted of murdering them, despite no bodies ever being found.
In June, Watson headed back to the courtroom four years after his case was referred to the Court of Appeal – it's his last shot at clearing his name.
There’s still no word yet on the result of his latest appeal.
We spoke with NZ Herald senior journalist Carolyne Meng Yee and editorial leader Oskar Alley – who took us back to 1999 when they both covered Watson’s infamous first trial, and ran through the evidence making up this appeal with senior reporter David Fisher.
New episodes return January 13th.
Host: Chelsea Daniels
Audio Engineers: Paddy Fox, Richard Martin
Executive Producer: Ethan Sills
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:03):
Yoda.
Speaker 2 (00:04):
I'm Chelsea Daniels and this is a summer special of
The Front Page, the NSID Herald's daily news podcast. While
The Front Page is on summer break, we're taking a
look back at some of the biggest news stories and
top rated episodes from the podcast in twenty twenty four.
(00:26):
New episodes will return on January thirteenth. The disappearances of
Ben Smart and Olivia Hope on New Year's Day nineteen
ninety eight remains one of New Zealand's most infamous cases.
Scott Watson has spent the last twenty five years behind
(00:47):
bars after being convicted of murdering them, despite no bodies
ever being found. In June, Watson headed back to the
court room, four years after his case was referred to
the Court of Appeal. It's his last at clearing his name.
There's still no word yet on the result of his
latest appeal. We spoke with Enzied Herald's senior journalist Carolyn
(01:09):
mgyee and editorial leader Oscar Alli, who took us back
to nineteen ninety nine when they both covered Watson's infamous
first trial, and we ran through the evidence making up
this appeal with senior reporter David Fisher. Do you both
remember when the news came in that Ben and Olivia
(01:30):
had gone missing?
Speaker 3 (01:31):
Oh my gosh.
Speaker 4 (01:32):
Yes.
Speaker 3 (01:32):
It was extraordinary really for a number of reasons, because,
I mean, let's face it, most people remember New Year's
Eve nights and going out and parting, and no one
would ever think two young kids would never come home
to their families and are still missing.
Speaker 4 (01:47):
It was massive from the start, and you've got to
remember too that it was Newyear's Day they were missing,
very quiet time for the news. So sometimes stories become
bigger faster because.
Speaker 1 (01:57):
It's not a lot happening in the country.
Speaker 4 (01:59):
But you know, a couple of really attractive kids doing
what a lot of kids of that age did, which
is their first holidays with their friends, not their family.
And also, to be fair to their parents, they were
very vocal very quickly that you can see the concern,
and obviously as the days went on it just got
grimmar and Grimmar.
Speaker 3 (02:16):
Not to mention their surnames, Hope and Smart. You know,
they were the perfect set of white middle class kids, beautiful, intelligent,
their whole lives ahead of them, and I think that's
what capitivated the country too, because I think if it was,
you know, is some different people in a small town
for example, there wouldn't have been such a huge kind
of interest.
Speaker 4 (02:37):
So you got to remember too, this is ninety seven
ninety eight, no cell phones. We all carry GPS devices
now called smartphones. People didn't go missing rarely in this
country back then, and you were as a kid growing up,
you went out for a day and your parents know
where you were. There was no phone to ring you on.
There wasn't necessarily a payphone. So it was a very
different age. It's more than twenty five years ago. It'd
(02:59):
be hard to think people going missing like that nowadays,
with all the technology that we have, cell phones, pinging towers.
But back in ninety seven ninety eight, it was very
rare for people to just disappear. Especially it's such a
busy three thousand people at that party.
Speaker 1 (03:14):
It just didn't happen.
Speaker 2 (03:15):
It took about six months for Scott Watson to be
arrested and charged with the case. Now, how was he
portrayed in the public eye over that time.
Speaker 3 (03:24):
Well, in my opinion, I think he was portrayed as
quite a villain from the outset and certainly from the
police's perspective. At the time, there was such a huge
pressure for the police to convict someone for these two
kids going missing, and Scott, you know, given his background
as a young teenager, was always in trouble. He was
actually in balls Staal and from memory when he was
(03:46):
in borll Staol as a teenager, he we covered a
story at the time for sixty minutes stabbed the padre
and the eye with a big spike. So he was
a bad egg from a young age. But to be honest,
I think that he was probably unfairly the lined at
the artset. He was on his own at the time.
At the party, he was very drunk, very obnoxious, hitting
(04:06):
on women, being really inappropriate, So he didn't portray himself
in very good light in those circumstances.
Speaker 4 (04:13):
I think it's been pretty well established now that police
were leaky and while it took six months to arrest
Scott Watson, they pulled his boat The Blade, out of
the water on January the twelfth, and every TV camera
and newspaper photographer knew to be there for that. And
once that happened in broad daylight with an audience of media,
it was pretty obvious that Watson was a significant person
(04:34):
of interest. It got reported that he had forty eight
previous criminal convictions. And you've got to understand when there's
a six month gap between people going missing and someone
being charged, it's a long period of time where the
media can report about people there's no subject to say
because no charges are being laid or are about to
be laid. And that had a lot of consequences when
it came time for the trial and people giving evidence
(04:57):
as witnesses in the High Court who'd been interviewed by
media days after it happened. It caused a lot of complications.
Speaker 5 (05:07):
And there are a lot of people who are happy
to say and you heard this so much at the time,
you know, well, we're maybe a little unsure whether he
did it or not, but he's not a very nice guy.
Does it really matter? Yes, it matters a lot, because
if we can do that for him, we can do
it for anybody.
Speaker 2 (05:26):
Going forwards to nineteen ninety nine. That trial went on
for about three months. Like you say, it would have
been quite hard to find a jury who didn't know
anything about this case.
Speaker 1 (05:36):
Hey, that's right, and that's one of the reasons why
it was shifted.
Speaker 4 (05:38):
Dwellington and also Chelsea you could remember in those days,
there was no social media that's on Facebook, There was
barely cell phones. Everyone consumed mainstream media through television and newspapers.
News websites were just sort of starting, and there was
so much information about this case. It took eighteen months
to get to trial that already been what's called a
deposition's hearing and Blenheim and we don't do that anymore,
(05:59):
but that's basically a dry run of the key bits
of the evidence for a judge to decide if there's
enough evidence to stand trial. So everyone had already heard
most of the evidence against Scott Watson by that case,
not all of it, and there were certainly a lot
of dramatic revelations at the trial. But the whole country
was talking about this like it sounds not very nice
to say, but this case was New Zealand's ij Simpson case.
(06:20):
Just this case that just captivated the country for eighteen months.
Speaker 3 (06:25):
For a lot of reasons too, because of police procedure
or their lack of it, or their lack of transparency
in terms of evidence, in terms of using his photographs
and showing witnesses different photographs of him looking into several
who looked nothing like that on the night. Even drawings
m of the drawing of them looking scruffy. So people
(06:46):
kind of already made up their minds in a way,
I feel.
