News:
Trial by Trickery/Murder on the Blade

  • For developments relating to the Crewe murders please click on the Missing Bloodstain link above.
  • The comments and notes on this page and throughout this website are those of Keith Hunter unless otherwise identified.

16 April

Ian Wishart has made a suggestion that confirms 'wrong boat': (More)

15 April

I understand Ian Wishart has picked on my deliberate errors substituting north and south in my discussion of his 'painting while you sail' theory. As he has now demonstrated that he reads these posts I have corrected them.

13 April

The Wishart series ends wth pictorial evidence of the demise of his ugly book (More)


12 April 2016

Painting 4: Wishart’s painting race becomes a body-dumping narrative. (More)

11 April 2016
We return to Wishart’s headlong painting-in-a-race-against-the- clock narrative to show that there is only one way it can be accepted as a true account of what happened after the 1997-8 New Year’s party at Furneaux Lodge in the Marlborough Sounds.(More)

10 April 2016
I had intended to reveal now the identity of the painting accomplice of Wishart’s hateful book  and the truth of the painted yacht, but my writing has gone off track towards an assessment of associated issues. Readers may find the outcome of my labour irrelevant and even irreverent but, rather than dump it, since I’ve spent the time on it I have decided to provide it first. (More)

5 April 2016

After reflection I have decided to put aside my earlier decision not to address the repugnant Wishart book here again. I’ve been persuaded by a comment by Wishart I’ve just noticed in a post by him on the TradeMe message board on Monday 14 March. (More)

13 March 2016
I have been asked to explain the episode in the Sounds story in which a man at the Furneaux party claimed to be “off the only two masted ketch in the bay”. The comment has been attributed to Scott Watson, and, somehow, taken to be an indicator of guilt. For more:

24 February

I've been challenged to back my view that Scott Watson's yacht was not the one seen with two men aboard as it travelled in Queen Charlotte Sound on New Year's Day 1998. Ian Wishart's book claims that Watson picked up an accomplice to help paint his boat 'on the hoof' and 'in a race against the clock' to Picton. I have no doubt that Watson went where he said he went on New Year's Day, by himself to Erie Bay. If a boat of similar appearance was seen with two men aboard in Queen Charlotte Sound that morning then it was just that, a boat of similar appearance. There are many photographic and personal sources for a search for such a boat in the Sounds eighteen years ago. I'm prepared to put money on my ability to find a yacht that matched Watson's in appearance and that was or would have been in Q Charlotte at the time -if Mr Wishart were to put up money against me. KH

My final comment on Wishart's book is here.

23 February

The Wishart disaster continues here

22 February

A comment on Ian Wishart and the Two Theory is here. There will be two more, tomorrow and Wednesday 24 February, on other aspects of the theory. I have decided that this process is taking too much time from other more important matters and that I will address the rest of Wishart's repugnant book in a small commercial publication later, perhaps midyear.

KH

20 February

I apologise to visitors. I had intended to provide a post addressing Wishart and the Two Trip Theory but have found myself pointed elsewhere. I'm away Sunday, back Monday

KH

For comment on Ian Wishart's murder scenario click here

18 February

For comments on Ian Wishart's reply to my offer of $5,000, click here.

17 February

Ian Wishart has posted on my guestbook a response to yesterday's invitation. Judging by his facebook page only half the intended post has been received. Wishart's complete response is at :

http://www.investigatemagazine.co.nz/Investigate/18273/ian-wishart-responds-to-keith-hunters-5000-challenge-on-scott-watson/?doing_wp_cron=1455614344.3566710948944091796875

The response introduces a feature hitherto absent from this story - humour. I will address it in due course. In the meantime, for a commentary on aspects of Wishart's book I had intended to address myself but no longer need to, I recommend visitors go to:

http://nostalgia-nz.blogspot.co.nz/2016/02/wisharts-book-elementary-not-so-much.html

This blog details Wishart's attacks on the Watson family and Guy Wallace with authority and in considerable detail. It describes the reasons I put aside the defamatory material Wishart has taken such delight in. I couldn't do better. It misses a single point - that the material Wishart has used against Watson was not a cause of the police focus on him. It is all dated well after 8 January, when Inspector Pope applied for a warrant to seize and search Watson's boat on the ground " in respect of which an offence of Abduction, Kidnapping and Murder has been or is suspected of having been committed".

KH

16 February 2016

The Wishart book - A Prize on Offer

A series of responses to Ian Wishart's attacks on justice, journalism and common sense begins today with the announcement of a prize on offer. For the first posting click here.

 

1 February 2016

I have now finished reading Ian Wishart's hateful book. Supporters of Scott Watson should relax and maintain their support. I predict this is the end of Wishart.

I apologise for my scant posting on this. However my computer is largely out of action at the moment. I have not had email or internet for two days. I am trying to identify and fix the problem.

KH

 

29 January 2016

Author Ian Wishart has just published a book alleging Scott Watson is guilty.

According to Wishart on the radio this morning, it also accuses me of withholding relevant information.

My response will be published here when I have read and considered his book.

KH

 

29 November 2013

AN IMPORTANT NOTICE

This site and webmail associated with it are suffering from a chain of unexpected maladies. KiwiWebhost, aka Orcon, has just addressed a complaint about the website's statistics which disappeared on 20 September.

Then, correspondents are repeatedly advising that emails they have sent to me are being immediately returned marked "no delivery".

Now, this morning an intending buyer of Murder On The Blade? has emailed to say "I tried to place an order for this DVD on your website. Unfortunately the monetary fields were not working. Could you please get back to me on how I can purchase this DVD otherwise".

If correspondents, prospective buyers, or visitors to this site experience similar difficulties I ask them to please let me know by email to whichever of the following addresses they have not failed with::

hunter@hunterproductions.co.nz

keith@hunterproductions.co.nz

k.hunter@slingshot.co.nz

Thanks

KH

15 October

This website has been off the air for several days after being 'compromised' by someone who found a way to utilise some of its code to send out spam. The web host closed it down until the situation was remedied. The attack was not a targeted one. It was apparently opportunist.

10 July 2013

I recommend that visitors to this site also take in the latest contribution to the guestbook.

KH

9 July 2013

It’s out. Scott Watson’s application to the Governor-General for the Royal Prerogative of Mercy has been declined by Minister Collins today. Wholly predictable in view of the Ministry of Justice’s administration of the application, it is the consequence of the most corrupt piece of paper I have ever seen. It suggests that Ms Collins only finds justice where the innocent are found guilty. Hence the Bain review is reviewed while the Watson review is confirmed. (More).

A postscript to this note: Minister Collins has revealed that she misunderstood the McDonald report when she recommended to the Governor General that he decline Watson's application. When asked on Radio Live (5.10pm Tuesday 9 July) about the changed evidence of water taxi driver Guy Wallace and bar manager Roz McNeilly, she said the report noted that their evidence was "different from what they said at trial". In fact the report said their new evidence was the same as what they had said at trial and that it was therefore not new evidence and for that reason the petition was declined. It seems to me that a case could be made that as the Minister's advice to the Governor General is based on a central misunderstanding about the key 'new evidence' identification issues, it should be reversed..

2 October 2012

It's heart-warming to discover that an objective inquiry into the police/spooks/Dotcom affair is to be objectively conducted by the objective police counsel/Crown Prosecutor McDonald QC. Ms McD will again have an advantage not available to any other of the System's pets at quite the same level.. During her highly paid objective inquiry she will have a number of objective seats to objectively sit in and objective hats to objectively wear during her objective, stress objective, inquiry before she returns to some other of her highly paid System sinecures.

Nothing changes in the objective land of McDonald QC. Just more of the same in the least corrupt and most objectively objective country on the planet.

26 August 2012

Scott Watson would be retried if the Sounds murders had taken place in Australia. Agence France Presse reported a story yesterday that exposes a vast chasm between justice in Austalia and justice in New Zealand. The story related to the conviction of a 'Dr Death' who had been found guilty of the murders of several of his patients. AFP recorded that:

'...the High Court on Friday dismissed the convictions and ordered a retrial, saying prosecutors radically changed their case on the 43rd day of the 58-day trial in a way which rendered much of the evidence irrelevant.
But the High Court on Friday dismissed the convictions and ordered a retrial, saying prosecutors radically changed their case on the 43rd day of the 58-day trial in a way which rendered much of the evidence irrelevant. "The prejudicial effect on the jury was not overcome by the directions given by the trial judge", the High Court said.
A substantial miscarriage of justice occurred...'

The case against Watson wasn't changed on the 43rd day of his trial. It was changed on the very last day of the Crown case. He never knew what he was supposed to have done until the Prosecutor announced it in his closing address to the jury, two and a half months after the trial had begun and after all the witnesses had given their evidence and gone home. That didn't make any difference to the NZ High Court, nor the Court of Appeal. So much for NZ justice.

Watson is still in prison twelve years later, waiting while the Ministry of Justice looks for a way to keep him there in the face of overwhelming evidence he should not be.

The AFP story was republished in the New Zealand Herald (Page B3, 25 August). It can be found at:

http://www.hindustantimes.com/world-news/Australia/Dr-Death-absolved-Indian-surgeon-s-convictions-quashed/Article1-918537.aspx

2 August 2012
Scott Watson is still in prison. However two new issues are occupying the Ministry of Justice while it lets his his application for the Royal Prerogative of Mercy go cold. Both pull the rug from beneath all the Ministry’s already absurd claims that the so-called review provided by its pet QC, Kristy McDonald, is ‘objective’. One of these is revealed in the new guestbook posting by Gemma Claire. According to the Police website, McDonald, career-long Crown Prosecutor,  is the “Wing Patron” of “ The Royal New Zealand Police College in Wing 273” . This is the woman  who is carrying out, or has carried out, an objective, unbiased, genuine review of Scott Watson’s application and its grounds that his trial was unfair because the prosecutors and police cheated.
         What could be worse for the Ministry? The only thing I can think of would be evidence that the Ministry itself holds that Watson is guilty. As it happens, Brian Johnston, a Sydney-resident New Zealander, has provided a sworn statement that when he called the ministry and spoke to an official named Melanie Webb earlier this year, she told him she thinks SW is guilty.
         Johnstone told me about this earlier this year. What I didn’t realise at the time was that Webb is the official administering Watson’s application. She took over the case when Jeff Orr was called to higher duties. She is the ‘objective’ official who accompanied McDonald when she interviewed the witnesses Guy Wallace and Roz McNeilly - the interviews Orr had threatened would not take place if the observer McNeilly wanted to be present was there. I was that observer. The objection was purportedly that I knew about the case. Presumably I was not sufficiently objective to be a silent observer. Now it transpires that the Ministry’s objective observer is not objective either.
         Any claim that McDonald’s report has integrity is now in tatters. If the official chosen to administer the application has a view as to guilt or innocence, that view must be the view of the Ministry itself. Even the most remote possibility that the McDonald review is in any way unbiased or genuine is now out the window.
         Goodbye honest report, goodbye integrity, goodbye McDonald, Orr and Webb. Goodbye Ministry. The Governor General now has a decision to make:  find someone who will provide a real review of Watson’s application – quickly, or send the case straight to the Court  of Appeal.
         The latter is the obvious way to go.

31 May

Scott Watson is still in prison.

11 April

A recent mailout to buyers of Trial by Trickery and/or Murder On The Blade? has brought Scott Watson's application to the Governor General up to date. It reads:

"Scott Watson's application for mercy is being opposed by the Ministry of Justice. It is a sorry story.

        Early in the process the Ministry took two steps patently designed to ensure Watson stays in prison. The first step was to appoint a career-long crown prosecutor and police counsel to review the application.. (more)                                                                                        

11 November

A reply (here) to the Minister's letter of 26 October was sent to him on 5 November.

1 November 2011

Minister Power has replied (here) to the letter to him of 12 October.

17 October 2011

The letter to Simon Power quoted in the note immediately below is here

This site has been quiet now for three years, waiting for the Justice System to report on Scott Watson's application to the Governor-General for a pardon. That's three years for Watson to stay in prison when he need not. This seems not to trouble a human rights spokesperson who this morning told Radio New Zealand that it wouldn't matter if it took another few months after the election for a decision. That spokesman is either ignorant of the issues or uninterested in them. So is Tony Ellis QC who assured RNZ and the nation that personalities do not influence the provision of justice in New Zealand. Mr Ellis's colleagues will chuckle about that one over their post-trial chardonnays tonight as they moan, joke and compare notes about the characteristic predilections and responses, and the resultant biases, of the judges they will have been addressing during the day. But no non-lawyer who has the slightest awareness of Watson or Thomas or Ellis or Dougherty or Tamihere et alia multa will appreciate Mr Ellis's unlikely naivety. Like AA Thomas, the only issue facing Watson is the self-gratifying drive by members of the justice system to defend their station and status as Standard-Bearers of Justice and Defenders of the Truth. Justice and truth are absent from their management of both cases.

Last Thursday, 13 October, I posted the Minister of Justice a letter which explains the Watson situation and calls on him for a decision . The Ministry apparently told RNZ this morning that it hasn't received the letter yet. It will be posted here this evening.
KH

9 June 2011
The Minister has asked McDonald QC to ‘consider any submissions from Mr Wastson’s newly appointed lawyers… before providing a supplementary report’ on his application to the Governor General for a pardon.

A supplementary report?  Why is there a supplementary report when The Report itself has not been sighted by anyone outside the offices of the Ministry of Justice except the Minister himself? This has never happened before... More

19 January 2011

Strike One for TxT:  Pope’s gone and the System’s spindoctors are flat out hiding the truth of it.  His demise has nothing to do with a critical report by a firm of acccountants about our police force. No comment about his lies on the Watson case. But let’s face it. He’s gone because of Trial By Trickery and Watson. Pope is gone because of his lies and corrupt conduct  of the Watson case. He was never going to survive despite Goddard of the IPCA defending him with her false report, presumably on instruction to do so.
The official version didn’t arrive uintil very late in the story. Pope resigned weeks ago and it’s just it’s a coincidence that no-one knew this until the accountants’ report was made public now. But anyone who heard Minister of Police Judith Collins on RNZ this morning will be aware that she didn’t know he had resigned weeks ago. She didn’t know it this morning. She would have been the first to know.
He was always the most obvious fall guy for the System and must have known he would be sacrificed to protect it. Bye Rob. Good riddance to a perjurer who should be in prison.
KH......

21 August 2010

An example from the IPCA report:
The IPCA Report is a document which lies, repeatedly. There have been many requests that the entire report and the 49 page commentary sent in response be posted here. These will be brought to public notice in detail later. In the meantime, an example…(more)

15 August 2010

Re: Complaints against Deputy Commissioner of Police Pope filed with the "Independent" Police Conduct Authority in August 2007:

A lengthy commentary on the draft report received in late May (see 3 June 2010 posting below) was provided to the IPCA, Justice Goddard, on 3 August. On 13 August her office advised that the report would ignore the commentary and would remain unchanged. It indicated that this position had been influenced by inquiries from the Herald on Sunday.

The Herald On Sunday had asked for and been given copies of both the IPCA draft report and of a lengthy commentary on it provided to the IPCA. These were given to the press on request because of the false nature of the report. All previous dealings with the IPCA had been conducted on the basis that that office would treat the complaints against Deputy Commissioner Pope with integrity. This assumption was naive. It is now apparent that the corruption endemic in R v Watson has not eluded the IPCA.

Not only is the report a rort but so too has been the Authority's response to the press inquiry. Justice Goddard immediately launched her own press campaign to counter an anticipated attack. Her technique was to misinterpret or ignore, for public consumption, the few criticisms of Pope she had included in her report, and to indoctrinate the nation with the message that his profoundly corrupt 1998 murder inquiry was all but faultless, before the Herald On Sunday published otherwise. And so a serious complaint against the integrity of Deputy Commissioner of Police now descends, by courtesy of the Independent Police Conduct Authority, into petty gamesmanship.

The IPCA has also advised that its report will not be published. Steps are presently in motion to ensure that both the report and the commentary become publically available.

The explanatory covering letter which accompanied the commentary on the IPCA report is posted below.

3 June 2010

The Independent Police Conduct Authority, Justice Lowell Goddard, has forwarded a draft of her report on my complaint against Deputy Commissioner Pope. The report has been almost three years in the making. However, I have identified several significant factual errors in the draft and will provide the Authority with a review of it. Although the report in its present form is disappointing overall, aspects of it will not be appreciated by Mr Pope.

The Commissioner of Police has today announced the appointment of a new Deputy Commissioner, Mr Viv Rickards.