Speaker 2 (06:48):
And early on as well, Ben and Olivia's parents were
quite vocal in the media. Hey, how do you think
that helped or perhaps hindered the case in those early
days because now they don't speak it.
Speaker 3 (07:00):
No, Well, I think Gerald Hope was very vocal, and
he obviously and then you know, later became the mayor
of Blenham, But also because they were very credible. I
think people were captured by these families. The Smart family
were less vocal, but Gerald certainly, he was pretty much
a spokesperson for both families. And you're right, like I
think like nowadays you would very really subdue to say
(07:23):
anyway to talk before a trial, but he was very
vocal from the out.
Speaker 2 (07:26):
Yet the case has become pretty notorious as one of
New Zealand's most controversial cases. Was there that feeling during
the trial that this was going to be quite contentious?
Speaker 4 (07:37):
There were certainly some big surprises at the trial. The
whole country was watching, so I was covering it for
the Dominion newspaper, and we set aside whole pages with
no ads for all of the evidence every day, and
I was there for every day of three months. The
interest was enormous. It just led TV news every night.
People just couldn't get enough information. And I think, Chelsea,
(07:57):
you could feel the pressure. You could feel the pressure
on everyone, the jury, the judged, the lawyers. And this
might sound really silly, the media, we felt it too.
Because your bylines on the story, people realize who you are,
and every party or social interaction you have they're talking
about this case. That's what I make the OJ comparison.
It just captivated the whole country, and I think Carra
is right. People had largely made up their mind about
(08:19):
Scott Watson, and in terms of the justice system, because
it's twenty five years and we're still talking about this,
and I look at these things and I think, what
if he didn't do it? What if he's been in
prison for all this time. I don't lose any sleep
about the verdict, and I haven't followed really closely the
appeal stuff, but what I would say is that Scott
Watson had two excellent defense lawyers for his trial, Bruce Davidson,
(08:41):
who's now judged and Mike and Tanovic they really believed
in his innocence. They fought tooth and nail, and a
lot of what the Appeals is now considering is the
great work that they did at trial, probing witnesses, finding
out about problems with evidence that the Appeal as stands
on the shoulders of the work those two did at
the trial.
Speaker 2 (08:58):
I think it's pretty well with the stafablished that a lot
of this evidence in the case is circumstantial.
Speaker 1 (09:03):
Hey, DNA was brand new in ninety nine.
Speaker 4 (09:07):
You know, it's very hard because there was so much
publicity of this before I got control and everything that's
happening now be really clear.
Speaker 1 (09:13):
This was a big deal in nineteen ninety nine. This
was contentious.
Speaker 4 (09:17):
Then the ESR evidence about supposedly Olivia's hears on the
blanket on Scott Watson's boat, that was absolutely damning at
the time because there was no evidence that they'd met,
unless you believe he was in the water taxi and
offered for bedding Olivia to sleep on their boat, but
there was no sightings of them together. So for a
jury and for the public, how do hears get on
(09:38):
someone's boat of someone you've never met and there was
all this evidence about secondary transfer and you're at a
party and you bump into someone and here goes on you,
and they bump into someone else and here goes on
someone else. Quite far fetched but powerful evidence, right, And
this is what the appeal is about now, is Yeah,
there were serious problems with the way that evidence was
tested and collected. That happened at the time that Essi
(10:00):
Hunters got absolutely grilled on the stand eras were made
not to mention.
Speaker 3 (10:05):
What is it called the hatch. There was scratches on
my hat on his boat. Now that was proven that
was false. And I've actually been on the blade twice.
Not long after the trial ended and the verdict came up,
we interviewed Watson's family, his mother Bev and dad Chris,
and we actually went sailing on the blade and we
(10:25):
went back again sailing, you know, for the twenty year podcast.
And it was quite chilling actually being on the blade
because it was so tiny. It's really noisy, and all
I could think about was at the time was like,
oh my god, imagine if they were there, you know,
they could look out, but no one could look in.
And if they were actually in there, trapped in there.
I just thought, God, how terrifying those Bool kids must
(10:47):
have felt.
Speaker 4 (10:48):
So at the trial that was very powerful evidence that
the crown case was that Olivia was fighting for her
life to get out of the boat. And that's powerful evidence,
and when it's presented in the context of Olivia's hairs
were on the blanket on the boat. And then a
lot was made of Scott Watson's behavior after the kids
went missing. The entire boat had been washed down, cassette
tapes had been wiped well, and made a big deal
(11:11):
of that. The defense explained nearly all of that there'd
been water on board, rough sailing crossing cooks straight. That's
why things have been cleaned, because saltwater gets in the
damaged things. Much was made of Scott Watson painting his
boat in the following days. He ordered the paint weeks earlier,
so it all looked sinister. And they talk in criminal
trials about each piece of evidence to strand, and the
strand builds a rope.
Speaker 1 (11:31):
That's the way judges explained it.
Speaker 4 (11:32):
There were a lot of strands that knotted together and
made quite a strong rope. But the jury were made
to ask some quite big leaps of faith in the
crown case.
Speaker 2 (11:51):
What do you think swayed the jury in the end.
Speaker 4 (11:55):
What I learned from this trial, Chelsea, was the pressure
on juries to come up with verdicts as enormous. What
swayed the jury the his the two prison witnesses who
claimed that Scott Watson confessed to them that was a
truly horrific day. And what the jury didn't know was
both of those guys had to come and give evidence
(12:16):
in front of the judge with no jury present, because
the judge had to make a rolling on whether what
they were going to say would be admissible. So we
were in court for that, the jury weren't, so we
actually saw two runs of that evidence that was very powerful.
The other thing, too, is Scott Watson is guilty of
being a drunken asshole that night and heading on anyone,
particularly blondes.
Speaker 1 (12:34):
He was very badly behaved and a lot of people remembered.
Speaker 4 (12:38):
He made one horrific comment to a young girl and
she gave evidence and they were talking and she explained
that I think a relative had cancer and Watson stead
of had a crack at her and she rejected him,
and he just looked at her and said I hope
your mother dies of cancer.
Speaker 1 (12:49):
And the jury gasped in the public.
Speaker 4 (12:51):
Gallery gust he's a very introverted, hard to read kind
of guy.
Speaker 1 (12:56):
And like I say, the strands just kept building.
Speaker 2 (12:59):
Well, the fact that matter is you can be an asshole,
but that doesn't make you a murderer.
Speaker 1 (13:03):
Correct, that was real? Was that a real issue here?
Speaker 3 (13:06):
Well, because he was a dodgy character by nature, and
I think and also just his previous convictions, which were,
as Oscar said, you know, forty eight convictions, so already
in the public's mind. He was guilty in my opinion
because his parents weren't like the Hopes and Smarts. They
weren't middle class people. They're working class people. His father
was a boat builder, his mother worked at the pub
(13:26):
behind the Bard. Kind of when you build that picture
of Scott Watson and the fact that Borstal all you
know his anti social behavior, you know you are building
a picture. The one thing we haven't talked about to
Oscar is Guy Wallace, you know, because he was a
crucial witness to the connection and then he changed his mind.