KH

24 May 2010
The Sunday Star-Times has reported that Paul Davison QC has written a two page reference for once-dishonest lawyer Eb Leary. Davison wrote that with the right conditions Leary “could be relied on to conduct himself with honesty and integrity..”. It’s open to  debate as to how Davison would know this. One commentator has suggested that he may have been reading a dictionary and on reaching the”H”s and then the “I”s had come across a couple of words he hadn’t seen before but just liked the sound of.  More true to type, Davison offered to change his position “if the circumstances change”.  The same Star-Times story had Auckland Crown Solicitor Simon Moore, associate of conspirator Kieran Raftery, supporting Leary too, and then seeming to unsupport him.  These are loyal men of sterling character who know about justice and where it lies. Somewhere else.
See http://www.stuff.co.nz/sunday-star-times/news/3728176/Legal-whos-who-wanted-Leary-back

13 May 2010
Kristy McDonald's inquiry: McDonald QC has wasted no time in getting on with her inquiry on behalf of the Governor Generaly. A year after she was appointed to conduct the inquiry, and six months after she announced the grounds she would consider, McDonald has managed to carry out one of the four specific inquiries she has decided are matters for her personally. She has interviewed Rozlyn McNeilly, this task being a full quarter of the  workload she later gave herself in November 09. But it was touch and go as to whether the interview would be held at all after the Ministry of Justice’s enforcer Jeff Orr decided he didn’t approve of the person McNeilly chose to support her at the meeting with McDonald. Orr threatened to call the whole thing off.. More.

15 April 2010
In August 2007 a formal complaint was made to the Independent Police Conduct Authority about the criminal conduct of Police Commissioner Rob Pope during Operation TAM (for the detail of the complaint click here.)  The report of the Authority’s investigative team was completed by November 2009 and has been on the Authority’s desk since then. It has gone no further. Some may find this offensive. For recent correspondence..

29 November

The Minister of Justice's appointment of Kristy Mc Donald QC to inquire into and report on Sco tt Watson's petition to the Governor General for mercy is taking its predicted course. It will round off the justice system's criminal conduct in the Watson affair with yet another rort. Ms McDonald is going to ignore all the true causes of Watson's prosecution and conviction. More

6 October:

Minister to attend Address on the conduct of R v Watson, 17 October:
 At the invitation of members of the ACT Party, Keith Hunter will deliver an address on the conduct of the Sounds murder inquiry and the prosecution of Scott Watson on Saturday 17 October at 4.00 - 6.00pm.  Minister of Local Government Rodney Hide and Green Party justice spokesperson Keith Locke will also speak.
The venue is the Mecca café, near the corner of Remuera Road and Nuffield St in Newmarket. It is a public event. Everyone is welcome to attend.

21 July 09

A letter has been sent to the Minister of Justice rejecting his advice of 21 June. More

21 June 09: ............ Scott Free bank account

A bank account in the name of Scott Free has been set up in response to recent offers of contributions to raise the public awareness of the Scott Watson debacle and his petition to the Governor General. The fund will be administered by Gemma Claire and a small group of supporters, with the active assistance Keith Hunter. Most likely areas for address are notices and advertisements in smaller newspapers. People wishing to contribute may do so directly by internet banking to: ...........Kiwibank 38 9009 0405363 00, Account name Scott Free.

Contributors should reference their contributions with their names. Emailed receipts will be sent in due course after contributors have emailed their names, amount contributed and date of contribution to: ....... scottfree101@live.com

Cheques should be made out to Scottfree and posted to Scottfree, PO Box 46 115, Herne Bay, Auckland, ensuring that a return address is provided for a receipt. It would be appreciated if contributors also provided their phone numbers, although this is optional.

21 June

Acknowledgements of the letters to them of 26 May have been received, both on 18 June, from the Governor General and the Minister of Justice. For the Minister's reply see'"

7 June 09

While David Bain is acquitted Scott Watson remains in prison a patently innocent man. Recently a lawyer was appointed by the Ministry of Justice to conduct an inquiry into his petition to the Governor General for Mercy. The appointment is unconscionable. For explanation and correspondence to the politicians: more

Several new website links are posted on the “Links” page.

INDEX: Click on the names listed below for correspondence involving them::

Governor General

Deputy Commissioner of Police Rob Pope

The Police Complaints Authority

Crown Prosecutor Paul Davison QC

Prosecutor / ex Deputy Solicitor General Nicola Crutchley

Prosecutor Kieran Raftery

Court of Appeal / Chief Justice

Cate Brett, Journalist

Politicians

Parliament

For Reviews go to the Reviews tab on the Book page (see opposite).

April 09

Simon Power, Minister of Justice, has beeen reminded of the process his predecessor,Jim McLay followed when he liberated Arthur Allan Thomas in 1979. The latest letter to the Minister outlines the parallels with Scott Watson and lists reasons why Watson should be freed immediately pending retrial or pardon.

Both Simon Power and Peter Dunne, a member of the Executive Council in his role as Minister of Revenue, replied to the previous correspondence of 4 February. Rodney Hide, Minister of Local Government and Watson's strongest parliamentary supporter over the past two years, has yet to reply.

14 February 09

Since October:
* Scott Watson has petitioned the governor general for a pardon, (more)
* Simon Power has become Minister of Justice; A letter urging him to act quickly on Scott Watson's petition to the Governor General was sent on 4 Feberuary.

* The letter to the Minister was copied to Rodney Hide, Watson’s strongest and most public parliamentary supporter (I don't think for a second that Scott Watson is guilty ), now Minister of Local Government and to Peter Dunne, now Minster of Revenue;.


* The police have replied to Chris Watson’s complaint that Deputy Commissioner Pope swore several false oaths in affidavits supporting his applications for warrants to bug the Watson homes and phones (more)

14 February 09

TVNZ's Media 7 on Thursday 11 Feb brought together three journalists who have argued for the innocent in prison - Pat Booth (Arthur Allan Thomas, the first such case exposed to view in New Zealand) Donna Chisolm, whose pursuit of the truth regarding the David Docherty case was celebrated in a feature-length film on Television One on Sunday 7 Feb) and Keith Hunter (for Scott Watson). Russell Brown, the show's host, later described the episode in the context of the series' best to date.To view: it's the best show we've done

23 June 08: At a June 10 meeting to discuss the revelations of Trial By Trickery National Party Justice spokesman Simon Power asked many questions but gave no statements. More:

27 April 08.. The Chief Justice has replied to the letter to her of 30 March. For her reply and a subsequent letter to her, click here.

The Herald On Sunday has noted that in the latest edition of its journal the US-based Association in Defence of the Wrongly Convicted has published a report based on Trial By Trickery and supporting Scott Watosn's innocence. For the Herald on Sunday story...

2 April A further reply has been sent to the Chief Justice regarding her unwillingness to show any interest in the serial judicial and prosecutorial bias and failures of fact in R v Watson. For more:

TVNZ's CloseUp has shelved a plan to run a half hour feature on the Watson case - reportedly because both Deputy Commissioner Pope and Paul Davison QC have refused to take part in it. Davison is the prosecutor who complained in the Listener in November that he was not given an opportunity to put forward his point of view in Trial By Trickery. Pope is the policeman who returned the book unread, saying it contained nothing new.

18 February: The Sunday Star-Times article previewed here on 15 February was published yesterday, Sunday 17 February. It was a fair assessment of several of the main points. For more:

2 January 08:

Chief Justice: The office of the Chief Justice has replied to this site’s letter of 29 November. For the office's letter and a subsequent reply to it click here.

Press Coverage: The weekend of 29-30 December has seen Trial By Trickery feature prominently in the media. For the sixth consecutive week The Herald On Sunday published extended coverage of the book’s arguments against the justice system. In opposition, the Sunday Star-Times ran a Page 3 three column promotion for a rival publication, the weekly Listener. All three trailered their stories on their front pages, The Herald with 'SCOTT WATSON IS INNOCENT! and The Star-Times with 'SCOTT WATSON, WHY HE IS GUILTY' The Listener has an eight page cover story attacking Scott Watson titled “STILL GUILTY” and focusing on Paul Davison QC’s view of the book, the case and his part in both. Unfortunately Davison does no more than repeat the responses he offered this website and again ignore the questions he must answer (see the exchange below).
The Star-Times and The Listener each have an interesting specific history relating to the case and the book which will be discussed here shortly.

IPCA: The new Independent Police Conduct Authority, successor to the former Police Complaints Authority, has advised that it is investigating the complaint laid against Police Deputy Commissioner Pope on . The text of the complaint is here:

14 December 07: A reply has been sent to the Chief Justice to clear up unexpected misunderstandings in her office's letter to this site. For the reply click here.

11 December: In reply to claims that the seating squabs on Blade were evidence of murder, a passage on the squabs originally intended for Trial By Trickery has been posted on the 'Research' tab of the 'Book' page.

10 December: Australian Law Professor Dr Robert Moles, celebrated campaigner against miscarriages of justice, has posted a review of Trial By Trickery on his 'Networked Knowledge" website. For the review and the website click here.

3 December: A misconceived reply has been been received from the office of the Chief Justice regarding the letters to her of August and November. Click here for the text of the reply.

  • Mike Chappell, the detective whose views have given rise to the Herald On Sunday's 25/11 front page story, first made those views public on this website's guestbook. See the guestbook dated 6 May 07. He has also contributed more recently.

2 December: The Editor of the Sunday Star Times has played a contemptible trick on her readers today. Those who have read Trial By Trickery and this website's letter to her of 11 August will be aware of her highly suspect contributions to the police inquiry and her relationship with then Inspector Pope during it. Today's distasteful chapter calls her integrity further into question. For the details:

The Herald On Sunday provides a more professional and honest alternative. After addressing the Watson debacle in two front page lead stories in recent weeks, it has today supplied a feature article on page 10 but also chosen the subject and Trial By Trickery for its principal editorial comment on page 38.

1 November: A reply to the letter sent to him on 23 October has been received from the Crown Solicitor. The reply is disappointing (click here). This website's response to it has been sent and is posted below.

6 November: In the absence of any response to earlier letters, followup letters have been sent to the Chief Justice, in respect of nil response from the Court of Appeal, and to employers of prosecutors Crutchley and Raftery. For the new Raftery letter click here. For the new Crutchley letters click here. For the letter to the Chief Justice, click here

14 / 16 October
Davison replies again.
A plea to lawyers

Paul Davison QC has replied to this website’s second letter, sent to him on 10 September. It appears he is content to be accused of conspiracy to pervert justice. Any visitors, especially fellow lawyers, who know Mr Davison are urged to persuade him to respond more appropriately to the letters sent to him. Perhaps if as many lawyers as possible are aware of the accusations against Mr Davison it might help to persuade him. Lawyer visitors are therefore urged to tell their colleagues about the correspondence below. For the latest exchange, including another reply to Mr Davison, click here.

3 October : Latest correspondence with the New Zealand Law Journal relating to its review of Trial By Trickery is posted on the Reviews tab of the Book page

23 September: A commentary on the New Zealand Law Journal review of Trial By Trickery has been sent to the Journal for publication. The text of the commentary is available on the ‘Reviews’ page.

8 September: Police Complaints Authority: An official complaint about the actions of Deputy Commissioner Pope (then-Detective Inspector) has been sent to Justice Lowell Goddard QC, the Police Complaints Authority. Justice Goddard has estimated her investigation will not be available until October 2007. The text of the complaint is posted below.

5 September: A new review of Trial By Trickery has been published. It is posted on the Reviews page. It calls for a response and one will be posted in due course.

28 August 07: Court Of Appeal: A letter and copies of the book and film have been sent to the three members of the Court of Appeal who declined Scott Watson's appeal. They are the Rt Hon Justice Sir Ivor Richardson, The Rt Hon Justice Thomas Gault and the Rt Hon Justice John Henry. The letter has been copied to the Chief Justice, the Rt Hon Dame Sian Elias. It is posted below.

*The guestbook: n entry in the guestbook (Mike, May 6) by a member of the police inquiry team opens a new window on the investigation. It's of special interest to anyone who has wondered whether or not there was a 'mystery ketch.'

-----------------------------------------------------------------------

The Wishart Book

16 February 2016
$5,000 - A Prize Waiting for a Winner!

Ian Wishart has published a book in which he claims that Scott Watson is guilty of murdering the missing Ben Smart and Olivia Hope and that his opinion is directed solely by the evidence.
My own work and my competence are heavily criticised in his book. He makes a number of accusations, both direct and indirect, against me. Amongst the accusations is that I ignored evidence which contradicted the conclusions published in Trial By Trickery. Over the next week or two I will reply, suggesting that Mr Wishart’s book relies entirely on his omission of evidence unhelpful to his views.
Wishart, by his own repeated admission, researched, wrote, edited, typeset and published his book in less than three months. Some might consider this unwise. I do. His haste to accuse an innocent man has given birth to a book of nonsense, reliant not partly but entirely on defaming other people, illogic, fantasy  and the omission of unwelcome evidence. I ask readers to consider for themselves whether his process stems from widespread ignorance resulting from haste or that it is simply lies by omission.

The Prize
As an introduction to my comments on the Wishart book I announce a prize waiting to be won. While it is offered specifically to Mr Wishart it is available to anyone who can answer the question it poses.

Wishart’s theory relies on evidence relating to Scott Watson painting his yacht’s cabin sides from red-brown to blue in the days after the 1997-8 New Year’s party at Furneaux Lodge. Watson claimed he painted the boat at Erie Bay on 2-3 January. Wishart says this is false. He has witnesses who, he says, saw Watson painting his yacht as it travelled in Queen Charlotte Sound on New Year’s Day. Watson didn’t go to Erie Bay at all on 1 January. Wishart claims that after painting his boat on the hoof, as it were, with the assistance of an unknown accomplice, Watson motored down to Picton, where he was seen unloading the bodies of the missing pair, wrapped in white material.
Quite apart from the wrapped bodies, the painting while sailing is in Wishart's view significant evidence that Watson murdered the two missing people. He  does not provide a reason for the significance he perceives. However the yacht-painting is so central to his murder theory and to the climax of his book that the theory lives or dies according to the significance he awards to it and the inferences that can be drawn from it.

I will address the wrapped bodies and painting on the hoof at a later date. In the meantime, since the significance of the painting is not explained in his book and since I cannot discern any significance myself, I will pay $5,000.00 for a credible reason to relate Scott Watson painting his yacht, at any time at all, to the disappearance of Ben Smart and Olivia Hope. I ask that visitors to this site, and in particular passing members of the press, inform Mr Wishart that he has the first clear shot at the $5,000.00. If he is able within the week beginning at noon today, 16 February, to provide a clear, sensible and credible reason to link the painting with the disappearance, the $5,000.00 is his. If he is unable the prize is open to allcomers after the Wishart week is up. The offer concludes on 29 February.. If no proposal satisfying the criteria that it be clear, sensible and credible arrives before 1 March the offer is withdrawn.

For guidance I recommend that Mr Wishart and aspiring prizewinners consult Trial By Trickery at pages 158-161. This is obviously no more than a reminder to Wishart, who has read and considered my book.

I will seek an adjudicator from amongst the teaching staff at the Departments of Psychology and/or philosophy at The University of Auckland, if and when any proposal arrives that could be reasonably considered to approach the criteria that it be clear, sensible and credible.
Entrants, including Wishart, should forward their proposals to my guestbook.

This posting is the first of several to come. The next will address Wishart and the Two Trip Theory.

I ask that readers make this series of postings known as widely as possible throughout the country.

KH

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18 February

Ian Wishart’s reply to my $5,000 offer remains incomplete on my guestbook and so I refer to the complete version referenced above. His reply seeks to redirect the argument away from  evidence for Scott Watson’s innocence and to a discussion as to whether he spoke the truth.  Wishart writes:

“Let’s examine that for a moment. Keith Hunter’s central thesis is that Watson has told the complete truth about his activities and movements..”
This amounts to an admission of failure. It is an unsuccessful tactic which indicates Wishart is unable to address my actual “central thesis”. My central thesis is that there is no case against Scott Watson, that the only evidence against him is the discovery of two long blonde hairs in a bag of short dark hairs in which they were not discovered six weeks earlier, that all of the identification evidence that allowed his conviction has been retracted, that the police inquiry that led to his arrest was corrupt in the extreme and that the prosecution case delivered to the High  Court was equally corrupt.

I don’t intend to dwell on Wishart’s reply because it’s like his book – false. A couple of the clearer examples:
Ex Wishart’s reply: "We know it was Scott, and Hunter knows it was Scott, because one of the witnesses was water taxi driver Sam Edwards who knew Scott and Blade very well and positively identified it in this sighting …:and his (Edwards’)  certainty proved correct when independent witnesses Wayne Robertson and Matthew Stevens both confirmed there were two men on board..”

The truth: The passage is no more than smoke and mirrors. The sighting by Edwards has no relationship with the yacht Wishart claims was being painted in the middle of Queen Charlotte Sound. Nothing links the yacht Edwards saw with the yacht allegedly being painted. There is no evidence that they were the same yacht. Edwards saw Watson in his yacht. End of story.

Ex Wishart’s reply: "We know an accomplice was on board because Edwards was certain he’d seen a second person on the boat..”