And when we interviewed him, what four years ago, he
(13:47):
regrets that he feels very guilty sadly he's no longer
with us. But there was a lot of pressure I
think the police placed, in my personal opinion, police placed
a lot of pressure on people and witnesses.
Speaker 4 (13:59):
Yeah. And when you talk about pressure, so many lives
have been damaged or destroyed by this case, and not
just Ben and not just Olivia. But the trial opened
with evidence from Ben and Liver's parents, and it was
just horrific because it was they were fun, loving and
what were they doing and it was one of their
first holidays away with their friends.
Speaker 1 (14:18):
Instead of their parents, And it was very powerful from
the crowd.
Speaker 4 (14:21):
It really created these wonderful, well behaved, achieving young people
who would never do anything silly. And it was hard
to watch, was hard to be in court. They were
just nice kids. And there was thousands of nice kids
at that party that night. It was a pretty out
of control party. It was a very powerful way to
open the case. And when I say, you know, other
lives damaged, Guy Wallace life never recovered from this. In
(14:43):
the guilt that he feels about being the person who,
you know, dropping these kids off at this mystery person's ketch.
You know, not everyone's alive in this case, anymore. And
what I would say about the Hopes and the Smarts,
they were lovely people. Grief was just etched on their
face at the trial, you could see it. And they
sat there in the front row every day and listened
to everything, and sometimes you'd hear the sobs and that
would be Olivia's mum or Ben's mum. That they were
(15:05):
lovely people. And to be fair to Chris Watson, Scott's father,
he's a really nice guy too, and he is quite
convinced his son didn't do it. And at the trial
you'd have these people coming and going in the media gathering,
and Scott Watson's dad stood there every day like a
prior outside the court during the breaks. No one went
up to, no one want to talk to him. He'd
roll a ciggi and just all the eyes boring on him.
(15:26):
And he's been really unwell. The grief from this case
and the tragedy and the pressure has taken a much
bigger toll than two young people.
Speaker 6 (15:36):
And I don't believe that he has it in them
to do that.
Speaker 7 (15:41):
But I'm not going to go down the track of
being the emotional parent that's going to back his son
no matter.
Speaker 3 (15:50):
What I have enormous admiration for Chris. I've known Chris
all those years. I've kept in touch with him all
these years. His wife, when I first approached her because
part of my job was to tie up people for
you know, interviews, afterwards, spat at me, and then I
kind of befriended her because back in those days the
us to smoke cigarette. So I used to stand outside
with her and with Chris, and then eventually we built
(16:12):
up a report. But I cannot ever commend anyone more
or actually has admiration for a father who has so
much love for a son and such belief that his
son is innocent. His whole life has been dedicated that
you know, And as Oscar says, you know, Bev, she
died of cancer a few years ago, never seeing justice
(16:33):
for her son that she believed, of course he was innocent.
But also you know, for poor Mary Smart because her
husband John died and Mary Smart bumps into Chris Watson
pretty much once sweet because they live impact in really
close to each other. In fact, it's a really chilling
reminder because Chris has the blade, Scott Sloop and the harbor,
and Mary Smart lives right above the harbor and the
(16:57):
blade is a constant reminder of her son.
Speaker 2 (17:00):
And just finally we're still talking about it nearly twenty
five years later. Kara, you've done a podcast, The Murder
and the Sounds. Why do you think this case is
still sparking this debate after all this time.
Speaker 3 (17:12):
Because there are two people missing, nobody's have ever been recovered,
No one really knows what happened, you know, people have died,
are older memories fade, but it's just I guess for me,
those lasting impressions of those two young kids with the
whole lives ahead of them just taken. I can still
see that photograph that were used every night on the news,
(17:32):
you know, on television, newspapers, the two of them together,
Olivia and Ben, and you think, nah, they would be
were in their forties. They should by rights be parents
for their own children, you know, sending them off to
a New Year's Eve party.
Speaker 4 (17:45):
And we should acknowledge this is too long for the
justice system to do its thing. And this partly reflects
how Scott Watson is just going to keep fighting and
fighting fighting, and you have to respect that. But this
should have been resolved either way by now. It's been
too course been to the Privy Council and I think
the other issue here is that our parole system can't
handle people who refuse to admit they did it. So
(18:07):
Scott Watson was sentenced to a minimum non parole period
of seventeen years.
Speaker 1 (18:11):
He could have potentially been released eight years ago.
Speaker 4 (18:14):
So if the judge considered that that's what the punishment
should be for this crime, he's arguably done more than that.
The reasons why no one liked him on the night
are the reasons why he's not getting parole. He's got
some issues and I just think, if you're in prison
for this long and you didn't do it, wouldn't it
drive you crazy? And one thing for me, Chelsea about
Scott is how we reacted when the jury came back
(18:34):
and said guilty.
Speaker 1 (18:35):
And for me, it's.
Speaker 4 (18:36):
The most single terrible memory of the trial was he
just looked over at them and he just said, you're wrong,
really cocky, really arrogant. And there was a lot of
discussion right outside court after it because it was like, well,
if I didn't do it, I'd be screaming buddy murder,
or I'd be crying, or I'd be angry. But it
was cold, cold hearted that didn't.
Speaker 1 (18:56):
Do many favors.
Speaker 4 (18:57):
But also if you don't admit that you did it,
how can you get parole. So other countries have laws
now where if you say with the body is you
get an automatic sentence discount. And I think for ben
Olivia's parents, so much of it was not really knowing
the final moments, not knowing where they are, not getting
bodies back. What we talk about these days is closure,
which I don't think was a thing twenty five years ago,
(19:18):
but we understand the basic concept. So why is it
still in the news. Well, because it was massively controversial
at the time. The Crown did a closing that invited
the jury to ignore parts of the narrative that didn't work,
never explaining how he got back to Shure the second
time to be in the water taxi had been a
living It was massively controversial then and it's a sense
(19:40):
of fascination now.
Speaker 2 (19:42):
Thanks for joining us, Karen Oscar and you can listen
to Murdering the Sound on the Chasing Ghosts podcast feed
wherever you get your podcasts. Two key pieces of evidence
will be focused on during this appeal process. As at
Harold's senior reporter David Fisher has been following this case
(20:04):
for much of the last twenty five years. He joins
us now to discuss what is being brought to the
table for the first time in the way of evidence. David,
the piece of evidence that led to Watson's appeal revolves
around the DNA evidence from two hairs found on the boat. Hey,
what can you tell us about that?