The truth

Edwards, 16/01/98:`   “ I’m pretty sure that I saw a second person in the cockpit but I can’t be positive on that.” 
Edwards, 17/1/98:       “When I said I thought there was a second person on the yacht, I cannot state definitely that there was a second person”. 

These are typical of Wishart’s reply, his book, and his process. As for the rest of his reply, for brevity’s sake I’ll confine my commentary to the following passage:

“ The gauntlet thrown down by Keith Hunter today is: “I will pay $5,000.00 for a credible reason to relate Scott Watson painting his yacht, at any time at all, to the disappearance of Ben Smart and Olivia Hope.”
Wishart continues: “I believe I have answered that challenge. It was conditional on me providing a credible reason for Watson painting his boat being of significance to the murder inquiry. The lie about when, how and where he painted the boat blows a 36 hour hole in the stated movements of Scott Watson in the wake of a double homicide.
For completeness, however, there is one final point in terms of the reward test. The question is not phrased this way, but it is possible to ask from Hunter’s wider ramblings on the point whether the repainting itself served a specific purpose. Why repaint the boat at all?
Ben and Olivia boarded Blade in the pit of the night. They clambered over the railing and almost certainly steadied themselves on the exterior cabin, immediately to hand in the dark (it was dark – KH). The boom – contrary to Hunter’s assertions in Trial by Trickery – was probably well out of arm’s reach of someone climbing over the rail, and it was dimly seen in the dark. Booms also swing, making them less likely to be relied on, particularly if it isn’t your boat and you don’t know how secure the boom is. Faced between reaching for a cabin – which is there – or reaching for a distant boom – which isn’t – I’d choose the cabin sides every time.
Watson knew that only smooth surfaces reveal fingerprints, so the painting may have been directly relevant to covering up and dissolving in the paint solvents any fatty human fingerprints left behind by his ‘guests’. The police forensic evidence is telling:
“I was aware all the areas on the top side of the boat, which were of a surface that may have revealed fingerprints, had been painted dark blue on 2nd January 1998 [actually 1st January as we now all know, and this mention by police in itself shows the dating of the repaint played a key role in the framework of the trial],” Detective Sgt David Landreth said in depositions. (The bracketed italics are by Wishart)
“As this act effectively eliminated any fingerprints that would have been on the earlier, rusty red coloured paint, I attempted to have the blue paint removed in order to examine the earlier layer.
“Two methods were used in the attempt to remove the dark blue paint.
“Firstly we tried to chemically soften and dissolve the blue layer.
“This failed due to the fact that the rusty red paint underneath was of the same type as the blue paint and both layers dissolved together.
“The second method we tried was to cut around a portion of the paint with a scalpel and then to try and lift the top layer off the under layer.
“This method also failed as, in some cases, we were unable to separate the two layers, but where we were able to separate them only a small “flake” of the top layer lifted off at a time.”
In other words, painting your exterior cabin before the balloon went up was a highly effective way of removing fingerprint evidence from ALL smooth surfaces that had been touched outside. It also provided an effective cover story. He’d been planning to paint the boat anyway. Shifting the painting date forward meant the fingerprints could be swiftly hidden.
In fact, doing it at sea hours after the disappearance, instead of waiting to repaint as planned at Erie Bay later in the week, is further evidence of guilty action forced by circumstances. Watson needed to eradicate those fingerprints in case someone came looking for his boat and seized it before he had a chance to remove the evidence. He wasn’t repainting Blade to disguise it, he was repainting it in a race against the clock to remove evidence that Olivia and Ben had been there. Clearly, his plan worked. Watson was a boat painter – he knew painting would destroy fingerprints….”
(quote ends)

I assume Wishart has quoted Det Sgt Landreth because he assumes that the police thought Watson deliberately painted his boat to cover up fingerprints. The quote from Landreth does not support this. Landreth is describing an outcome of the painting, not its purpose. But it’s Wishart’s humour that rules here. Watson painted his boat in a race against the clock to remove evidence – fingerprints! I take this as an indication that Wishart has visited pages 158-161 of Trial By Trickery, as I suggested, and discovered that the official motive for the painting didn’t work. Painting to disguise the boat, as the Crown put to the court in 1999, was a nonsense. So what else could there be?
Answer - covering up fingerprints in a race against the clock! What else? Watson didn’t think of a bucket of water, a cloth and a squirt of detergent. That would be my own preference in this circumstance, or any other circumstance unless there was insufficent water at hand.  But there was quite lot of water at hand, certainly enough for a race against the clock. I reckon I’d do it in, conservatively, about two and a half minutes using the water at hand and detergent, unless I didn’t have any detergent, and a rag, unless I didn’t have a rag, although I could, in a race against the clock, use an old tshirt or a tea towel, or even a paper towel or two.  .

Painting, Watson thought, was quicker for a race against the clock  than the water / detergent / rag technique. So urgent was the race against the clock that painting was necessary in broad daylight in the middle of a popular yachting environment crowded with boats leaving last night’s party at Furneaux Lodge, many of whose crews would see and remember the strange sight of a yacht being painted while it sailed. Attracting attention was less damaging than waiting so as to paint in secret.
It was fortunate for Watson that while he didn’t have water or detergent or a rag, he had paint.

No – Wishart is full of jokes, but I will pay for reality, not a laugh. I’m not even convinced that the yacht seen was Watson’s. The description of the boat could be applied to many. It’s common enough and I’m sure there were others of the same description sailing around the Sounds at the time. Nor can I buy into any boat at all being painted at sea. Young Matthew Stevens, an 8 year old praised for a superb memory and observational skill, didn’t notice anyone painting. He saw a man steering the boat and another with ‘a glass or something in his hand’. I’d say that if there was painting in a race against the clock Matthew would have been aware of it. The other possibility is that it was a leisurely race against the clock or perhaps a leisurely clock and the painter was taking a tea-break mid-painting. After all, at least two hours later the painting was still being painted in Picton. So it was definitely a languid race against the clock. Why it was a race against the clock at all would be worth a better explanation than getting it done before anyone came looking for fingerprints. With 1500 party-goers at Furneaux, it was never a possibility that anyone would come looking in a hurry for fingerprints on any boat. In the end no-one came looking for fingerprints on Blade for twelve days. Painting to hide fingerprints? It’s absurd.

Wishart’s connection of the painting with the missing pair fails both the sensibility test and the credibility test. It wins the humour test hands down, even if it lacks any humour at all and only excels in the context of utter stupidity. The argument reflecteth the man or just his desperation? Either way, attempted gags and stupidity are not included in my $5,000 criteria.

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19 February

I've just visited Ian Wishart’s facebook site and found that he has laid out his murder scenario  in a comment to Neville Munro.

It goes like this:

Ben and Oliiva board Blade with Scott Watson and then (Wishart, Facebook posting 10 February) :
“…1) Ben and Olivia - trolleyed and tired - fell asleep on Blade. Watson did not kill them within earshot of anyone, that's why he slipped out under cover of darkness without turning his engine on while near the other boats.
 2) By strangling Ben in his sleep, or even wrenching his neck quickly to break it, Watson has total control over the still sleeping Olivia.”
While they are asleep on his boat but before he ‘slipped out under cover of darkness’, Watson goes to over to the boat next door, the Mina Cornelia, looking for more partying. He wakes and irritates the skipper, David Mahony, and at least one other passenger on Mina Cornelia. Failing to get anyone to party he goes to the next boat, moored alongside Mina Cornelia on the other side, again looking for a party. He wakes both the man and woman he finds there, irritates them and says to the man ‘give her to me, I’ll look after her’..."

All the while Watson is looking for a party or a woman, or both, he has a woman back there in his own boat. If he finds and brings back another woman there’ll be the four of them in a 26 foot yacht, inner dimensions about two and a half  metres by six.
This scenario gives rise to several questions.

  • Why didn’t Watson just ‘slip out under cover of darkness’ as soon as Ben and Olivia fell asleep?
  • Why did he look for another woman when Olivia was already on board Blade?
  • Did Watson intend to disport himself with another woman less than half a metre away from the sleeping Ben and Olivia?
  • Didn’t he contemplate the possibility that two or three might be a party but four a crowd?
  • When did he decide to kill Ben and rape Olivia?
  • Was it that having failed to get another woman, he returned to Blade and thought ":Damn, I can't find another woman. I'll have to have some bacon and eggs instead.. Just a minute! There's one here already! That's handy! I could rape her - but that might wake him so I'd better kill him first. I could have some bacon and eggs afterwards. I wish I hadn't gone next door and woken all those people. They might remember".?
  • If that's how he thought, why didn't he kill all the witnesses he had just created?
  • Did he forget about the witnesses he had just created?
  • If he is a rapist killer why did he bother going next door for a party when he could have raped and killed without waking anyone else and taking the risk of creating witnesses?
  • Is Wishart aware that diesel motors are extremely noisy, that starting one up in the early morning while moored alongside a yacht with 9 sleeping people aboard might be an unpopular practice even for boaties who don't have sleeping prisoners aboard, and that pushing off before starting a diesel motor in the early morning might be a common, if not usual, routine for yachtsmen whose yachts are tied up alongside other yachts ?

Perhaps someone could put these questions to Wishart and suggest that a reasonable person might find that there’s something incongruous about his scenario.
A commentary on Wishart and the Two Trip Theory will follow later today.
KH

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22 February

Ian Wishart and the Two Trip Theory,

Part One of Three
The Two Trip Theory was introduced into the trial of Scott Watson at its very end, after all the witnesses had given their evidence and gone home. Until it was introduced, Watson and his lawyers thought that his defence relied principally on showing that after the party at Furneaux Lodge he returned to his yacht in a water taxi in which he was the sole passenger. The apparent Crown scenario was that he returned to his yacht in a water taxi in which Ben Smart and Olivia Hope were also passengers and that all three had disembarked onto Watson’s yacht Blade.

Watson’s defence team showed successfully that he had in fact gone back to his boat in a water taxi driven by an employee of Furneaux Lodge, Donald Anderson. Anderson testified that he had taken a man of Watson’s description to Blade and that when this occurred there was no-one else in the water taxit. Watson had indeed returned alone.
This should have been the end of the matter but, in what I view as one of the most appalling events in New Zealand legal history, in the final day of his closing address to the jury Davison QC, now The Honourable Paul Davison QC,  turned the entire trial on its head. Yes, he said, Watson had returned to his yacht alone with Donald Anderson, but then he had returned ashore and later gone back to his boat a second time, in a water taxi with driver Guy Wallace!. Ben and Olivia were allegedly passengers with Watson in that water taxi.

This became known as the Two Trip Theory. It had never been present or investigated at any prior time in the entire  trial. As a result Watson did not know what he was accused of doing until his trial for murder was effectively over. Unaware of the crown murder scenario, he was unable to defend himself against it.
Wishart has amended the two trip theory for reasons which may be clear only to himself. However  his amendment is unquestionably rubbish. He says Watson claimed to have returned to his yacht at 2am New Year’s morning and that this was a lie. The claim is false. Watson told the police, regarding his return to his yacht, “I’m not sure. I don’t wear a watch.. I think it was about 2am., I have got a feeling it was about then. I’m not exactly sure”.

Watson was drunk, didn’t wear a watch and had no working clock on his boat. He had no reason to check the time when he left Furneaux Lodge and nowhere to check it anyway. Nor did almost anyone else have a clear knowledge of the time they left at the party or of the times when specific events ocurred. They are all forgiven their poor recall because they were drunk or just having a good time at the party and the time was irrelevant. Only Scott Watson is required to have a perfect memory not only of what he did and said but of the times at which he did and said them. His memory of the time he returned to Blade is addressed in detail in Trial By Trickery at page 208-9.
Wishart opens his attack on the theory with a brilliant essay on the tides and how they affect the direction which moored boats face. He aimed his essay at demonstrating that because the boats were facing a particular way when Donald Anderson took Watson to his yacht it could not have been at 2am because the tide wasn’t right for the boats to point in that direction Anderson. The only time the tide was right was before midnight. Therefore Anderson took Watson to his yacht before midnight. Superb stuff from the investigating journalist? No.

The brilliant research is rubbish. Instead of repeatedly defaming water taxi driver Guy Wallace in his book, Wishart would have profited by checking out the tutorial Wallace gave the court on the matter, when asked to do so by defence counsel Mike Antunovic:

Guy Wallace, Evidence in Chief:
MA: “‘And then you told us at that stage that the “Tamarack” at that stage was pointing towards the shore remember that …
GW     That’s right
MA      And do you remember saying that everything on anchor was pointing that way …
GW     that’s right
MA      What did you mean by that please, everything on anchor was pointing that way …
GW     Every boat that might be if you are throwing your anchor off the stern  for instance or off your bow, everything was facing the shore, like where Furneaux Lodge is situated the way it is, you would usually get an ever so slight breeze coming down the gully which faces east, and therefore it will always swing a boat around no matter how slowly and point towards the breeze.
MA:     Are you saying then that if there is no breeze then the boats at anchor will adjust themselves to suit the direction of the tide …
GW:    that’s correct
MA:     But if there is a bit of a breeze around then the boats can swing so that they are more affected by the wind than they are by the tide …
GW:    that would be right, depending on how swift the tide is in different places
MA:     So that there is nothing constant about the way the boats will lie when they are at anchor, it will depend on (a) the tide and (b) whether there is any wind …
GW:    very much the weather conditions
MA:     And would you agree that even though the water may appear to be calm at one particular time it is always quite possible for a bit of a breeze to come across the water and therefore affect the way the boats would be lying …
GW:    that’s correct
MA:     And the breeze might pass on through and then the tide will take over again …
GW:    that’s correct also
MA:     And you can get those breezes coming across the water even when the water might otherwise appear to be very calm …
GW:    that’s right”
Quote ends.

I’m told that Wallace was right and that at the end of an inlet, close to the shore, there is effectively no current at all. While the water does indeed desert the beach, its noticeable movement is not in and out. It’s up and down.
So much for the brilliant essay and its brilliant research.

But what evidence was there for a before midnight return, anyway?  Wishart’s analysis provides a model of the process he uses throughout the book. In brief, he sets out to display his brilliance and the incompetence or deceit of all others by by ignoring or hiding unwelcome evidence. His treatment of the two trip threory is representative..
Wishart quotes a statement from Paula Woolman, a security guard who had worked on the Furneaux jetty during the party and who gave three statements to the police over almost four months. Wishart reprints two pages of the text of the last statement, given on 24 March 1998 statement. The salient points are:

I have been asked about the male that I saw down at the end of the jetty prior to midnight. I can’t think of anything else about him other that what I have already said. I guess it would have been between 9pm and 11pm, I cant be any more accurate than that.

The man was a Caucasian, late 20s, solid build ie overweight (had a bit of a gut on him), 5-6” to 5 7” in height, I got within about 3 metres of him and he was shorter than myself (5 8”), short thick wavy hair, I cant remember whether he had any facial hair. He was wearing blue jeans, white tee-shirt with a picture (not words) in the centre, he also had a blue denim shirt over top. I remember vividly that he had a noticeable gap between his front teeth.

We are discussing a man in a blue denim shirt with a white tee-shirt underneath, like Watson. He had a gap between his front teeth, and Wishart provides a photograph of a younger Watson that seems to reveal a gap between his front teeth. However if Wishart had chosen Ms Woolman’s second instead of her third statement we would have found that:
“…The male was definitely of overweight build and appeared quite obese.  He definitely didn't exercise.  He looked like he didn't work by the way he conducted himself and his manner.”

So by 11pm at the latest Watson had put on enough weight since coming ashore that he had become ‘quite obese’. Earlier, and later, some had thought him ‘wiry’. Others described him as ‘solid’, or even ‘stocky’, both descriptions seemingly acceptable to Wishart. He is now, in the Wishart world, a man capable of being wiry and obese at the same time.  Nor did Wishart care to record the of Detective Constable AD Hill, who noted in the job sheet he wrote at the time: (document 11468,  11/2/98):
            4          “The male described in WOOLMAN's statement at the end of the wharf appears different in appearance to WATSON. “

Ms Woolman continued, in the extract Wishart has reprinted:
I would recognise him again if I saw him in person. I had a very good look at him when he was on the jetty and I can still remember his face.”

But Wishart decided not to republish DC Hill’s note that :
5          “WOOLMAN has been shown the photo montage and doesn't recognise anyone from the montage”.

The Woolman extract continues:
The man in the denim shirt looked creepy to me. I think it was the way he was standing there staring at people (no one in particular). I remember I said to someone (I have no idea who) “I don’t like the look of him”. …

….Sometime later (possibly around 5-30mins) I saw him on a Naiad with a female. He was sitting on the side of the boat with his arm outstretched on the pontoon. The girl was just in front of him off to the left sitting on a seat. I didn’t see them get onto the boat. I remember her leaning towards the driver talking to him as they took off. I got the impression that she didn’t know the man but I could be wrong. I really can’t pin-point why I got that impression.
The boat took off in the direction of the Pines although I lost sight of it very quickly. ..
I would describe the girl as Caucasian, 18 years, shoulder length dark blonde/brown straight hair wearing a white singlet type top. I did not see her face well enough to describe it.
I have absolutely no idea who was driving the water taxi. I don’t remember anything about him.
A short time later (less than 20 minutes) he returned back to the jetty. I didn’t see him arrive back. I just noticed that amongst the people coming and going, he appeared again at the end of the jetty, I’m not sure where exactly.
He was by himself but I really can’t remember anything else about what he was doing or how long he stood there for.

There we have it. Watson went back to his yacht with an unknown water taxi driver prior to midnight, confirming the Wishart theory. It suffers from a surfeit of people and ignorance, perhaps willing, perhaps habitual.

There are two possible water taxi drivers, John Mullen, the man I believe actually took Watson, and Donald Anderson, the popular choice, where ‘popular’ refers to the court proceedings. Both said they took a man to Blade in the middle of the night. But there’s a detail Wishart has put aside. Here it is in in the words of the three men concerned:

Scott Watson, document 2029, 12 January 1998:      “I went out alone to my boat.  There was only myself and the Naiad driver.”

Donald Anderson, document 10823, 5 March 1998:  “…I would say I made in the vicinity of about 80-140 trips to and from boats that night.  It was unusual to take a person out by himself.  The only other person I took out by himself was a person who had hurt his foot.”

Donald Anderson in Court:
Paul Davison QC:      “Have a look a this document please, do you rem that document….
DA       yes I do
PD       Do you see some of your handwriting on that document…
DA       yes I do
PD       What was the purpose of that doc please….
DA`     um this was document I bel was act done in Blenheim not out at Furneaux Lodge
PD       Right, and can you rem approx when that was…
DA       .um well after the event I seem to recall
PD       Right and the purpose of that document was to show the Police, wasn’t, it the position of the boat that you took the man in the blue shirt in the early hours of the morning from the jetty out to a boat on his own is that corr….
DA       .that was one of the purposes of it.”

John Mullen, to me (Murder On The Blade? , final script)

At 02.28.17: Narrator: 'Did he take the man back alone or in company?

At 02.28.19: Mullen: 'When I took him back I took him back by himself''

So much for Wishart’s re-arrangement of the TwoTrip Theory. There was no blonde girl. Watson was taken to Blade by himself, either by Anderson or by Mullen. Therefore Ms Woolman’s sighting of an obese man in a blue denim shirt and white tee-shirt does not refer to Scott Watson returning to his yacht before midnight or any other time. It is entirely irrelevant The most basic study of the evidence in Wishart’s hands would make that clear. Readers should make their own decisions as to whether Wishart’s re-reading of the case by ignoring the evidence signals incompetence or intent. It is a decision that needs to be made repeatedly throughout his book.

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February 23

The Two Trip Theory Part 2
Watson’s obese return to his boat (see Part One above) arrives in Ian Wishart’s book after cruising through an ocean of ignored evidence. Part Two delivers more. It provides confirmation that Wishart is prepared to excise evidence deliberately if it contradicts his story. Were this a Robert Ludlum story it would warrant the title ‘The Red Tag Allegation’. While it might seem at first glance to be about the guilt or innocence of Scott Watson, I'd say it's all about vanity - and money.

I don't mean this to be read as significant to the case for or against Scott Watson. It's not. It's irrelevant to the case. It is no more than an indicator of the integrity of a self styled investigative journalist who has published an outrageously false version of the facts and issues involved in the Sounds murder case.

The context here is a Two Trip Theory variant, Wishart’s astonishing, unprecedented, groundbreaking, game-changing analysis showing that Scott Watson returned from the New Year’s Eve party at Furneaux Lodge  in 1997-8 to his yacht Blade before midnight. The Crown case on which Watson was convicted said he went to his yacht twice, first at 2am, then returned to the party and went back to his yacht again after 3.30am. In my view he returned to his yacht just once, after 3.30 am. In fact at what time Watson might have returned to his yacht is barely relevant in the real story. But to Ian Wishart it's important to reveal truths that he alone can discover, in this case in an instant, while fools have spent months or even years getting it wrong. I can find no other impetus for his book other than perhaps a desire to give some support to our downtrodden justice apparatus..

I've re-read this commentary several times. It's boringly involved in detail and I wish I hadn't started it. If you too are irritated by its detail, be comforted by the notion that you'll be in company with the devil.

The Wishart variant begins with a reference to an encounter between a party-goer, Ray Padden, and a man who came up to him at the party.

On his page 91, Wishart writes:

“And here’s another confirmed sighting of Watson that night:

(Padden quote): “…He was a male caucasian, he had a dark lived in colour.  I would say he is in his 30s.  He was wearing a blue denim shirt, with a red tag.  I thought it was a Levi’s tag.  It looked new.  I think he might have been wearing jeans.
He was about 5 foot 7, 5 foot 8.  He had a small frame, but still looked athletic.  I think he needed a shave.  The reason it sticks out is here is this guy with a new flash shirt yet it looked like he needed a shave and a bit of a clean up.

On page 120 we get the same quote again, as if the author is unaware he’s used it already. We learn that “ In that very same bar that night, Scott Watson had been making an impression” before Wishart goes again to Ray Padden, this time including some new information. We discover that Padden was annoyed by Watson at “about 9.30-9.45”.

Wishart quotes Padden:

At about 9.30-9.45 pm I was drinking with our group that was Nick, Brent Newton, his girlfriend Teresa and Tania. There were locals near us. This male person came over and started speaking to me. He said he had built his boat and that it was in the bay…
…He was a male caucasian, he had a dark lived in colour.  I would say he is in his 30s.  He was wearing a blue denim shirt, with a red tag.  I thought it was a Levis tag.  It looked new.  I think he might have been wearing jeans.
He was about 5 foot 7, 5 foot 8.  He had a small frame, but still looked athletic.  I think he needed a shave.  The reason it sticks out is here is this guy with a new flash shirt yet it looked like he needed a shave and a bit of a clean up…”

The same Ray Padden passage is quoted yet again on pages 268-9, where for the first time Wishart publishes the passage as Padden swore it – almost. Wishart first notes that Watson ‘reappeared after midnight’ and then quotes a witness named Brent Newton who told the police:
“The bar was reasonably full and I had had quite a bit to drink.
After midnight, I think it was after midnight, some guy in the bar approached Ray, apparently asking him for some drugs.  Ray later told me that.  Ray didn't have any drugs.  This guy just asked him for some.
Ray apparently told him that he didn't have any and Ray told me that this guy made the comment to him  "Dog on a chain Bro". 

There’s a difference of opinion here, about the time, Newton makes the time ‘I think it was after midnight’ while  Padden has ‘at about 9.30-9.45’. Wishart chooses between them - but keeps it secret that a choice is involved.

First he re-introduces Padden:
Now let’s hear from Ray Padden, the man who was first approached..

Then he quotes directly from Padden’s statement. But this time he starts a sentence earlier than he had started previously at page 120:
The atmosphere was pretty happy except for one person.
 “This male person came over and started speaking to me. He said that he had built his boat and that it was in the bay. He asked me if I had any drugs.  I said no.  I said “Look I don’t know you you could be a cop anyway I don’t take drugs.”  He then said “Dog on a chain bro...”
 “ He was by himself during this time and I am unsure if he spoke to any other people in our group.
I saw this person one more time.  It was about ½ an hour since he left.  I went to the toilet and on the way I saw this guy being searched by two security guys.  These guys were the two that were in the bar most of the night…this was the only two contacts I had with this person.
He was a male caucasian, he had a dark lived in colour.  I would say he is in his 30s.  He was wearing a blue denim shirt, with a red tag.  I thought it was a Levis tag.  It looked new.  I think he might have been wearing jeans”, remarked Ray Padden

Wishart continues, now revealing the point he is trying to make:
There is no question that this was Scott Watson, but here, just after midnight, suddenly he was wearing a shirt with a Levis tag, which doesn’t appear in the Mina Cornelia photo, and there was no mention of a wet sleeve. Had he slipped back to his boat for a change of clothes after being asked whether he had “pissed” on his sleeve?

There it is, Watson was suddenly wearing a shirt with a Levis tag  ‘just after midnight’, a red tag shirt ‘ which doesn’t appear in the Mina Cornelia photo …  Had he slipped back to his boat for a change of clothes after being asked whether he had “pissed” on his sleeve?”

But, remember, at page 120 the quote from the same statement has Padden annoyed by a red- tagged Watson ‘at about ‘9..30-9.45?: Now it’s the Newton option, ‘ just after midnight’.

What happened to Padden’s ‘9.45-9.30’? The answer is simple. Wishart dumped it.

Here again is the version Wishart printed on page 268:
“The atmosphere was pretty happy except for one person.
 “This male person came over and started speaking to me. He said that he had built his boat and that it was in the bay. He asked me if I had any drugs.  I said no.  I said “Look I don’t know you you could be a cop anyway I don’t take drugs.”  He then said “Dog on a chain bro.”

And here is the excerpt as it appears in Padden’s statement to the police:

 “The atmosphere was pretty happy except for one person.
 At about 9.30-9.45 pm I was drinking with our group that was Nick, Brent, Newton, his girlfriend Teresa and Tania.  There were locals near us.
This male person came over and started speaking to me.  He said that he had built his boat and that it was in the bay…etc.

You’ll note that the ‘9.30-9.45’ sentence is missing from Wishart’s version.

Padden followed this a few paragraphs later with “I saw this person one more time.  It was about ½ an hour since he left…. This was the only two contacts I had with this person.”. It follows that according to Padden’s recollection the last encounter between the two was half an hour after 9.30-9.45, namely at about 10.15-10.30, not ‘just after midnight’ at all. The significance is that pages and pages of Wishart analysis and allegation are rendered parentless.

Why publish the “9.30-9.45” and later delete it? In the earlier quotations the time context was sidelined. The focus there was on establishing the obese return in the company of a blonde girl. Timing was not the issue.

But the context in the third  Padden reference related entirely to the fact of a return and its timing. The red tag could not be seen before Watson returned to Blade  because its absence before the return and presence afterwards were proof of the return. He went back to Blade to change his shirt. The red tag seen afterwards is proof of it.
However the tag could not be seen as early as 9.30 because that was before a return to Blade was possible. Watson had hardly arrived by 9.30, and when he did the security team quarantined him on the jetty until he had emptied the bottle of rum he had brought with him. He eventually achieved this after choosing the drinking option.

To support his theory that Watson had returned to Blade before midnight, and all the brilliant sleuthing that went with it – the brilliant but false tide argument, and the brilliant but false return with a girl alongside, Wishart needed evidence that a suddenly obese Watson returned to his yacht to change his shirt at a time predicted by the brilliant but false tide argument. The brilliant but false tide argument demanded a return before midnight. But 9.30-9.45 was far too early. A red tag sighting then was unacceptable. The red tag had to be seen for the first time later, following a before-midnight trip to Blade.

The easiest way to achieve this and still use the Padden reference to a red Levis tag that ‘suddenly’ appeared was to get rid of the ‘9.30-45’ altogether. And so Wishart’s quotation of the passage omits that offensive second sentence, underlined above. This leaves Newton’s ‘after midnight’ sighting the sole contender.
How did it all come about? I’d say, and this is only a deduction, that Wishart was in such a hurry to publish his book, perhaps in a race against the clock, that he didn’t get around to reading what he had written - ever. The extraordinary incompetence of the typesetting supports that view. So when he got to page 268 he had long forgotten that he’d already included the ‘9.30-9.45’ reference on page 120.

Faced with the evidence, on the one hand, of a witness who quoted an unwelcome time of 9.30-9.45 and didn’t say anything about having a bit to drink - and wouldn’t have had time to be affected by drink anyway at 9.45, and, on the other hand, the welcome ‘just after midnight’ evidence of another who did speak of having a bit to drink and who quoted a later time when he could well have been affected by a bit to drink, Wishart chose the one that suited his scenario and secretly jettisoned the other – despite having used it already.

The lesson I would derive from all this is that when you research, write, ‘edit’, ‘typeset’, print and publish such an arrogant, ignorant and inflamatory book in less than three months altogether, it’s a good idea to read what you’ve written  at least once somewhere in the process.

Watson went to his yacht accompanied by a blonde girl, changed his shirt and returned to the party, in Wishart’s edited version. According to the evidence, he didn’t, either before or after midnight.

Postscript
The following note arrived just before the posting of this posting. The note reads:

“Wishart claims that “suddenly (Watson) was wearing a shirt with a Levis tag, which doesn’t appear in the Mina Cornelia photo’.

He fails to note the reason for the red tag not to appear in the Mina Cornelia photo.

On page 91 he has published a statement by Amanda Egden saying that Watson’s shirt “had a red tag or some red embroidery writing on top of left chest pocket”. The reason why the red  tag doesn’t appear in the Mina Cornelia photo may well be that you can’t see the left chest pocket in the Mina Cornelia photograph. The shirt’s left chest pocket is totally obscured behind a foreground woman. So is most of Watson. Wishart knew this. The photo is published in his book on page 149."

Tomorrow, The Two Trip Theory Part Three: Wishart and the Anderson/Mullen question.

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24 February

Wishart an the Two Trip Theory, Part Three
The Mullen /Anderson Issue
The Two Trip Theory is described above. It  is bedevilled by a surfeit of water taxi drivers putting up their hands to claim involvement. While there are officially just two, Wishart could be expected to add another to the list - since neither of the two have ever said they took an obese Watson and a blonde girl to Blade before midnight.
Originally the Crown’s successful insistence on water taxi driver Guy Wallace turned it into a three trip theory, but Wishart’s obese return now makes it a four trip theory. In pursuit of simplicity and common sense, because Guy Wallace withdrew his hand well over a decade ago and because Wishart’s obese return is stupid (see Wishart an the Two Trip Theory, Part One above), I ’ll stick with just two. The candidates are Don Anderson and John Mullen.

Ian Wishart’s book includes a chapter titled  ‘Keith Hunter’s Taxi Theory Sinks’. Hence the  dscussion that follows.
 
Wishart torpedoes my Taxi Theory:
Hunter makes much of the fact that he was the first to ask John Mullen the hard question about a trip to Blade as described by Scott Watson.
In fact I made nothing of the fact that I was the first to ask John Mullen the hard question. This is because I was not the first to ask Mullen the hard question, as we’ll see.

Wishart reveals what I said in the excerpt he next uses in his book to show that I made much of the fact that I was the first... etc. He quotes, from Trial By Tickery:
He did describe just such a trip to me when I asked him about it in a videotaped interview for my film in February 2003. This was not because I asked the question more perceptively. It was simply because I asked the question. Mullen did not describe such a trip in court because prosecutor Raftery did not ask him the question.”

The issue under address is clear when contemplated in context. It was not who was the first to ask Mullen the hard question. It was what Mullen was and was not asked in court.

There are many reeasons why I accepted John Mullen’s evidence over the evidence of Wishart’s taxi driver choice, Donald Anderson - also the choice of the Crown in Court. It's essential to consider first what Scott Watson said about his return to his yacht, the only return he concedes – correctly in my opinion. His statements read:

8 January 1998:           ‘At about 2.00 am I took the water taxi back to my yacht.  It was a Naiad, yellow.   It was driven by an old guy with a hat on.  I was the only passenger.  I remember he wouldn’t let me on until he had parked the boat.  He kept telling me to wait.  I don’t think I spoke with him.’

12 January 1998:         ‘I can remember getting on my boat.  I remember the guy saying to me not to get into the taxi from the wharf. I don’t know what he was up to.  I think he was making it safe for me to get off the wharf onto the Naiad.
I think he had a hat on, a cap on.  I think he was old.  I had seen him earlier on that afternoon whizzing around dropping people off, picking them up.  I’m not sure whether I got a lift in with him or not.  I had no trouble getting off the Naiad onto my boat.
I think it was about 2.00 am.  I have got a feeling it was about then.  I’m not exactly sure. I don’t think I had a sleep or anything like that because if I had I would have still been there the next day. I went out alone to my boat.  There was only myself and the Naiad driver.  I got onto my boat first then I think I jumped straight onto Cornelius, and woke them up.

We now have an old guy, possibly with a hat or cap on, who wouldn’t let him on the water taxi until he had parked the boat.

John Mullen spoke to the police on 6 January. The associated jobsheet is succinct:

Police Jobsheet 20075, 13 Jan:
John Patrick Moera MULLEN (as per statement does not remember anyone [fitting the description of the unknown male]).
Scott WATSON stated he was taken to his yacht by an older man wearing a hat.
John MULLEN was the only older person driving the Naiads that night.
John MULLEN states he was not wearing a hat that night, and very seldom wears a hat.