Speaker 6 (20:25):
So the hair evidence was really interesting for a number
of reasons. One of those reasons was that police searched
Blade Scott Watson's boat from top to tail, and they
found about four hundred hairs. None of those were hairs
that matched up with Ben Smart or Olivia Hope. Then
they went back and they searched the yacht again and
(20:46):
on this occasion they found two hairs that matched up
with Olivia Hope. The difficulty is is that those hairs
were identified on the same day that Olivia Hope's hair
brush was present in the lab where the hair samples
were being studied. And then to further complicate this along
the way, there was one centimeter long slit that was
(21:07):
found in the evidence bag that the hair obtained from
Blade was being kept in. And so then there was
this question, well, could it have been contaminated, could the
hair from one have fallen into the other bag, or
for that matter, did the hair come from the hair
brush and somehow make its way into the other bag.
So this has been a point of contention for quite
some time, right down to whether or not the scientist
(21:30):
that was doing the examination changed from one lab coat
to another lab coat when working from one sample to
another sample. It's been certainly for quite some time never
really found as much traction as Watson supporters wanted it
to until this Court of Appeal hearing a couple of
years ago.
Speaker 2 (21:48):
So for those who may not know, you get a
few chances at appeal, but then you cut off. Then
you have to go for what's called a royal prerogative
of mercy, and in order to do that you do
need new evidence. Are the hairs a part of why
Watson was granted a royal prerogative of mercy?
Speaker 6 (22:05):
The case agains Scott Watson has been challenged in a
multitude of different ways. So yes, there were the Court
of Appeal hearings, There was an IPCA inquiry, there was
his initial denial of a rule progative of mercy claim
in twenty thirteen, and then again another one in twenty seventeen.
I think that was accepted. The hiss that was a
part of it. But back when the original case happened,
(22:28):
when Paul Davison QC was summing up the case on
behalf of the prosecution, he had said, this case is
a jigsaw made of many different pieces, sort of a
similar analogy to circumstantial cases being talked about as being
many strands of a rope. And so the hears were
always one of those jigsaw puzzle pieces. There were a
(22:49):
lot of pieces that went into that puzzle, and the
argument has kind of been how many pieces of the
puzzle do you need to knock out before the picture
makes no sense.
Speaker 2 (23:00):
The Court of Appeal later ruled that Watson's team can
also argue the so called blink photo that was used
to identify him. Why has that being so controversial?
Speaker 6 (23:11):
So the IPCA in quiry in twenty ten that actually
identified the blink photograph as being problematic, I think was
the way that they praised it. They said it was
highly undesirable the way that police went about showing photomontages
to people, and that it fell well short of best practice. However,
it was never framed in such a way as to
(23:33):
be the one single piece of evidence that was going
to either convict Watson or get him off the hook.
But with the Blink photograph, the difficulty here was that
police were given a description of a man who was
behaving in an odd fashion at Pernolodge that night, who
had hooded eyes, and this was quite a distinctive physical characteristic.
(23:54):
Scott Watson, in this photograph called the Blink photograph, appeared
to have hooded eyes, but that's because he was blinking
with the photograph was taken. When you look at the
other photographs of their they're not hooded eyes. And so
the photograph of Watson blinking with these hooded eyes was
seen as highly prejudicial by supporters of Watson, who said
(24:16):
that what in right it should have been allowed, as
I said back that up fell well should of best practice?
They said, highly undesirable. At what the Court of Appeal
has said, Well, if that's enough to give a miscarriage
of justice, that's for the Court of Appeal to decide
on the new hearing, and they gave a green light
for Watson to advance that.
Speaker 8 (24:35):
Nicholas Chisnel became Scott Watson's lead counsel last year.
Speaker 7 (24:40):
Is a case that invokes strong emotions and people, both
those who supports Scott and also those who feel that
he's to be criticized for wanting to have his stay
in court again.
Speaker 8 (24:51):
Chisnel says, who's spoken to Scott Watson, who is excited
about the developments, although it is tempered by the fact
it's taken Authorisy's just over two decades to review his case.
Speaker 2 (25:07):
But David Wilders isn't a part of the appeal. I
understand you once tested the Crown case involving Watson's boat,
the Blade.
Speaker 6 (25:14):
I got really interested in this pieces of a puzzle
thing because there were pieces that you could look at
and knock out. And one of the things that have
been talked about was the Crown's allegation that Watson had
dropped the body to the middle of the cook straight
and then there was also evidence that was put forward
in the trial that he was seen a period of
time later back in Mulbra sounds at somebody's house or
(25:37):
tied up in a bay. The thing that captivated me
about this I didn't realize and yachts No, is that
there's actually scientific equation that says how fast a boakud
go depending on his kell length. And when you got
a measuring tape out, you applied it to a map
and you measured the length of the blade's kill. You
could see that what's it going to happen? So Chris Watson,
(25:59):
Scott Watson's dad, he agreed to let me test this
out in the real world. So we took Blade out
to the middle of the cook straight to the place
where Blade was apparently cited, and we did it at
the same tide as occurred at that time. It was
a really carefully planned trip to try and match up
the environmental conditions as closely as possible, and then we
(26:20):
went hell for leather to this bay that Watson was
apparently cited. And there's no way that you can make
the journey. It just doesn't work. And it was fascinating
to me because when Paul Davison summed up the case,
and it was one heck of a summing up. It
was thirty thousand words of closing argument. Five percent of
that closing argument was about the bodies being done, and
(26:44):
from the work that I did, it seemed impossible that
that could have.
Speaker 2 (26:49):
Happened and what's made you so interested in this case
over the years, David, those pieces are the puzzle and
seeing how many you can knock out.
Speaker 6 (26:55):
I think the thing about the Scott Watson case, well,
one thing is that the bodies have been in Olivia,
we never found and the greatest evidence that exists as
to who their killer is is likely with those bodies.
So it then becomes a very circumstantial case. And there
were pieces of evidence put forward that police would argue,
we're not circumstantial. The hairs on the boat that's under question,
(27:18):
I just testimony. Also somewhat under The main person that
identified the Blink photograph were canted and died not so
long ago, saying that he didn't believe that Scott Watson
was the person that he identified in that photograph. I
think the thing for me that's really interesting about the
case is so many unanswered questions, and it came during
a time when we were as a public somewhat accustomed
(27:41):
to questions coming from old cases. There was the murders
of the Swedish jurists of the Crimnal for which David
Tommyhaty was convicted. We go all the way back to
the Crew murders and that seat of doubt that was
planted when police planted the Cartridge case. That sort of
raised a question over the way that police would do
that job at the time and in the decades going forward,
(28:03):
Watson case just became another one of those I think
one of the things that was really captivating about the case,
and I somewhat missed this because I was out of
the country for quite a number of years around the
time of the murders and the following trial, was that
they were kind of the perfect young summer couple. They
were really lovely looking kids that came from a really
(28:24):
nice home that were having a New Year's Eve of
the sort that you would hope would be the most
memorable of their lives, which it turned out to be
for all the wrong reasons.
Speaker 2 (28:37):
Thanks for joining us, David. For news from the Appeal
as it comes through, had to ensidherld dot co dot
z and for more on the Scott Watson case, including
his bids for parole, check out the links in our
show notes. That's it for this episode of the Front Page.