Then:

Mullen, Statement to Police 10675, 6 February
I have been shown the identikit sketches of the males and do not have any recollection of a person matching that.

Mullen To Defence Private Investigator, 25 February 1998:
            “I do not recall taking only one passenger on my Water Taxi out to a yacht.  The procedure we adopted was to fill the taxi with as many people it could take, in a safe manner. I doubt if I would have left the wharf with only one passenger, although it could have occurred but I can’t remember doing it.”

Mullen In Court:
To Defence  Counsel Mike Antunovic:
MA      When you were driving your water taxi did you wear a hat?
JM       I cannot remember.
                        
MA      There is reference in the evidence somewhere to an older man, and I’m putting you in that category whether you like it or not really, wearing a hat or cowboy hat or a hat of some descrption, I may have that wrong,but do you recall that now?
JM       It is possible.

MA      It is possible but you are not sure?
JM       I’m not sure.

Mullen to me five years later, January 2003,
Here is the edited version included in the film Murder On Then Blade?:

John Mullen:
02.27.56          He was in the wrong boat at the wrong time .. taking up space.
02.28.03          A little bit aggro.. asked to get off in time he did get off..
02.28.08          .. and I  said I would take him back to his boa..
02.28.11          ..which I did myself after a couple of trips when he sat on the wharf , ..

02.28.17 Narrator         Did he take the man back alone or in company?
02.28.19  John Mullen        When I took him back I took him back by himself.

02.28.23   Narrator       And what sort of boat did he take this man to
 02.28.25  John Mullen       I couldn’t tell you. Just another vessel to my memory out to the left of the wharf ”..

02.28.34 Narrator         Watson’s Blade was moored out to the left of the wharf..
02.28.36 John Mullen         Just a youngish guy, jeans, white shirt or t’shirt type thing

02.28.42  Narrator        Watson was wearing jeans and a white tee shirt beneath a blue denim shirt..
02.28.48  Narrator       So now there’s evidence that two people took Watson back alone to his boat that night –
02.28.52  Narrator       ...Don Anderson and a man who matched Watson’s claim that he had been taken back …

02.28.56   Prosecutor    .. By an old guy with a hat

02.28.59  Narrator        Because John Mullen commonly wears..
02.29.01   John Mullen       . ..An old cowboy hat..”

Here is the entire interview of John Mullen, transcribed in February 2003
John                 Okay what we just been talking about was a person in the Niaid on that night at the end of Furneaux Lodge’s jetty who was intoxicated, a little bit agro, I think had trouble with, asked him to get out of the boat, because he was keen to get back and I would take him round personally because a lot of people were going different ways at that time and I took that person back to the boat.

Keith.              Right oh thanks, okay, I guess I’m a bit confused.  What did he do in the boat when you first saw him.  What was he up to.
John                 The boats were running shuttles to, of parties, two boats were trying to unload people at the lodge to get back to their boats.  He was in the wrong boat at the wrong time and asked to get off and he was taking up space.  Um, A little bit agro asked to get off, in time he did get off and I said I would take him back to his boat which I did myself.  After a couple of trips where he sat on the wharf.

Keith               Now just ask, what do you recall about the boat, where it was, the shape of it. What do you recall of it.  That you took him back to.
John.                I couldn’t tell you. Just another vessel out um, to my memory out to the left of the wharf as we went out. 

Keith               Very far out.
John                 Oh it wouldn’t be out far past the moorings.  Or possibly even within the moorings.

Keith               And what about the guy, the man. What do you recall about him.
John                 He was just a youngish guy, jeans, white shirt or a t shirt type things, had a few beers, probably too many, um New Year’s Eve.

Keith               Were you wearing a hat at the time.
John                 Yeh, well I usually wear a hat.

Keith               Describe the hat.
John                 Well an old cowboy hat.

Keith               Do you remember if there was anyone else in the boat at the time.
John                 When I took him back, I took him back by himself.

Keith               What time do you reckon, related to when you finished work  or whatever, what time do you reckon it was.
John                 One, two oclock, but I wouldn’t guarantee that because I don’t have a watch I think.

Keith               Any chance it could have been later than that.
John                 Possible.  Quite possible It could have been earlier.

Keith               Do you recall how it related to when you finished work.
John                 Well I was not working. 

Keith               Oh you were driving a water taxi.
John                 No, I was assisting, my son was on water taxi, I was assisting him down there, just assisting when he sort of hooked up, I went and assisted.

Keith               So you haven’t got a good feel about when it was.
John                 I would say

Keith               I mean really in terms of when you went home, when you did.
John                 I went home at five oclock and I know I went home at five oclock in the morning and it was well before then. 

Keith               Two, three, three thirty, four.
John                 Quite Possibly

Keith               And this was the man, you put him out of the boat.
John                 Onto the wharf.  Sit and wait your turn.  Get the flood of people away from the lodge, cause you want to go singularly in your own direction and I’ll take you back to your boat.

Keith               And that’s what you did
John                 And that’s what I did.

Keith               And there was just the two of you in the boat.
John                 Just the two of us in the boat.

I remember the occasion very well because the interview was recorded three times after technical problems with the sound recording. I and the film crew had been recording an interview with the witness Sarah Holland in Shakespeare Bay when we received a call from Ted Walsh. Walsh was having a beer with Mullen and  told me that Mullen had confided that he had remembered that he had taken someone like Scott Watson to a boat in the bay. Walsh told me that Mullen had been unaware of the significance of what he said he recalled. He had urged him to tell me the story, hence the phone call.

On Donald Anderson’s evidence:
Wishart finds fault in my omitting Mullen’s early reply to the defence private investigator. Mullen told the PI he didn’t  recall taking only one passenger on his Water Taxi out to a yacht.  On the other hand he finds no fault in his own omission of Donald Anderson’s early statement to the police, at a time when the police were looking for a ketch and a man responding to Guy Wallace’s description of the Mystery Man.  

Anderson said:
Anderson Statement 10065, 8 January:
I have heard the description of the person thought to have come from the twin masted sailing boat.  I cannot recall seeing anybody that I can specifically say fits the description of the guy from the sailing boat.”

A month later Anderson revealed an astonishingly detailed memory both of the man and of taking him to a boat called Blade. He referred to two phone conversations with an unknown policeman which seem not to be recorded in the case documentation.

Anderson Statement, 6 February:
“I remember several days after Ben and Olivia went missing I was contacted by a Police officer and asked about a dinghy we had here.  The same officer also asked me if I could remember taking a person/s to a boat called 'Blade' sometime on 31/12/97 or 1/1/98.  I said I couldn't remember, that I would think about it and get back to him.  Later that day the same officer rang me back and I told him that I could remember taking a person out to a boat called 'Blade'.  I told him that I could recall taking a male person out to a yacht that this male person referred to as Blade.  I'm just guessing but I thought that I did this trip at about 2.30 to 3.00 am on New Year's day.  The boat I took this person to is the one identified as Blade in the Police photograph dated 31/12/97 6-7 pm. 

The person I took to Blade would have been medium to slight build.  He was wearing a denim shirt, a lighter colour than his jeans I think.  He was wearing blue denim jeans.  The shirt was long sleeved and had a collar.  I can vaguely recall that he was wearing a T-shirt under the shirt.  The clothes looked clean but the guy looked scruffy.  He looked like he had 3 or 4 days of growth on his face and unkempt "curlyish" dark hair.  It looked like he needed a haircut.

I remember that he asked me politely for a ride out to his boat, which didn't really fit his appearance.  He was by himself and I said that we would wait until we got some more people.  He said that's not a problem and then I decided to give him a ride anyway.  There weren't many people on the wharf at this stage, and there weren't any waiting for a ride.  Rachel may remember him because he would have walked past her.  When I spoke to him he was on the floating jetty.  He gave me directions to where the Blade was and I remember him getting off the naiad. 

I remember there were no lights on, on his boat, so I assumed there was no one else on board.  He didn't appear to be intoxicated, but he did appear laid back.  I can't recall what I would have been wearing at the time of doing the trip to Blade.  Earlier in the night I was wearing tan shorts and a green Furneaux shirt.  Later I changed into tan coloured longs and a multi coloured ski jacketI was also wearing a hat, a green Furneaux one, but I think I took that off when I put my jacket on.  I may have been wearing the hat and jacket together at some stage.”

A month later Anderso recalled even more detail:
Anderson Statement 10823, 5 March
“I remember pulling up to the floating wharf and this guy was standing by himself on the wharf.  There were no other people waiting for a ride but there may have been others on the wharf. I can’t recall.  As I got closer to the wharf I could see this guy and thought he looks like a rough bugger, a fisherman sort of character.  He had several days growth, not just two days growth. It was like quite a few days growth on his face like you got to the point where you thought about keeping it for a beard.  He had a dark olive complexion not Maori but someone who had been in the sun or a hardened complexion.  His hair was dark, more black than brown and his stubble was dark too.  His hair was very unkempt like he hadn’t done anything to it for a very long time, it wasn’t really long.  His hair was like the guy in the identikit picture that was in the paper, not quite as long as the one with the longer hair in the sketches. His hair was almost getting curly, like wind blown.  He didn’t have a fringe, like his hair was off his face.  He could have been receding but I couldn’t say for definite.

I would say his age was between 26 yrs to mid 30s.
He had a blue denim shirt, light denim and I thought a white tee shirt underneath.  He had normal blue colour Levis jeans on but I don’t know about his footwear, I think it was more likely boots.
I think from memory that his shirt sleeves may have just been turned up a little, like just the cuffs turned up. I can’t recall seeing any tattoos or earrings on but he had that look where he looked like he would have tattoos or earrings.  His build was a medium wiry build, he looked taller than me (5’ 9”) but I never stood beside him to gauge his height because I was down in the Naiad.

As I pulled up I went to tie up and I think I even turned the motor off. I’m pretty sure I tied the back rope onto the wharf when the male person said to me “any chance of a ride to the Blade?”  They were the words he used or thereabouts but he did mention the Blade.  He said this in a real polite manner which I found a bit of a surprise because he didn’t look like that sort of a person.  His clothes were clean and fresh looking like he didn’t have beer spilt all over them and he didn’t seem drunk.
I said no, that he would have to wait until more people arrived for a ride. I was expecting him to complain but he just said something like “fair enough.”  He just stepped back a bit from where he was standing like it wasn’t a problem which was something we weren’t used to because everybody that came down and had been drinking usually complained if we told them to wait.

I then had a change of mind and said to him I would take him to his boat and then I asked where it was.  He pointed out towards our mooring out at the seaward side of the jetty as you look out into the bay, as I have drawn in the diagram.
He would of pointed to the general direction but as we got closer he pointed to the boat he called the Blade and I recognised it as one of our moorings. On the way we just talked in general conversation.  I can’t recall what about but it wouldn’t be much as its only about a 30-40 second trip”

This came from a man who weeks earlier had no memory at all of the man, the taxi trip or the boat he took the man to.
Of the recollections by Mullen and Anderson, I chose Mullen’s for a variety of reasons.  I’ll list them:

  • Anderson had said  initally that he could not “recall seeing anybody that I can specifically say fits the description of the guy from the sailing boat”
  • A month later he could recall taking a man of the right description in extraordinarily detailed terms.
  • At the time he described the man he had allegedly taken, the police identikit sketches by Guy Wallace and Roz Mcneilly were prominent in the media. Those identikits have long been regarded as entirely useless. Anderson’s statements seemed to be heavily under their influence:
    • ‘He had several days growth, not just two days growth. It was like quite a few days growth on his face like you got to the point where you thought about keeping it for a beard.  He had a dark olive complexion not Maori but someone who had been in the sun or a hardened complexion.  His hair was dark, more black than brown and his stubble was dark too.  His hair was very unkempt like he hadn’t done anything to it for a very long time, it wasn’t really long.  His hair was like the guy in the identikit picture that was in the paper, not quite as long as the one with the longer hair in the sketches’.
  • Anderson spoke of significant phone calls to and from the police regarding his recollection of taking a man to Blade. Neither call is recorded in the documentation. This is difficult to understand as the issue was of considerable significance to both the police and the defence.
  • I regarded with great suspicion then, and still do now, his statement: ‘His clothes were clean and fresh looking like he didn’t have beer spilt all over them..” There was nothing to prompt the comment. It can only have been put in his mind by someone who knew the police inquiry from the inside. That is, it seemed not to be Anderson’s statement but someone else’s statement. Wishart’s book makes much of an event where someone spilt beer on his arm at the party. Wishart claims it was Watson and that he went back to his boat to change his shirt (see Part One of this trilogy). The evidence makes no such claim.
  • Anderson’s late statements were the first evidence the police inquiry acquired that linked Blade with a man of the description of the mystery man. They were a major advance for the inquiry. But perhaps the police were unsure about it too. They didn’t tell the defence about Anderson’s evidence until just before the depositions hearing ten months later.
  • Anderson is plainly of the view that Scott Watson is guilty. After the film Murder On  The Blade was played on Television One, I received a single complaint about it. The complaint was from Donald Anderson, who thought it biased in favour of Watson.
  • Anderson did not match Scott Watson’s description of the water taxi driver who took him to Blade that night. John Mullen did.
  • I was well aware that John Mullen had told the defence PI he that he did not “recall taking only one passenger on my Water Taxi out to a yacht.  The procedure we adopted was to fill the taxi with as many people it could take, in a safe manner. I doubt if I would have left the wharf with only one passenger, although it could have occurred but I can’t remember doing it”. It could have happened, he said.
  • I had also been told several times, by Ted Walsh and others, that Mullen was a Vietnam veteran whose practice and philosophy in life was to stay away from trouble or any form of involvement in it. I read his early statements in the light of that advice. When he was given to understand five years later that his evidence was vital to a man’s conviction for murder, he came forward immediately.
  •  None of Mullen’s early statements were given under oath. Had he been asked in court about taking a man to Blade I suspect the truth would have emerged immediately.But no-one asked him in court. The matter is addressed in detail in Trial By Trickery at pages 232-4
  • Mullen’s words to me matched perfectly the statements of Scott Watson. It was a connection absent from Anderson’s statements. I refer to these fragments:
    • Watson:
      •  “I remember he wouldn’t let me on until he had parked the boat.  He kept telling me to wait. 
      • I can remember getting on my boat.  I remember the guy saying to me not to get into the taxi from the wharf. I don’t know what he was up to.  I think he was making it safe for me to get off the wharf onto the Naiad.
    • Mullen:
      • Okay what we just been talking about was a person in the Niaid on that night at the end of Furneaux Lodge’s jetty who was intoxicated, a little bit agro, I think had trouble with, asked him to get out of the boat, because he was keen to get back and I would take him round personally because a lot of people were going different ways at that time and I took that person back to the boat.
      • The boats were running shuttles to, of parties, two boats were trying to unload people at the lodge to get back to their boats.  He was in the wrong boat at the wrong time and asked to get off and he was taking up space.  Um, A little bit agro asked to get off, in time he did get off and I said I would take him back to his boat which I did myself.  After a couple of trips where he sat on the wharf.

These seemed to me then, and seem to me still, to mesh perfectly. If there were any hint of contact or collusion between Watson and Mullen I might change my mind, but I cannot imagine that such possibility exists. In my view the statements of the two trip contenders are sufficient to identify Mullen as the water  taxi driver who carried Scott Watson to his yacht Blade that night.

Wishart ends his Keith Hunter Sinking Taxi Theory chapter with his obese Watson return to Blade:
Ðeprived of Mullen as an alibi, and with the Anderson trip timed around 11pm because of the tidal evidence, and security guard Paul Woolman witnessing it, we are left with Guy Wallace as the likely driver for the final trip back to Blade.”

Absent any new stimulus to continue this vein, I’ll not address Wishart’s book again, unless it be in a courtroom setting.

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13 March 2016
I have been asked to explain the episode in the Sounds story in which a man at the Furneaux party claimed to be “off the only two masted ketch in the bay”. The comment has been attributed to Scott Watson, and, somehow, taken to be an indicator of guilt. The facts are:

On 4 January 1998, 17 year old Amanda Egden  rang the police about the Furnaux Lodge party. She did not give a statement but notes were taken of her call. The policeman who took the call wrote that Egden had said:

About 2 or 3am on 1.1.98 a man came up to me and Richard Egden, Millie Savill, Cara Brosnahan, Ollie Perkins, Chris Bismanand Clive Macfarlan plus a few others.  He said to me about a '‘PROSAC" T-Shirt if you come on my boat you can come to Tonga and around the islands.  We asked how big this yacht was he said 30’ or 34’ long.  …

I would describe him as:
Male,  Caucasian, Approx 28-30 years,  Short, Stocky, Short brown hair No. 4 - all spiked up,        Stubble only,  Small eyes, Nose pointed/hooked, Tattoos up left arm - little one by thumb,    One on left arm was a large tattoo,  Possibly wore earring

           Clothing:             Jeans Blue, Blue denim shirt lighter than jeans colour,  Possibly boots
           A smoker/drinker.  Quiet talker, seemed seedy and weird.
          He said his yacht was out there so I think he meant in Furneaux Bar.

Egden’s  description could be put to Scott Watson. Her information  on 4 January included reference to an invitation to a trip to Tonga, but she said nothing about a two masted ketch.

The following day, 5 January, Amanda Egden called in at the police station. She was in the company of Mark Tapley and a third young person, Millie Savill. They were all on the way to Twizel for a week. They gave no written statements, but notes of comments by Tapley were taken by a policeman. Tapley said that he had spoken to the same man as Egden earlier in the night.  The policeman wrote:

Tapley advises he was speaking to this guy earlier:

He said:               Come out to the yacht tomorrow morning, we may get boozed.
I said:                    Maybe.
He goes:              If you do come to the yacht it’s called (can’t remember name ended in “NUI”) it’s the only double masted yacht out there
.

This was the first reference to ‘the only double masted yacht in the bay’.
Tapley continued:

          The guy was with another fellow, shady looking.
          Tall, well built, blond hair sort of receding, nickname “Snowflake”.
          35 yrs, No further description.

On 12 January Amanda Egden gave a written statement in which she referred both to a trip to Tonga and to a two masted ketch:

We were approached by a male in the bar .… I didn't speak to him until about 10-15 minutes later. The rest of the group were talking to him. The second time I spoke to him we were all asking him about his Yacht that he had mentioned earlier.

I asked him where he was going on the Yacht and he said he was going to Tonga and all around the Islands. I told him that we could pull ropes on the yacht to help him sail it and to that he said "What, no sexual favours?"
… Milly asked the guy what his yacht was called in front of me. He said "What ever you want sugar."  He told us the yacht was 30-40 foot, but I don’t recall exactly what length. he said it was the only double masted Ketch in the bay that night. He also said he was from Wellington.

The second time we were talking to him he said his name was Scott, he didn't say his last name. I don't remember who asked him his name but I do remember him saying his name was Scott. ..

Egden was obviously describing Scott Watson in the context, for the first time, of a two masted ketch. At this time she had spent over a week in the company of Mark Tapley, who had already told the police he had spoken with the ‘only double masted ketch’ man earlier in the night..
On 17 January Tapley gave a written statement saying:

Sometime before midnight I spoke to a male caucasian about 30 yrs. 
He asked if I wanted to go out to his boat the following day to get boozed.   He said his boat was a double masted yacht.  He said the name was Ranaui or something like that.
…He was wearing blue jeans and a blue shirt.  He was about 5 ft 6 and stocky build.  I did not notice any tattoos.  He looked clean shaven and seemed pretty friendly.

Like Amanda Egden’s, this description also matched Scott Watson. It was given after Tapley had shared with Egden a visit to the police station on 5 January, and, apparently, had been in her company for over a week at Twizel.
On 3 March Tapley again described the man in the same terms as Scott Watson:
Male, Caucasian about 30 - 35 yrs, quite short and quite stocky, about 5’6” in height, cleanshaven, dark brown/black hair, very short but not number one or two.  No scars or tattoos.  I didn’t notice anything odd about him.

Tapley went on to describe a man he had met while speaking to the man off the two masted ketch:

Q             Who was the guy this chap introduced you to?
A             I don’t know his name, but he was about 35 yrs, male, Caucasian, 5’11” or so.  I can’t remember what he wore.  His nickname was “Snowflake” that’s the name the guy I was talking to said to call his mate.

Q             What did he call the boat?
A             Sound like Aranui, or Raranui or Ranui or a name like that.

At this point we have Scott Watson intending to sail to Tonga and claiming falsely to be off a two masted ketch - ‘falsely’ because there was allegedly no such two masted ketch.
The truth departs from that narrative:
There had been a witness to the conversation between Tapley and the two masted ketch man. 17 year old Alex Macfarlane told the police about it on 27 January:

 A guy who Mark spoke to said he had 2 masted yacht and it was the only double masted yacht in the bay.
I don't know what his name was but they all had nick names.
The guy that Mark spoke to was a male, dark possibly Maori, 5ft 7", medium build.  He has dark hair straggly and dirty and not a neat cut.  It was down to the bottom of his ears.  He had stubble.  I do not know if he had a mou or beard.  I can't recall if he had tattoos.  I do not remember what he was wearing although they were not clean and tidy clothes.  He would have been in his early 30s.

This is a reasonable description of the ‘mystery man’ described by Guy Wallace and many others. It is not a description of Scott Watson.
Moreover, Mark Tapley was introduced to the man known as ‘Snowflake’. Snowflake was a nickname given to Paul Broadway, who was at the party. Broadway was staying at Furneaux on his yacht, a ‘two masted ketch’ named Toroanui moored in the bay.
The above notes refer to two different conversations, one involving Amanda Egden, several of her friends and Scott Watson and a reference to sailing to Tonga, and one involving Mark Tapley, Alex Macfarlane, a man responding to descriptions of the mystery man, and a two masted ketch ‘in the bay’.
As an aside to all this, Paul Broadway did not recall the conversation and did not know or remember the man who spoke to Tapley and Macfarlane. Nor did his Toroanui respond to any description of the ‘mystery ketch’.
It seems to me that the best explanation for the differing descriptions of the man involved is that Macfarlane’s description is accurate and that, during the period Mark Tapley and Amanda Egden spent together, later during the party, then prior to visiting the police together on 5 January and then again at Twizel, they contaminated each other’s memories of the night. Egden picked up the two masted ketch story from Tapley and Tapley picked up Egden’s description of Scott Watson. Defence counsel were also of this view. The following is from the trial transcript.

Egden, Evidence in Chief, questioned by the Crown Prosecutor:
What else did he say to you about his yacht for example you said something about its length, and … yes he said it was about 30-40 ft and it was a double masted ketch, the only one in the bay.
Did he say the word 30 or 40 or he said a length that you think is 30 or 40 … yeah he said a length and we didn’t really hear, and we presumed he said 30 or 40 foot.
Did he say a name for himself at all … yes he said his name was Scott and he was from Wellington and he was about 26 or something...

Egden crossexamined by defence counsel Antunovic
...Can you rem the date you first contacted the Police….yeah beocs after that we decided that we decided ring them becos maybe there could be some connection
And was that the 4th Jan…it might have been the 4 January.....
.........
Do you recall going down to the Blenheim pol Stn the following day the 5th Jan…yes
And am I corr in suggesting to you that yourself and Camilla Saville and Mark Tackley were travelling from the Blenheim area down to Twizel, in the is that correct, you are on your way to  Twizel or somewhere…yes
So were you going…..yep I had a training camp (?)
So you called into the Pol Stn to see the Police….yes
And Camilla Saville and Mark Tackley were with u…yes
And did the Police give you a chance to read the information that you had provided to them the previous day do you rem reading something at all….ah possibly
Now do you rem Mark Tackley speaking to the Police in your presence when you were there…yes
Right, do you rem Mark Tackley telling the Police about being invited to a ketch um with a name ending Nui, had a drink the next day, do you rem Mark raising that with the Police….yes
You were there when that happen, at the Blenheim Pol Stn on the 5th Jan agreed…yes
Now, do you think that is where you have got in your mind this notion that the person that you spoke to in the Lodge bar had said something about a ketch, that it was as a result of what Mark told the Police when you were there…No.
Are you sure about that…Yes.
So this must have been a quite separate and distinct conversation that Mark had with someone else, that would have to be correct wouldn’t it…Yes.
Is it possible that your evidence in Court today about this person saying that he had a ketch has not been influenced or affected by what you heard Mark say to the Police that day – In other words you have just grabbed a bit of his information…Is it possible.
Yes…Yeah anything is possible, yes.

The following list is significant. It is of eleven friends who were witness to one or other of the two situations, the Tonga trip conversation and the ‘only two masted ketch in the bay’ conversation. All were shown the photo montage which included the photo of Watson I have described as the 'blink photo'. The blink photo was number three in the montage.  Nine recognised number three as the man who spoke of sailing to Tonga. All nine were party to or witness to the conversation about Tonga. Two didn’t recognise anyone  at all. The two were Mark Tapley and Alex Macfarlane.

  1. Jonathon Thompson recognised number three in Montage B as ‘the Tonga trip man’;
  2. Millie Savill recognised number three in Montage B as ‘the Tonga trip’ man;
  3. ’Christopher Bisman recognised number three in Montage B as ‘the Tonga trip’ man;
  4. Cara Brosnahan recognised number three in Montage B as ‘the Tonga trip’ man;
  5. Amanda Egden recognised number three in Montage B as ‘the Tonga trip’ man;
  6. Richard Egden recognised number three in Montage B as ‘the Tonga trip’ man;
  7. Timothy Everist recognised number three in Montage B as ‘the Tonga trip’ man;
  8. Oliver Perkins recognised number three in Montage B as ‘the Tonga trip’ man;
  9. Simon Todhunter recognised number three in Montage B as ‘the Tonga trip’ man;
  10. Alex Macfarlane did not recognise anyone in Montage B;
  11. Mark Tapley did not  recognise anyone in Montage B.

Number three in Montage B was Scott Watson. If the man who spoke of the only two masted ketch in the bay had been Watson, Tapley and Macfarlane would surely have recognised him. Everyone who saw and heard him speak about sailing to Tonga did.

In the end, the accusations held against Scott Watson in respect of the ‘non-existent’ two masted ketch are answered by the evidence.

Was there a two masted ketch with the name, as Tapley put it,‘something like Aranui, or Raranui or Ranui or a name like that’ in the bay? Yes. It was named Toroanui.

Did Scott Watson claim to own the only two masted yacht in the bay? No. The man who made the claim, if such a claim was in fact made, answered to the description by Alex Macfarlane, Guy Wallace and many others, of the ‘mystery man’ who was last seen boarding an unknown ketch with Ben Smart and Olivia. Hope. The description did not fit Scott Watson.

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5 April 2016
After reflection I have decided to put aside my earlier decision not to address the repugnant Wishart book here again. I’ve been persuaded by a comment by Wishart I’ve just noticed in a post by him on the TradeMe message board on Monday 14 March. He wrote (the emphases in bold are mine):

‘If you are truly open-minded Hazel....you would know that I examined Hunter's and Kalaugher's books for their best arguments and evidence of Scott's innocence...I have never been shy in any of my books about confronting difficult evidence....
Knowing that....do you honestly believe I would select only statements that suited my argument...? I was given stick for spending so much time taking apart Hunter's best arguments...If there was better evidence in favour of Scott that Hunter, Kalaugher and I all missed, then you'll have to tell me what that was

iwishart (30 30 positive feedback) 7:05 pm, Mon 14 Mar #3558

I wonder how readers will view ‘..I have never been shy in any of my books about confronting difficult evidence....’ and ‘..do you honestly believe I would select only statements that suited my argument...?” in the light of the following discussion.

Wishart’s most interesting discovery is one which underpins his book.It gave rise to a triumphant denouement chapter titled “Cracking the Case”. The discovery was that Watson had been seen with an accomplice painting his boat as he motored away from Furneaux Lodge on the morning of New Year’s Day. His purpose, as later stated by Wishart in response to my offer of $5000 to anyone who could provide a sensible and credible reason to connect the painting with Ben and Olivia’s disappearance, was as stupid as the alleged sighting itself. Watson was painting his boat in order to cover up fingerpints “in a race against the clock”.

Wishart has yet to offer a reason for the race against the clock and until he does we are left to assume there was neither reason nor race. Nor, according to evidence always available to Wishart but not acknowledged by him, was there any painting. Nor was there any sighting of any painting nor any sighting of Watson’s yacht Blade by the witness Wishart quotes as having seen painting. The evidence is that every element of Wishart’s painting scenario is false – the painting, the Blade sighting, the accomplice, the race against the clock. These underlie and epitomise his book. Like the issues addressed earlier, all are false. The real issue is whether they are deliberately false or no more than the product of ignorance or incompetence.

In his Cracking The Case chapter Wishart relies on the memory of an eight year old boy on one boat to describe and identify the yacht seen, and on a single adult witness on another boat for seeing the painting. I’ll address these separately.

The Painting:
The painting was reported to the police on 17 January 1998. Three days earlier, when Detective Inspector Pope began to assure the country that there were no suspects, the local press had reported that:

The police have seized a yacht belonging to Picton man Scott Watson and intensive forensic tests were being carried out on the boat yesterday at Woodbourne Air base.
The yacht had been taken from the water near Picton late on Monday afternoon. Police took such care when boardi it that all officers were wearing plastic gloves.
Apparently police are looking for traces of blood in the cabin.’

Then on 16 January: ‘Mr Pope said that the sloop, with a reddy brown superstructure, was ... seen at Erie Bay in Tory Channel, on January 1.  Sometime over the new year period the yacht was moved out of Erie Bay and back to Shakespeare Bay, near Picton. The superstructure had been painted from  reddy brown to dark blue.

The next day the painting statement arrived, from the skipper of  a 30 foot launch called Wild Honey. As Wishart’s book records, the skipper described seeing, while motoring down Queen  Charlotte Sound on the  morning of New Year’s Day:

 “ …a yacht similar to the description of the seized yacht that I have seen in the paper. It was under motor. There were two people on board.  One was steering it.  I think it might have been tiller steering.  There was another person on the port side.  He had a paint brush in his hand, holding on to the side stays. Tony in “Cheers” went behind the two yachts and I went the other side.  The yacht had to turn to avoid the wakes.\

It was then that I noticed the two colours.  The colour he was painting was a bluey grey colour similar to the one in the paper.  The original colour on the starboard side was pinky looking, like an undercoat had been put over red.
It looked as though the port side was nearly completed and the starboard side hadn’t been done at all.  When he turned it caused the person painting to lose his balance and swing out slightly. 

The person who was painting I would describe as male, race unknown.  He was wearing very dark clothing.  I only got an impression of him and couldn’t describe him at all.  I don’t think he was very big.  He was young, in his 20’s.  Black hair. 
The guy steering had grey curly hair, possibly in his 30’s.  I remember him looking at us.  He was wearing lighter clothing, possibly grey.
I remember passing comment to someone about, “He’s keen” and, “He better grab his paint tin” because he was about to get hit with “Cheers”’ wake and our wake.  The yacht was a sloop, about 30 foot.  It was hard chine. I can’t remember if it had a lee cloth..” 

Wishart’s book states “There is utterly no question that this was Blade. There is utterly no question that Blade was being repainted while the boat was motoring down Queen Charlotte Sound. There is utterly no question that Scott Watson had an accomplice on board …
This sighting, wrote Wishart, ‘was backed up by Robert Aitken, a passenger on “Wild Honey’

While he might argue that his ‘utterlies’ are matters of opinion, there can be utterly no doubt that this last statement is entirely false. It clearly refers to both the sighting of the boat and the sighting of the painting. It doubles the number of eyewitnesses to the painting, from one to two. But while Mr Aitken certainly saw the boat involved he said nothing about painting. Nor is there anything in the statement Wishart quoted to support his claim that refers in any way to painting.

Only one person ever claimed to have seen any painting – Wild Honey’s skipper. Ninety minutes after hearing his painting story the police called his wife. She told them:
‘ There was me and (my husband) and also Bob and Katrina AITKEN aboad the Wild Honey.  I can’t remember any person painting a boat at all on our way out.’
The policeman put his phone down and immediately called Robert Aitken, the witness Wishart claims “backed up’ the sighting. Mr Aitken said: ‘
‘… I can’t remember any comment … about someone painting or anything and can’t remember anyone on the yachts painting.  I can’t even remember any people on the yachts.‘
Then the policeman spoke to Bob Aitken’s wife. She said:
‘…  I don’t recall anybody painting any yachts.  All I remember was some comment about the yachts having to watch for the wake from Cheers and Wild Honey.  I don’t recall any comment about paint.’ 

These three calls were made less than two hours after ‘painting’ was first mentioned to the police. The statement by Robert Aitken that Wishart referred to (‘..was backed up by Robert Aitken..’) and which he quotes from in his book, was made nine days later, on 26 January. While Wishart quotes from it as if in the context of ‘painting’, painting does not feature in that statement, nor in any other by Aitken except the phone call in which he denied any reference to it.

The truth is that only one person ever spoke of any painting - the skipper of Wild Honey, the man who reported it on 17 January 1998. He did so a day after reading about the suspect boat, that its ‘superstructure had been painted from reddy brown to dark blue.’ Six days later he called the police again. He spoke of other sightings and associated confusions. The police notes of the conversation allow little doubt that his painting sighting was the product of a disturbed imagination. Ian Wishart cannot be unaware of this.