(28:58):
You can read more about today's stories and extensive news
coverage at enzidherld dot co. Dot NZ. The Front Page
is produced by Ethan Sills and sound engineer Patty Fox.
I'm Chelsea Daniels. Subscribe to the Front Page on iHeartRadio
or wherever you get your podcasts, and tune in on
Monday for another look behind the headlines.
Yoda.
Speaker 2 (00:04):
I'm Chelsea Daniels and this is a summer special of
The Front Page, the NSID Herald's daily news podcast. While
The Front Page is on summer break, we're taking a
look back at some of the biggest news stories and
top rated episodes from the podcast in twenty twenty four.
(00:26):
New episodes will return on January thirteenth. The disappearances of
Ben Smart and Olivia Hope on New Year's Day nineteen
ninety eight remains one of New Zealand's most infamous cases.
Scott Watson has spent the last twenty five years behind
(00:47):
bars after being convicted of murdering them, despite no bodies
ever being found. In June, Watson headed back to the
court room, four years after his case was referred to
the Court of Appeal. It's his last at clearing his name.
There's still no word yet on the result of his
latest appeal. We spoke with Enzied Herald's senior journalist Carolyn
(01:09):
mgyee and editorial leader Oscar Alli, who took us back
to nineteen ninety nine when they both covered Watson's infamous
first trial, and we ran through the evidence making up
this appeal with senior reporter David Fisher. Do you both
remember when the news came in that Ben and Olivia
(01:30):
had gone missing?
Speaker 3 (01:31):
Oh my gosh.
Speaker 4 (01:32):
Yes.
Speaker 3 (01:32):
It was extraordinary really for a number of reasons, because,
I mean, let's face it, most people remember New Year's
Eve nights and going out and parting, and no one
would ever think two young kids would never come home
to their families and are still missing.
Speaker 4 (01:47):
It was massive from the start, and you've got to
remember too that it was Newyear's Day they were missing,
very quiet time for the news. So sometimes stories become
bigger faster because.
Speaker 1 (01:57):
It's not a lot happening in the country.
Speaker 4 (01:59):
But you know, a couple of really attractive kids doing
what a lot of kids of that age did, which
is their first holidays with their friends, not their family.
And also, to be fair to their parents, they were
very vocal very quickly that you can see the concern,
and obviously as the days went on it just got
grimmar and Grimmar.
Speaker 3 (02:16):
Not to mention their surnames, Hope and Smart. You know,
they were the perfect set of white middle class kids, beautiful, intelligent,
their whole lives ahead of them, and I think that's
what capitivated the country too, because I think if it was,
you know, is some different people in a small town
for example, there wouldn't have been such a huge kind
of interest.
Speaker 4 (02:37):
So you got to remember too, this is ninety seven
ninety eight, no cell phones. We all carry GPS devices
now called smartphones. People didn't go missing rarely in this
country back then, and you were as a kid growing up,
you went out for a day and your parents know
where you were. There was no phone to ring you on.
There wasn't necessarily a payphone. So it was a very
different age. It's more than twenty five years ago. It'd
(02:59):
be hard to think people going missing like that nowadays,
with all the technology that we have, cell phones, pinging towers.
But back in ninety seven ninety eight, it was very
rare for people to just disappear. Especially it's such a
busy three thousand people at that party.
Speaker 1 (03:14):
It just didn't happen.
Speaker 2 (03:15):
It took about six months for Scott Watson to be
arrested and charged with the case. Now, how was he
portrayed in the public eye over that time.
Speaker 3 (03:24):
Well, in my opinion, I think he was portrayed as
quite a villain from the outset and certainly from the
police's perspective. At the time, there was such a huge
pressure for the police to convict someone for these two
kids going missing, and Scott, you know, given his background
as a young teenager, was always in trouble. He was
actually in balls Staal and from memory when he was
(03:46):
in borll Staol as a teenager, he we covered a
story at the time for sixty minutes stabbed the padre
and the eye with a big spike. So he was
a bad egg from a young age. But to be honest,
I think that he was probably unfairly the lined at
the artset. He was on his own at the time.
At the party, he was very drunk, very obnoxious, hitting
(04:06):
on women, being really inappropriate, So he didn't portray himself
in very good light in those circumstances.
Speaker 4 (04:13):
I think it's been pretty well established now that police
were leaky and while it took six months to arrest
Scott Watson, they pulled his boat The Blade, out of
the water on January the twelfth, and every TV camera
and newspaper photographer knew to be there for that. And
once that happened in broad daylight with an audience of media,
it was pretty obvious that Watson was a significant person
(04:34):
of interest. It got reported that he had forty eight
previous criminal convictions. And you've got to understand when there's
a six month gap between people going missing and someone
being charged, it's a long period of time where the
media can report about people there's no subject to say
because no charges are being laid or are about to
be laid. And that had a lot of consequences when
it came time for the trial and people giving evidence
(04:57):
as witnesses in the High Court who'd been interviewed by
media days after it happened. It caused a lot of complications.
Speaker 5 (05:07):
And there are a lot of people who are happy
to say and you heard this so much at the time,
you know, well, we're maybe a little unsure whether he
did it or not, but he's not a very nice guy.
Does it really matter? Yes, it matters a lot, because
if we can do that for him, we can do
it for anybody.
Speaker 2 (05:26):
Going forwards to nineteen ninety nine. That trial went on
for about three months. Like you say, it would have
been quite hard to find a jury who didn't know
anything about this case.
Speaker 1 (05:36):
Hey, that's right, and that's one of the reasons why
it was shifted.
Speaker 4 (05:38):
Dwellington and also Chelsea you could remember in those days,
there was no social media that's on Facebook, There was
barely cell phones. Everyone consumed mainstream media through television and newspapers.
News websites were just sort of starting, and there was
so much information about this case. It took eighteen months
to get to trial that already been what's called a
deposition's hearing and Blenheim and we don't do that anymore,
(05:59):
but that's basically a dry run of the key bits
of the evidence for a judge to decide if there's
enough evidence to stand trial. So everyone had already heard
most of the evidence against Scott Watson by that case,
not all of it, and there were certainly a lot
of dramatic revelations at the trial. But the whole country
was talking about this like it sounds not very nice
to say, but this case was New Zealand's ij Simpson case.
(06:20):
Just this case that just captivated the country for eighteen months.
Speaker 3 (06:25):
For a lot of reasons too, because of police procedure
or their lack of it, or their lack of transparency
in terms of evidence, in terms of using his photographs
and showing witnesses different photographs of him looking into several
who looked nothing like that on the night. Even drawings
m of the drawing of them looking scruffy. So people
(06:46):
kind of already made up their minds in a way,
I feel.
Speaker 2 (06:48):
And early on as well, Ben and Olivia's parents were
quite vocal in the media. Hey, how do you think
that helped or perhaps hindered the case in those early
days because now they don't speak it.
Speaker 3 (07:00):
No, Well, I think Gerald Hope was very vocal, and
he obviously and then you know, later became the mayor
of Blenham, But also because they were very credible. I
think people were captured by these families. The Smart family
were less vocal, but Gerald certainly, he was pretty much
a spokesperson for both families. And you're right, like I
think like nowadays you would very really subdue to say
(07:23):
anyway to talk before a trial, but he was very
vocal from the out.
Speaker 2 (07:26):
Yet the case has become pretty notorious as one of
New Zealand's most controversial cases. Was there that feeling during
the trial that this was going to be quite contentious?
Speaker 4 (07:37):
There were certainly some big surprises at the trial. The
whole country was watching, so I was covering it for
the Dominion newspaper, and we set aside whole pages with
no ads for all of the evidence every day, and
I was there for every day of three months. The
interest was enormous. It just led TV news every night.
People just couldn't get enough information. And I think, Chelsea,
(07:57):
you could feel the pressure. You could feel the pressure
on everyone, the jury, the judged, the lawyers. And this
might sound really silly, the media, we felt it too.
Because your bylines on the story, people realize who you are,
and every party or social interaction you have they're talking
about this case. That's what I make the OJ comparison.
It just captivated the whole country, and I think Carra
is right. People had largely made up their mind about
(08:19):
Scott Watson, and in terms of the justice system, because
it's twenty five years and we're still talking about this,
and I look at these things and I think, what
if he didn't do it? What if he's been in
prison for all this time. I don't lose any sleep
about the verdict, and I haven't followed really closely the
appeal stuff, but what I would say is that Scott
Watson had two excellent defense lawyers for his trial, Bruce Davidson,
(08:41):
who's now judged and Mike and Tanovic they really believed
in his innocence. They fought tooth and nail, and a
lot of what the Appeals is now considering is the
great work that they did at trial, probing witnesses, finding
out about problems with evidence that the Appeal as stands
on the shoulders of the work those two did at
the trial.
Speaker 2 (08:58):
I think it's pretty well with the stafablished that a lot
of this evidence in the case is circumstantial.
Speaker 1 (09:03):
Hey, DNA was brand new in ninety nine.
Speaker 4 (09:07):
You know, it's very hard because there was so much
publicity of this before I got control and everything that's
happening now be really clear.
Speaker 1 (09:13):
This was a big deal in nineteen ninety nine. This
was contentious.
Speaker 4 (09:17):
Then the ESR evidence about supposedly Olivia's hears on the
blanket on Scott Watson's boat, that was absolutely damning at
the time because there was no evidence that they'd met,
unless you believe he was in the water taxi and
offered for bedding Olivia to sleep on their boat, but
there was no sightings of them together. So for a
jury and for the public, how do hears get on
(09:38):
someone's boat of someone you've never met and there was
all this evidence about secondary transfer and you're at a
party and you bump into someone and here goes on you,
and they bump into someone else and here goes on
someone else. Quite far fetched but powerful evidence, right, And
this is what the appeal is about now, is Yeah,
there were serious problems with the way that evidence was
tested and collected. That happened at the time that Essi
(10:00):
Hunters got absolutely grilled on the stand eras were made
not to mention.
Speaker 3 (10:05):
What is it called the hatch. There was scratches on
my hat on his boat. Now that was proven that
was false. And I've actually been on the blade twice.
Not long after the trial ended and the verdict came up,
we interviewed Watson's family, his mother Bev and dad Chris,
and we actually went sailing on the blade and we
(10:25):
went back again sailing, you know, for the twenty year podcast.
And it was quite chilling actually being on the blade
because it was so tiny. It's really noisy, and all
I could think about was at the time was like,
oh my god, imagine if they were there, you know,
they could look out, but no one could look in.
And if they were actually in there, trapped in there.
I just thought, God, how terrifying those Bool kids must
(10:47):
have felt.
Speaker 4 (10:48):
So at the trial that was very powerful evidence that
the crown case was that Olivia was fighting for her
life to get out of the boat. And that's powerful evidence,
and when it's presented in the context of Olivia's hairs
were on the blanket on the boat. And then a
lot was made of Scott Watson's behavior after the kids
went missing. The entire boat had been washed down, cassette
tapes had been wiped well, and made a big deal
(11:11):
of that. The defense explained nearly all of that there'd
been water on board, rough sailing crossing cooks straight. That's
why things have been cleaned, because saltwater gets in the
damaged things. Much was made of Scott Watson painting his
boat in the following days. He ordered the paint weeks earlier,
so it all looked sinister. And they talk in criminal
trials about each piece of evidence to strand, and the
strand builds a rope.
Speaker 1 (11:31):
That's the way judges explained it.
Speaker 4 (11:32):
There were a lot of strands that knotted together and
made quite a strong rope. But the jury were made
to ask some quite big leaps of faith in the
crown case.
Speaker 2 (11:51):
What do you think swayed the jury in the end.
Speaker 4 (11:55):
What I learned from this trial, Chelsea, was the pressure
on juries to come up with verdicts as enormous. What
swayed the jury the his the two prison witnesses who
claimed that Scott Watson confessed to them that was a
truly horrific day. And what the jury didn't know was
both of those guys had to come and give evidence
(12:16):
in front of the judge with no jury present, because
the judge had to make a rolling on whether what
they were going to say would be admissible. So we
were in court for that, the jury weren't, so we
actually saw two runs of that evidence that was very powerful.
The other thing, too, is Scott Watson is guilty of
being a drunken asshole that night and heading on anyone,
particularly blondes.
Speaker 1 (12:34):
He was very badly behaved and a lot of people remembered.
Speaker 4 (12:38):
He made one horrific comment to a young girl and
she gave evidence and they were talking and she explained
that I think a relative had cancer and Watson stead
of had a crack at her and she rejected him,
and he just looked at her and said I hope
your mother dies of cancer.
Speaker 1 (12:49):
And the jury gasped in the public.
Speaker 4 (12:51):
Gallery gust he's a very introverted, hard to read kind
of guy.
Speaker 1 (12:56):
And like I say, the strands just kept building.
Speaker 2 (12:59):
Well, the fact that matter is you can be an asshole,
but that doesn't make you a murderer.
Speaker 1 (13:03):
Correct, that was real? Was that a real issue here?
Speaker 3 (13:06):
Well, because he was a dodgy character by nature, and
I think and also just his previous convictions, which were,
as Oscar said, you know, forty eight convictions, so already
in the public's mind. He was guilty in my opinion
because his parents weren't like the Hopes and Smarts. They
weren't middle class people. They're working class people. His father
was a boat builder, his mother worked at the pub
(13:26):
behind the Bard. Kind of when you build that picture
of Scott Watson and the fact that Borstal all you
know his anti social behavior, you know you are building
a picture. The one thing we haven't talked about to
Oscar is Guy Wallace, you know, because he was a
crucial witness to the connection and then he changed his mind.
And when we interviewed him, what four years ago, he
(13:47):
regrets that he feels very guilty sadly he's no longer
with us. But there was a lot of pressure I
think the police placed, in my personal opinion, police placed
a lot of pressure on people and witnesses.