When he wrote that the sighting ‘was backed up by Robert Aitken, a passenger on “Wild Honey’ , Wishart had direct access to all of the statements that refuted his painting fantasy. Nothing of them is referred to in his book – unusual for an intrepid journalist who has ‘never been shy in any of my books about confronting difficult evidence....’ and who asked ‘do you honestly believe I would select only statements that suited my argument...?  

Instead the intrepid journalist wrote that there is ‘utterly no question that Blade was being repainted while the boat was motoring down Queen Charlotte Sound’. The reason was ’ a race against the clock’ to cover up fingerprints, not by washing a few small cabin sides with a soapy rag and a bucket of seawater but by somehow digging up an accomplice to paint over them in what is surely an absolute splash zone, secretly and in a hidden location where such an unusual activity wouldn’t be noticed or remarked upon, namely while on a yacht racing against the clock, in full view of passing yachties in a popular marine highway on its most highly populated day of the year.

To come: The ‘Blade Sighting’ - the accomplice identified.

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10 April 2016
I had intended to reveal now the identity of the painting accomplice of Wishart’s hateful book  and the truth of the painted yacht, but my writing has gone off track towards an assessment of associated issues. Readers may find the outcome of my labour irrelevant and even irreverent but, rather than dump it, since I’ve spent the time on it I have decided to provide it first.

There’s quite a lot of it, too much for a single post, so here for the next few days is a short series representing my analyses of the main issues, without any apology, or at most, just a little one.

In the final episode I’ll do as promised and reveal the identity of the painting accomplice and the truth of the painted yacht. Here now is Part 2 of an interminable introduction to it. I warn the reader that Part 2 is a collection of acute analytical ramblings rather than a cutting edge analysis of a mighty tome on a double murder. So too, when we get there, are Parts 3 and 4. It’s the finale, Part 5, that opens the door on the whole truth and the false foundation of The Hateful Book (THB).

The Painting - 2  
We have seen that the central narrative of The Hateful Book (THB) stems from Wishart’s claim that on the morning of New Year’s Day 1998 Scott Watson and an accomplice were seen painting his yacht Blade while they were motoring down through Queen Charlotte Sound towards Picton. In the previous post I established that Wishart’s claim that the witness statement about seeing the painting was confirmed by another witness is completely false. Only one person ever reported seeing Blade being painted ‘on the hoof’and that was the man who made the claim in the first place. His initial and later statements were put aside by the police, plainly because they indicated a disturbed mind influenced by what its owner had read in the press. Wishart’s entire book relies on that man.

It was, says Wishart, a race against the clock. The reason for the race remains unexplained, though since the publication of his book Wishart has identified the reason for the painting. It was to cover up fingerprints on the exterior of the cabin sides. Wishart offered this after being advised to consult page 160 of Trial By Trickery, where he found that the Crown’s claim that Watson painted to disguise his boat doesn’t work. He had to find an alternative and the only one he could come up with was painting the exterior surfaces of the cabin of a small boat on the water at full speed – to cover up fingerprints! Painting Part 2 addresses in detail the issues involved.

The Difficulties
1: The Room Problem
There are many difficulties to overcome in the “painting-small-boat-cabin-sides-while- you sail” business. First there’s the room problem. It’s well exemplified in the case of Blade.

There’s not enough room outside Blade’s cabin sides to stand and paint over anything at all. Your knees would get in the way and when you bent down to paint the cabin sides you wouldn’t be able to see what you were doing. With your bum out over the ocean, your eyes would be in over the cabin. You’d be painting blind.

There’s no crouch room either. Admittedly you could lie down on the cabin roof to paint below it but you’d need someone to hang on to your feet in case you slid off into the sea, or into the paint if the paint pot was a large one and you had put it down there at the end of your arm. The crouch painting scenario, arguably, needs a second accomplice for the foot-holding. Only one was seen.

2: The Credibility Problem.
Then there are the credibility issues. These can provoke mirth, though, I trust, not here. Obviously Wishart considers disposing of fingerprints by painting over them to be a more satisfactory process, in terms of safety, secrecy and speed, than the more traditional soap/rag/bucket of water. Bravely, he has no difficulty with the notion of an alleged murderer striving to destroy evidence of his two murders by conducting a painting operation out in the open amid constant salt spray and under the eyes of passing yachtspersons. Who would disagree with that?

3: The Paint Source Problem.
Wishart doesn’t identify the source of the paint. Lacking his guidance, it is to be presumed that Watson foresaw the need for paint that morning and had planned for it. The new paint colour was blue and this is significant because Watson claimed to have gone straight from the New’s Party in Endeavour Inlet to Erie Bay in Tory Channel, to a friend who had a week earlier suggested painting Blade blue. The friend even had some blue paint available for the job.

There is no evidence that Watson took any of that blue paint away with him but in Wishart’s scenario  he may have, because Wishart says Watson had not gone from the party directly to Erie Bay at all. He had conducted a painting race against the clock in Queen Charlotte Sound instead, all the way down the Sound from north of Furneaux Lodge. Instead of turning east half way down and heading through Tory Channel towards Erie Bay, as he claimed, according to Wishart he continued straight down the Sound to Picton.

4: The Failed Preplanning Problem
The alternative to his taking paint away from Erie Bay a week earlier is that Watson acquired it elsewhere during the week. Whichever was the actual source of the paint, the preparatory  paint acquisition suggests that Watson had predicted he would murder someone at the party or during the week and that he would need paint on Blade for a race against the clock to cover up any fingerprints that resulted. Despite the preplanning and the considerable availability of water, he didn’t think of the soap/rag/water fingerprint solution.

There are credible possible reasons for this. He may have been short of soap or a rag, or short of both soap and a rag. Or short of a rag and soap and a bucket for the water. Or short of just a bucket for the water. Or short of a bucket for the water and a rag, or of a bucket for the water and soap. Or perhaps he didn’t want to risk his back bending over the side with a bucket to get the water, or had forgotten the bucket, or had remembered the bucket but didn’t want to use sea water and had forgotten to bring any washing water -  though if he had intended to use dedicated washing water he may not have needed a bucket. Water is often dispensed in containers. He could have simply purchased some water and used the container it came in instead of going to the trouble of remembering to bring a bucket.

Ragwise - he could have used his sleeve, or an old tshirt, if he had one, avoiding the need for a rag.

Soap absence would pose the greatest problem but it may not have been necessary in the first place. Spit can substitute for soap in some situations and I’m sure this would be one of them. The job would call for enough spit to cover about 5 square metres. Since it is unlikely that one man would be able to contribute enough to cover five square metres it may be that this analysis has hit on the real need for an accomplice. Watson may have needed a backup spitman. If so, it plainly didn’t work – because for some reason they painted instead. The spitman may have suffered a spit failure.  Fortunately this didn’t cause the job to be abandoned because, as luck would have it, there was someone present who could be utilised as a backup paint man – the backup spit man.

Summary
In short, in Wishart terms and according to the logic he utilises  constantly in The Hateful Book, we now know that an accomplice was on the boat because the cover-up fingerprint operation called for a versatile spit man, one who could paint too.
NB:     This conjecture delicately omits any reference to the use of a non-seawater-damp rag. Given his liquid intake just a little while earlier, Watson could have moistened a rag in a very personal way, if need be.  And need be indeed. It was a race against the clock!
Whichever, the outcome of all the shortnesses was – paint!

Tomorrow: Painting 3: The cosmic significance of the painting and its place in the world of science

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11 April 2016

Painting 3
We return to Wishart’s headlong painting-in-a-race-against-the- clock narrative to show that there is only one way it can be accepted as a true account of what happened after the 1997-8 New Year’s party at Furneaux Lodge in the Marlborough Sounds.

The race starts with Watson and his accomplice painting early on New Year’s Day, prior to 8.30 am, in fact up to 4 hours prior, according to the Wishart chronicle. A very inebriated Watson left Furneaux Lodge and headed out to Ship Cove, a coastal indentation almost an hour away near the entrance to Queen Charlotte Sound. Somewhere he picked up the accomplice and started painting in a race against the clock on the way to Ship Cove. Here they would do something else (fishing, reading a book, cutting their nails? – see below) before heading down to Picton, painting against the clock on the way.

Where the accomplice was waiting and how he knew to wait there is a puzzle Wishart has not solved. Cellphones were comparatively rare on New Year’s Day 1998. Watson certainly didn’t have one and there was no landline on Blade. I imagine that even today boats with landlines are rare. Semaphore or urgent pigeon post are obviously out of the question. A quick calculation of Wishart’s figures give a time of 4.30 am. It was still fairly dark then and semaphore doesn’t work in the dark. As for pigeons – well it’s just  a silly idea. They’d still be asleep at 4.30 in the morning.

Despite the communication difficulties, Watson somehow contacted the accomplice and told him to put on painting gear and wait somewhere. The fact that this contact was successful gives credence to the possibility I suggested earlier, that Watson had it all worked out in advance. He planned to rape and murder and then deliberately sail away with a fingerprint problem on the exterior of Blade’s cabin sides, remedial paint and accomplice all organised in advance. I can’t come up with a more likely scenario, given the facts. As John Key would put it, I’m comfortable with the scenario because Wishart hasn’t put one forward at all.

Despite strong, generally accepted evidence that Blade and Watson were seen inside Endeavour Inlet at Marine Head at about 9am on New Year’s Day, we know from Wishart that at 8.50 he was actually over half an hour away at Ship Cove. We know this because THB quotes a statement from water taxi operator John Forrest saying that at that time he was coming into Ship Cove “and going across Resolution Inlet one of the passengers said something like ‘What a horrible paint scheme, somebody must have had some left over paint’. The reference was apparently to a strangely coloured yacht in the bay.”

John Forrest said not another word about paint. His statement continued: “I may have looked but I do not recall the yacht myself.  I don’t know which passenger it was who made the comment..”.

An unknown passenger alleged, by a witness who saw nothing because he didn’t bother looking, to have referred at 8.50 am to paint of unknown colour on an unknown, undescribed yacht in a location that does not feature anywhere in anyone’s scenario for Blade – that’s all Wishart needs to divine a connection with his paint-Blade conspiracy. The unconfirmed sighting of the unknown yacht of unknown colour and unknown description by the unknown passenger becomes a known part of Wishart’s paint-Blade narrative:

Now that we know – an hour later (when the boat-painting was seen at Snake Point) – that the boat had been completely painted on one side (see my 5 April post quoting Wishart: “It looked as though the port side was nearly completed and the starboard side hadn’t been done at all.”) , it raises the real possibility that a half-daubed Blade was at the entrance to Cook Straight at 8.50am on New Year’s Day, four hours after slinking out of Furneaux. The sighting is consistent with Blade then heading south and reaching Snake Point by 10am on an incoming tide’.

Although Wishart has ‘.. never been shy in any of my books about confronting difficult evidence....’ he omits to note that the sighting is inconsistent with and is contradicted by the evidence of the multiple witnesses who came forward to state that they saw a yacht of Blade’s description with a man of Watson’s description aboard at the entrance to Endeavour Inlet at 9am that morning. Furneaux Lodge is located at the head of Endeavour Inlet.

Astute readers will already have foreseen the editorial thrust of this episode. The “sighting consistent with Blade heading south...” etc is not consistent with his own Blade story at all, unless the sighting took place in a different universe (see below). The inconsistency involves the painting itself. When seen off Snake Point, which was halfway through the race to Picton, Blade was completely painted on one side, (“ the boat had been completely painted on one side” - see previous post on 5 April: “It looked as though the port side was nearly completed and the starboard side hadn’t been done at all.”). Yet at the beginning of the race, at Ship Cove, she was already half-daubed. There’s a misfit here which will be worried throughout this post.

I’ll not question what Watson was doing up near the entrance to QC Sound when he was up to his neck in a race against the clock. While he must have painted on the way out from Furneaux, so as to half-daub Blade, he stopped painting when he got to Ship Cove, apparently, because there’s no report of him being seen painting there. He was seen but not seen painting. Instead Blade was already half- daubed, or at least the daubing had ceased for a while. So what was he doing instead - fishing, reading a book, cutting his nails – who knows? He was there not painting, in a race against the clock.
Whatever, this is the first hint of a lazy race against the clock, an inference that cannot be avoided given the facts. What happened after Ship Cove, between there and Snake Point, is a question that cannot be avoided. ‘Half-daubed’ at Ship Cove and ‘completely painted on one side’ at Snake Point? Doesn’t ‘completely painted on one side’ mean ‘half-daubed? It looks as if no painting progress at all was made in that early segment of the race against the clock. But why was there an absence of painting between between Ship Cove and Snake Point? Did some unknown event or pressure stall the painting and cause ‘brushes down’ so that no painting progress was made for over an hour in a race against the clock to get things painted?  Or was it smoko time? A whole hour’s smoko?

The guts of the hateful book arises from that alleged mid-race sighting of the painting in action off Snake Point. Without the painting, the book wouldn’t exist. The painting is its heart, its oak tree, its totara, its conceptual foundation, its raison d’être, its great pumpkin. Snake Point is half way down the Sound – about an hour and a half from Ship Cove and a similar distance from Picton. In the Wishart universe, when Blade was seen there the painting was under way. But it was not being performed by Watson. Somewhere, somehow, he had picked up that accomplice to do the painting.

I’ll return to the Snake Point sighting  in the finale of this series of insightful commentaries but will first consider the finale of the race-against-the-clock, the Wishart version of the end of it - Blade’s arrival at Shakespeare Bay, Picton. It’s there, right by the beach at Picton Watson has planned to get rid of the bodies. This is the race’s clock climax. But there’s a major problem. Before race’s end the painting goes into reverse!

While Wishart’s story is that at the Snake Point sighting Blade was painted half red and half blue, three witnesses saw her arrive in Picton’s Shakespeare Bay and they were all positive she wasn’t blue at all. One described her as “a brown colour sort of like a wood colour’, another as “with a rusty coloured cabin”, and the third, when asked to decide between “two photographs of a vessel coloured orange and blue respectively” said that “The vessel coloured orange is very similar to the one I saw on 1.1.98, although I cannot be 100% on that”.  He went on to say that “the orange boat is the colour"

No blue! Yet Blade had been under the paint brush for up to seven hours and a good 40 kilometres, in a painting race against the clock! Where’s the blue? At Snake Point she was half blue and half red. Then she reaches Picton and someone has swallowed the blue. What’s happened? Wishart doesn’t say!

When they arrived at Picton they hadn’t made any painting progress at all – despite the clock counting down to an unknown deadline and for an unknown purpose.

Blade started this whole story with an all-red cabin. Then, after the painting got going she was half-daubed.  Next, half way through the race she was half blue, half red But at the end she was all red again. She should have been all blue. The end-race witnesses should have seen a blue boat. But they didn’t. They only saw a boat the colour that Blade had been before there was any painting. How can this be? Unfortunately Wishart provides no explanation – a constant feature of his book all those times when his conclusions contradict the evidence he provides for them.

In fact there are several possible explanations he could, or should, have offered. One is that the painting team, Watson and accomplice, were extremely slow painters inherently unsuited to a race against the clock. Another is that the clock involved in the race had stopped three quarters of the way down Queen Charlotte Sound.

Look at the facts again: when they arrived at Picton they still hadn’t finished a first coat. In fact on the evidence they hadn’t even started a first coat. The boat was still its pre-paint colour. While I would call the  painters ‘slow’, this only marginally salutes their slow painting abilities. They weren’t just slow. They were champion slow. Two snails would have outpainted them speedwise.

Readers should not fret about this. I have proposals that threaten to clear up the puzzling issues. The first is that this was a slow painting race against the clock, that is, a race for slow painters or for fast painters who can also paint slowly. However this explanation fails the logic explained above. The story doesn’t need slow painters. It needs backwards painters, painters who paint backwards so that as time goes on the paint comes off.

My second proposal is that it was a race against a clock that had stopped or was running backwards. Some will consider this unlikely because a race official would have noticed the clock was behaving strangely. The official would have stopped the race and called time out.

The third proposal develops my backward-painting suggestion above. It’s a game-breaker, or better, a scientific race-breaker. It would be greeted with applause in present day cosmological circles.

One of the great questions in cosmology these days is why time never seems to go backwards. The “arrow of time”  always goes to the future and never to the past. There’s no theoretical answer to this. Common sense aside, in theory there’s no scientific reason why time always heads off into the future. Yet the ‘arrow of time’ always points that way. Why? Well, Wishart may have unwittingly made a stupendous discovery.

Cosmology also predicts parallel universes in which the physics is totally different from the physics in our own  universe. Quantum physicists call them ‘bubble universes’.  Wishart may have come across one of these. The race against the clock may have taken place in a parallel universe where time goes backwards. And if time can go backwards then so can painting! After all, where are you more likely to find a bubble universe than when boating out on the briny? There are bubbles everywhere! Only one of them needs to grow into a universe and if this happened while you were in reverse or struggling against the tide you could well find yourself in a bubble universe with backwards-time!
Some readers may find my paint-race solution unlikely, or even unworthy. Think again. Here for the third or fourth time are the facts:

  • Prior to taking part in the race against the clock, Blade’s cabin sides were coloured reddy brown.
  • She was slowly painted blue during the race.
  • Towards the start of the race she was half-daubed.
  • Despite the painting, halfway through the race she was still half-daubed – she had a red starboard side and a blue port side.
  • At the end of the race both sides were reddy brown again.