Speaker 4 (13:59):
Yeah. And when you talk about pressure, so many lives
have been damaged or destroyed by this case, and not
just Ben and not just Olivia. But the trial opened
with evidence from Ben and Liver's parents, and it was
just horrific because it was they were fun, loving and
what were they doing and it was one of their
first holidays away with their friends.
Speaker 1 (14:18):
Instead of their parents, And it was very powerful from
the crowd.
Speaker 4 (14:21):
It really created these wonderful, well behaved, achieving young people
who would never do anything silly. And it was hard
to watch, was hard to be in court. They were
just nice kids. And there was thousands of nice kids
at that party that night. It was a pretty out
of control party. It was a very powerful way to
open the case. And when I say, you know, other
lives damaged, Guy Wallace life never recovered from this. In
(14:43):
the guilt that he feels about being the person who,
you know, dropping these kids off at this mystery person's ketch.
You know, not everyone's alive in this case, anymore. And
what I would say about the Hopes and the Smarts,
they were lovely people. Grief was just etched on their
face at the trial, you could see it. And they
sat there in the front row every day and listened
to everything, and sometimes you'd hear the sobs and that
would be Olivia's mum or Ben's mum. That they were
(15:05):
lovely people. And to be fair to Chris Watson, Scott's father,
he's a really nice guy too, and he is quite
convinced his son didn't do it. And at the trial
you'd have these people coming and going in the media gathering,
and Scott Watson's dad stood there every day like a
prior outside the court during the breaks. No one went
up to, no one want to talk to him. He'd
roll a ciggi and just all the eyes boring on him.
(15:26):
And he's been really unwell. The grief from this case
and the tragedy and the pressure has taken a much
bigger toll than two young people.
Speaker 6 (15:36):
And I don't believe that he has it in them
to do that.
Speaker 7 (15:41):
But I'm not going to go down the track of
being the emotional parent that's going to back his son
no matter.
Speaker 3 (15:50):
What I have enormous admiration for Chris. I've known Chris
all those years. I've kept in touch with him all
these years. His wife, when I first approached her because
part of my job was to tie up people for
you know, interviews, afterwards, spat at me, and then I
kind of befriended her because back in those days the
us to smoke cigarette. So I used to stand outside
with her and with Chris, and then eventually we built
(16:12):
up a report. But I cannot ever commend anyone more
or actually has admiration for a father who has so
much love for a son and such belief that his
son is innocent. His whole life has been dedicated that
you know, And as Oscar says, you know, Bev, she
died of cancer a few years ago, never seeing justice
(16:33):
for her son that she believed, of course he was innocent.
But also you know, for poor Mary Smart because her
husband John died and Mary Smart bumps into Chris Watson
pretty much once sweet because they live impact in really
close to each other. In fact, it's a really chilling
reminder because Chris has the blade, Scott Sloop and the harbor,
and Mary Smart lives right above the harbor and the
(16:57):
blade is a constant reminder of her son.
Speaker 2 (17:00):
And just finally we're still talking about it nearly twenty
five years later. Kara, you've done a podcast, The Murder
and the Sounds. Why do you think this case is
still sparking this debate after all this time.
Speaker 3 (17:12):
Because there are two people missing, nobody's have ever been recovered,
No one really knows what happened, you know, people have died,
are older memories fade, but it's just I guess for me,
those lasting impressions of those two young kids with the
whole lives ahead of them just taken. I can still
see that photograph that were used every night on the news,
(17:32):
you know, on television, newspapers, the two of them together,
Olivia and Ben, and you think, nah, they would be
were in their forties. They should by rights be parents
for their own children, you know, sending them off to
a New Year's Eve party.
Speaker 4 (17:45):
And we should acknowledge this is too long for the
justice system to do its thing. And this partly reflects
how Scott Watson is just going to keep fighting and
fighting fighting, and you have to respect that. But this
should have been resolved either way by now. It's been
too course been to the Privy Council and I think
the other issue here is that our parole system can't
handle people who refuse to admit they did it. So
(18:07):
Scott Watson was sentenced to a minimum non parole period
of seventeen years.
Speaker 1 (18:11):
He could have potentially been released eight years ago.
Speaker 4 (18:14):
So if the judge considered that that's what the punishment
should be for this crime, he's arguably done more than that.
The reasons why no one liked him on the night
are the reasons why he's not getting parole. He's got
some issues and I just think, if you're in prison
for this long and you didn't do it, wouldn't it
drive you crazy? And one thing for me, Chelsea about
Scott is how we reacted when the jury came back
(18:34):
and said guilty.
Speaker 1 (18:35):
And for me, it's.
Speaker 4 (18:36):
The most single terrible memory of the trial was he
just looked over at them and he just said, you're wrong,
really cocky, really arrogant. And there was a lot of
discussion right outside court after it because it was like, well,
if I didn't do it, I'd be screaming buddy murder,
or I'd be crying, or I'd be angry. But it
was cold, cold hearted that didn't.
Speaker 1 (18:56):
Do many favors.
Speaker 4 (18:57):
But also if you don't admit that you did it,
how can you get parole. So other countries have laws
now where if you say with the body is you
get an automatic sentence discount. And I think for ben
Olivia's parents, so much of it was not really knowing
the final moments, not knowing where they are, not getting
bodies back. What we talk about these days is closure,
which I don't think was a thing twenty five years ago,
(19:18):
but we understand the basic concept. So why is it
still in the news. Well, because it was massively controversial
at the time. The Crown did a closing that invited
the jury to ignore parts of the narrative that didn't work,
never explaining how he got back to Shure the second
time to be in the water taxi had been a
living It was massively controversial then and it's a sense
(19:40):
of fascination now.
Speaker 2 (19:42):
Thanks for joining us, Karen Oscar and you can listen
to Murdering the Sound on the Chasing Ghosts podcast feed
wherever you get your podcasts. Two key pieces of evidence
will be focused on during this appeal process. As at
Harold's senior reporter David Fisher has been following this case
(20:04):
for much of the last twenty five years. He joins
us now to discuss what is being brought to the
table for the first time in the way of evidence. David,
the piece of evidence that led to Watson's appeal revolves
around the DNA evidence from two hairs found on the boat. Hey,
what can you tell us about that?
Speaker 6 (20:25):
So the hair evidence was really interesting for a number
of reasons. One of those reasons was that police searched
Blade Scott Watson's boat from top to tail, and they
found about four hundred hairs. None of those were hairs
that matched up with Ben Smart or Olivia Hope. Then
they went back and they searched the yacht again and
(20:46):
on this occasion they found two hairs that matched up
with Olivia Hope. The difficulty is is that those hairs
were identified on the same day that Olivia Hope's hair
brush was present in the lab where the hair samples
were being studied. And then to further complicate this along
the way, there was one centimeter long slit that was
(21:07):
found in the evidence bag that the hair obtained from
Blade was being kept in. And so then there was
this question, well, could it have been contaminated, could the
hair from one have fallen into the other bag, or
for that matter, did the hair come from the hair
brush and somehow make its way into the other bag.
So this has been a point of contention for quite
some time, right down to whether or not the scientist
(21:30):
that was doing the examination changed from one lab coat
to another lab coat when working from one sample to
another sample. It's been certainly for quite some time never
really found as much traction as Watson supporters wanted it
to until this Court of Appeal hearing a couple of
years ago.
Speaker 2 (21:48):
So for those who may not know, you get a
few chances at appeal, but then you cut off. Then
you have to go for what's called a royal prerogative
of mercy, and in order to do that you do
need new evidence. Are the hairs a part of why
Watson was granted a royal prerogative of mercy?
Speaker 6 (22:05):
The case agains Scott Watson has been challenged in a
multitude of different ways. So yes, there were the Court
of Appeal hearings, There was an IPCA inquiry, there was
his initial denial of a rule progative of mercy claim
in twenty thirteen, and then again another one in twenty seventeen.
I think that was accepted. The hiss that was a
part of it. But back when the original case happened,
(22:28):
when Paul Davison QC was summing up the case on
behalf of the prosecution, he had said, this case is
a jigsaw made of many different pieces, sort of a
similar analogy to circumstantial cases being talked about as being
many strands of a rope. And so the hears were
always one of those jigsaw puzzle pieces. There were a
(22:49):
lot of pieces that went into that puzzle, and the
argument has kind of been how many pieces of the
puzzle do you need to knock out before the picture
makes no sense.
Speaker 2 (23:00):
The Court of Appeal later ruled that Watson's team can
also argue the so called blink photo that was used
to identify him. Why has that being so controversial?
Speaker 6 (23:11):
So the IPCA in quiry in twenty ten that actually
identified the blink photograph as being problematic, I think was
the way that they praised it. They said it was
highly undesirable the way that police went about showing photomontages
to people, and that it fell well short of best practice. However,
it was never framed in such a way as to
(23:33):
be the one single piece of evidence that was going
to either convict Watson or get him off the hook.
But with the Blink photograph, the difficulty here was that
police were given a description of a man who was
behaving in an odd fashion at Pernolodge that night, who
had hooded eyes, and this was quite a distinctive physical characteristic.
(23:54):
Scott Watson, in this photograph called the Blink photograph, appeared
to have hooded eyes, but that's because he was blinking
with the photograph was taken. When you look at the
other photographs of their they're not hooded eyes. And so
the photograph of Watson blinking with these hooded eyes was
seen as highly prejudicial by supporters of Watson, who said
(24:16):
that what in right it should have been allowed, as
I said back that up fell well should of best practice?
They said, highly undesirable. At what the Court of Appeal
has said, Well, if that's enough to give a miscarriage
of justice, that's for the Court of Appeal to decide
on the new hearing, and they gave a green light
for Watson to advance that.
Speaker 8 (24:35):
Nicholas Chisnel became Scott Watson's lead counsel last year.
Speaker 7 (24:40):
Is a case that invokes strong emotions and people, both
those who supports Scott and also those who feel that
he's to be criticized for wanting to have his stay
in court again.
Speaker 8 (24:51):
Chisnel says, who's spoken to Scott Watson, who is excited
about the developments, although it is tempered by the fact
it's taken Authorisy's just over two decades to review his case.
Speaker 2 (25:07):
But David Wilders isn't a part of the appeal. I
understand you once tested the Crown case involving Watson's boat,
the Blade.
Speaker 6 (25:14):
I got really interested in this pieces of a puzzle
thing because there were pieces that you could look at
and knock out. And one of the things that have
been talked about was the Crown's allegation that Watson had
dropped the body to the middle of the cook straight
and then there was also evidence that was put forward
in the trial that he was seen a period of
time later back in Mulbra sounds at somebody's house or
(25:37):
tied up in a bay. The thing that captivated me
about this I didn't realize and yachts No, is that
there's actually scientific equation that says how fast a boakud
go depending on his kell length. And when you got
a measuring tape out, you applied it to a map
and you measured the length of the blade's kill. You
could see that what's it going to happen? So Chris Watson,
(25:59):
Scott Watson's dad, he agreed to let me test this
out in the real world. So we took Blade out
to the middle of the cook straight to the place
where Blade was apparently cited, and we did it at
the same tide as occurred at that time. It was
a really carefully planned trip to try and match up
the environmental conditions as closely as possible, and then we
(26:20):
went hell for leather to this bay that Watson was
apparently cited. And there's no way that you can make
the journey. It just doesn't work. And it was fascinating
to me because when Paul Davison summed up the case,
and it was one heck of a summing up. It
was thirty thousand words of closing argument. Five percent of
that closing argument was about the bodies being done, and
(26:44):
from the work that I did, it seemed impossible that
that could have.
Speaker 2 (26:49):
Happened and what's made you so interested in this case
over the years, David, those pieces are the puzzle and
seeing how many you can knock out.
Speaker 6 (26:55):
I think the thing about the Scott Watson case, well,
one thing is that the bodies have been in Olivia,
we never found and the greatest evidence that exists as
to who their killer is is likely with those bodies.
So it then becomes a very circumstantial case. And there
were pieces of evidence put forward that police would argue,
we're not circumstantial. The hairs on the boat that's under question,
(27:18):
I just testimony. Also somewhat under The main person that
identified the Blink photograph were canted and died not so
long ago, saying that he didn't believe that Scott Watson
was the person that he identified in that photograph. I
think the thing for me that's really interesting about the
case is so many unanswered questions, and it came during
a time when we were as a public somewhat accustomed
(27:41):
to questions coming from old cases. There was the murders
of the Swedish jurists of the Crimnal for which David
Tommyhaty was convicted. We go all the way back to
the Crew murders and that seat of doubt that was
planted when police planted the Cartridge case. That sort of
raised a question over the way that police would do
that job at the time and in the decades going forward,
(28:03):
Watson case just became another one of those I think
one of the things that was really captivating about the case,
and I somewhat missed this because I was out of
the country for quite a number of years around the
time of the murders and the following trial, was that
they were kind of the perfect young summer couple. They
were really lovely looking kids that came from a really
(28:24):
nice home that were having a New Year's Eve of
the sort that you would hope would be the most
memorable of their lives, which it turned out to be
for all the wrong reasons.
Speaker 2 (28:37):
Thanks for joining us, David. For news from the Appeal
as it comes through, had to ensidherld dot co dot
z and for more on the Scott Watson case, including
his bids for parole, check out the links in our
show notes. That's it for this episode of the Front Page.
(28:58):
You can read more about today's stories and extensive news
coverage at enzidherld dot co. Dot NZ. The Front Page
is produced by Ethan Sills and sound engineer Patty Fox.
I'm Chelsea Daniels. Subscribe to the Front Page on iHeartRadio
or wherever you get your podcasts, and tune in on
Monday for another look behind the headlines.
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