At the end of the race Blade is therefore unpainted!.

It seems all wrong and simple logic suggests Wishart got it wrong at the very beginning of the race. Since Blade was actively being painted and was completely painted on one side half way through the race, (“the boat had been completely painted on one side” at Snake Point), normal logic requires that an hour earlier she must have been less than ‘half painted’.  But at Ship Cove an hour earlier, says Wishart, she was fully half- daubed. This is impossible. If there was no smoko break and she was still being painted between the two sightings, then logically she must have been less than completely painted on one side before Snake point. Since 'completely painted on one side' is the same as 'half daubed', she can’t have been half daubed at the Ship Cove sighting. She must have been less than half-daubed. Therefore Wishart’s “half-daubed” at Ship Cove should be “quarter-daubed”at Ship Cove.

But that only applies in our normal, familiar world that has forwards time. In the strange world of backwards race-painting, or paint-racing, the opposite would apply. The Snake Point/Shakespeare Bay painting contradiction unquestionably demands backwards painting and therefore backwards time.
If freshly brushed blue paint vanished during the course of a three hour race during which it was being applied, specifically during the race’s second half, you might reasonably expect the paint-reducing process to have been in action during the first half as well. In a backwards universe, when a boat is half painted half way through and is completely unpainted at the end, for consistency’s sake the boat must have been fully or almost fully painted at the beginning of the race. Then the new paint can fade away as the race progresses, going from fully painted at the beginning of the race when the painting starts, to half-painted halfway through and winding up completely unpainted at the end, after three or four or seven hours of unpainting.

To realise this and maintain consistency Wishart should have written “three quarter daubed” at Ship Cove, or even “fully daubed”. As Alice might have said, we should call the race an ‘unpainting race against the clock”.

This may seem a silly idea because you can’t paint in reverse. You can’t paint backwards. But that’s only a rule in our universe! My point is that you can paint backwards in time if time is going backwards. The only difficulty is that time is not known to go backwards in our universe. Very clever people write books about this. Given the facts outlined above, they would surely conclude that Wishart’s paint-race in reverse time must have occurred in a universe with reverse time.
That would be a different universe from our everyday universe. As we’ve seen, according to present day cosmology other universes tend to exist in bubbles. Our own is a bubble universe, though you can’t see if there is any of that pretty oily stuff on the outside that’s there when you blow bubbles with that bubble mixture that comes in the bubble kits you can buy for kids. Nor when you just use detergent for the bubbles. No other bubble universe has ever been seen before. They have always been considered to be completely separate from each other, so that, excluding psychic events and the dark arts, no one bubble universe can see, hear, touch, smell, or taste another, nor in any way contact another with handheld, laptop or desktop communication devices - until now. If, as it seems, Wishart’s hateful book does indeed provide hard evidence for a bubble universe with reverse time in Queen Charlotte Sound then he has discovered hard evidence for bubble universes, full stop!

The whole answer is that immediately before the race Blade must have slipped into a parallel bubble universe that had reverse time. In that universe she immediately became a blue boat. In universes with reverse time, painting is always performed backwards.Thus, as the paint-race against the clock progressed, she gradually became red again.
Readers may have doubts. They shouldn’t. The bubble universe solution is the only way Wishart’s book can hold water. This solution allows, nay – insists on backwards painting in a parallel universe in which time runs in reverse and so does painting. It’s the only way to explain Wishart’s absurdly logic-bereft story. Any argument that the three boats at the centre of his paint-race against-the-clock narrative were all different boats would of course be unsustainable.

Wishart should be congratulated for a magnificent discovery. Nobel Prizes have been awarded for much less. I anticipate he will now pursue his reverse-painting-bubble- universe discovery by addressing the question: “To paint backwards in a universe with reverse time, does the paintbrush have to move backwards, or is moving forwards in a backwards universe equivalent to moving backwards in a forwards universe?”
After that he’ll investigate sideways time and write several research-led books alleging that clocks and watches never tell the truth and that everyone else on the planet is a liar, if it makes him a buck or two.

Next: A body dumping story. The guilty pair arrive at Shakespeare Bay, Picton, and are seen unloading two wrapped bodies from Blade into a dinghy.

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12 April 2016
Painting 4: Wishart’s painting race becomes a body-dumping narrative.

‘The obvious place to get rid of the bodies was Cook Straight. Scott Watson, however, chose the least obvious place – Shakespeare Bay at Picton, as 37 year-old James Eric Keenan told the Police’.

So asserts Wishart on page 352 of his book. Of course he’s awarding James Keenan a more important role in the story than Keenan might appreciate because he isn't responsible for Wishart’s scenario at all. Wishart is.

Keenan was one of the three who reported seeing the yacht Wishart claims was Blade arriving in Shakespeare Bay on New Year’s Day 1998. Five months later, in May, Keenan and his friends told the police they had seen two men loading two heavy bundles off the yacht onto a dinghy. They were persuaded by a ‘Crimescene’ television programme to put their story to the police. James Keenan’s statement says:

“The guy in the dinghy was just standing there and he wasn’t doing anything.  He made no attempt to put the item in his dinghy at that stage.
The guy on the yacht went back into the cabin and he was away a similar time before he emerged with another sack or bag which appeared to be very similar to the other one.  He again appeared to have difficulty with it and he placed it half over the rails again.
At that point I mentioned to Anthony and James that it looked like they were getting rid of bodies as they were watching this also.  They both agreed with me.  We had a laugh about it because we thought we were a bit silly thinking about that.
....I have been shown two photographs of a vessel coloured orange and blue respectively.
The vessel coloured orange I believe is remarkably similar to the one I saw on 1.1.98 but I would not go as far as to say I am 100% it was the vessel.
It is the colour that stands out to me the most.  The cloth or whatever it is at the back of the boat was not up when I saw it.

As Wishart notes, all three witnesses identified the yacht’s colour but he doesn’t note that none identified the yacht, nor that back in January one was shown the two photos of Blade, one red and one blue, and that he hadn't identified it then either. Nor does he note that they identified the yacht colour after repeatedly seeing photographs and descriptions of Blade in the press over the previous five months. Nor does Wishart note that the body-evacuating yacht lacked the prominent canvas dodger that both young Matthew Stevens and that the alleged witness to the painting on the hoof saw wrapped around the stern of the yacht they described.

Witness James Chapman: 'I saw the guy on the yacht picking up a large object off the deck and placing it over some rails and the person was placing it in the dinghy. It looked like the object was heavy and they were having a lot of difficulty loading it.
I saw this happen twice. On both occasions the objects appeared to be similar in size. I would descibe the objects as being similar in size to an adult person wrapped in  white material of some sort. The objects were wider at one end and tapered off at the other. When this was happening Jimmy said ‘ look, they’re getting rid of bodies’ and had a bit of a laugh about it. The reason for that was that we thought it couldn’t be right...'

Wishart hasn’t found it funny. They were bodies indeed. While some might find Picton’s Shakespeare Bay an unlikely body- disposal proposition, Wishart has an explanation that rivals his covering-up-fingerprints-during-a-paint-race-against-the- clock in respect of its credibility:

We know Blade could have reached the entrance to Queen Charlotte Sound after leaving Furneaux Lodge, but the idea of dropping bodies overboard in broad daylight with other boaties beginning to appear seems foolish, which is why the 4.30 sighting at Tory Channel never seemed convincing. If you wanted to carry out burial at sea then the dark of night  would be far better option..’

The 4.30 sighting at Tory Channel was of a single yacht seen from the Cook Strait ferry in Cook Strait, five miles out from the entrance to the Channel. It was the only yacht seen. The horizon was otherwise boatless in every direction. Any other boatie beginning to appear at the time would have swum there.

‘Instead, it’s entirely likely an adrenalin-drenched, rapidly sobering Watson realised a quick disposal of the bodies was going to be impossuble, so instead made a dash for his home mooring at Shakespeare Bay near Waikawa. Time to regroup, time to think, time to repaint on the way...’

Watson found himself in an adrenalin-drenched, rapidly sobering sweat that caused him to change his plan to dump the bodies overboard in broad daylight at the entrance to QC Sound and dump them off the yacht into a dinghy in broad daylight at Picton. My personal view is that in the circumstances he would have been better advised to regroup on another binge and put up a ‘it was the booze’ defence in court.

The description of Shakespeare Bay as ‘near Waikawa’ is odd. In context it seems false. Describing Shakespeare Bay as “near Waikawa” is like locating, for those who are not familiar with the territory involved, one side of Wellington as ‘near’ the other rather than as ‘a Wellington suburb’, or, looking further north, describing Helensville as near Huntly rather than near Auckland.

In context, Shakespeare Bay is not ‘near’ the unfamiliar little outpost of Waikawa at all. Waikawa is east of Picton, at the head of Waikawa Bay. Shakespeare Bay is west of Picton. It’s a small inlet inside Picton Harbour itself. Picton is between the two, Shakespeare Bay and Waikawa. To describe Shakespeare Bay as ‘near Waikawa’ is to disguise its location and its close proximity to a population centre - Picton. Shakespeare Bay is not ‘near Waikawa’. It’s near Picton.

So - rather dump the bodies of his two victims five miles out in Cook Strait, where his boat was completely alone except for the five or ten minutes when the interisland ferry went past and disappeared into Tory Channel, Watson decided to offload them a few metres off the beach at Picton. Why? So that no-one would see him dumping. Perhaps that’s why Shakespeare Bay is not near the well known town of Picton but near some unknown place called Waikawa? Try: “For secrecy’s sake, to  dispose of the bodies secretly at a time and a place that no–one would see him,  he dumped them in the middle of the day in Picton Harbour rather than five miles out in Cook Strait where no other person or boat could be seen at any distance in any direction”.

The body-dumping story continues with an entirely imaginary scenario. The following is not evidence-led. It’s 100% Wishart:
 “The bodies, wrapped in sails and looking just like rolled up sails are unloaded at the shore into a vehicle and driven to a destination far away. They are buried on land by an accomplice, probably at night. The arrangement is to rendezvous again at Picton so Watson can uplift the sails, and then there is nothing linking him to the burial should the site ever be discovered. That’s why Blade was seen steaming towards Waikawa on the evening of 1 January – for a night rendezvous.'

This is news. I’m not aware that Watson was seen steaming towards Waikawa on the evening of 1 January. I suspect Wishart may be making it up. If not I’m sure he’ll let me know. As it happens, one of his most valuable witnesses, Sam Edwards, who we’ll meet later, thought he saw Blade way over in Erie Bay in the late afternoon or early evening of New Year’s Day..

The real problem with Wishart’s scenario is that it’s not just inconsistent and stupid. It’s inane and stupid. Readers might prefer the one proferred by a highly experienced mariner when he came across Wishart’s body disposal saga. Warwick Jenness is the director of the MRG research organisation that has tracked the mystery ketch around New Zealand. He passed this note to me a few weeks ago:

'In his final chapter (Wishart) describes how at about 11am on the morning of the 1st of January three persons from a house balcony on the shore in Shakespare Bay, Picton, watched a yacht moor up and two crew members unload into a dinghy two bags or sacks that the witnesses jokingly said could contain bodies. The witnesses were not boat-wise people and could not give an accurate description of the vessel.? Was this Watson unloading bodies from Blade?
On yachts it is common practice between Christmas and New Year in preparation for the annual holiday cruise to remove all surplus head sails that usually occupy the boat’s cabin berths during the year. On smaller boats this may include a #1 Genoa, #2 Genoa and perhaps a spinnaker, leaving just the working jib or headsail furler sail for cruising. Headsails are stored in sail bags that could typically measure up to about 800mm diameter to 1000mm in height based on the size of the described vessel. These sail bags could easily be mistaken by non-sailors as body bags when seen manhandled off the boat and into a dinghy.
Realistically Shakespeare Bay would be the riskiest bay in Queen Chartotte Sound to unload and dispose two bodies without being observed. Alternatively the Sounds contain hundreds of more remote and isolated bays where such criminal activity could go unnoticed.'

Now it’s a simple choice between opposing stories and opposing storytellers. On one side a standard yachting practice described by a highly respected and very experienced mariner, on the other a dark fairy tale about painted boats and departing bodies in a daylight divorce, a story absent the slightest vestige of common sense, by Ian Wishart. One of these stories is both sensible and credible. So is one of the storytellers. Which?

I can think of just two possible contexts in which Wishart can have chosen the exotic over the ordinary, the absurd over the credible, the body-dumping in public over the sail-removal in public. They are that he didn’t think of sail removal and didn’t research it, or that he did think of it and didn’t research it. This omits any suggestion that he consulted common sense and did research it but preferred body dumping, or that his boat-painting, body-dumping fantasy is not the work of an honest, competent journalist in an honest search for truth, or that he had any other motive in writing his hateful book. Judgement on these terms is better exercised after the series finale, next.

Painting 5:      I promised to address the middle of the painting race against the clock - the painting sighting off Snake Point. Will do so tomorrow, in the series finale.  This will provide a complete explanation of the painting.

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Painting 5: The Finale

Wishart’s hateful book rests entirely on the following extract from  a statement  made to the police on 16 January 1998. The witness was the skipper of a 30 foot launch called Wild Honey that left Furneaux Lodge mid morning on New Year’s Day 1998.  Here’s the extract Wishart published:

 ‘It was approximately 10.00 am and we were near the head of Endeavour Inlet. 
As we passed Bull Head heading to Snake Point, we passed a fibreglass 30 foot sloop with a flat, low cabin.  It was one I had seen earlier in the Furneaux Inlet.  The cabin and sides were cream.  It was motoring and had sail up.  There was no wind there though as they were in the lee of the hill.  It was being powered by a British Seagull motor.
Just in front of it, about 75 - 100 metres away, was a yacht similar to the description of the seized yacht that I have seen in the paper.  It was under motor.

There were two people on board.  One was steering it.  I think it might have been tiller steering.  There was another person on the port side.  He had a paint brush in his hand, holding on to the side stays. Tony in “Cheers” went behind the two yachts and I went the other side.  The yacht had to turn to avoid the wakes.
It was then that I noticed the two colours.  The colour he was painting was a bluey grey colour similar to the one in the paper.  The original colour on the starboard side was pinky looking, like an undercoat had been put over red.
It looked as though the port side was nearly completed and the starboard side hadn’t been done at all.  When he turned it caused the person painting to lose his balance and swing out slightly. 
The person who was painting I would describe as male, race unknown.  He was wearing very dark clothing.  I only got an impression of him and couldn’t describe him at all.  I don’t think he was very big.  He was young, in his 20’s.  Black hair. 

The guy steering had grey curly hair, possibly in his 30’s.  I remember him looking at us.  He was wearing lighter clothing, possibly grey.

I remember passing comment to someone about, “He’s keen” and, “He better grab his paint tin” because he was about to get hit with “Cheers”’ wake and our wake.  The yacht was a sloop, about 30 foot.  It was hard chine. I can’t remember if it had a lee cloth. 

I think the guy steering might have been standing.  I can’t remember if it had sails on deck.  It was motoring.  It did not have sails up.  I can’t recall anything else about these persons on the yacht.

Very shortly afterwards the ship “New Zealand Explorer” came past us in the opposite direction.  It would have passed the yachts.
We then passed the yachts, rounded Snake Point into Bay of Many Coves.’

(Wishart): “There is utterly no question that this was Blade. There is utterly no question that Blade was being repainted while the boat was motoring downQueen Charlotte Sound at maximum speed at 10 am on New Year’s morning. There is utterly no question that Scott Watson had an accomplice on the boat…

In fact there is utterly no question that Wishart’s claims are false. Wishart adds another two utterlies and then continues, directly:

‘(The Wild Honey skipper’s) sighting was backed up by Robert Aitken, a passenger on Wild Honey.’

We have seen earlier that this is blatantly false. I explained:
(Hunter):‘Ninety minutes after hearing (the skipper’s) painting story the police called his wife. She told them: There was me and (my husband) and also Bob and Katrina AITKEN aboad the Wild Honey.  I can’t remember any person painting a boat at all on our way out.
(Hunter) :The policeman put his phone down and immediately called Robert Aitken, the witness Wishart claims “backed up’ the sighting. Mr Aitken said: ‘‘… I can’t remember any commentabout someone painting or anything and can’t remember anyone on the yachts painting.  I can’t even remember any people on the yachts.‘
(Hunter):Then the policeman spoke to Bob Aitken’s wife. She said:‘…  I don’t recall anybody painting any yachts.  All I remember was some comment about the yachts having to watch for the wake from Cheers and Wild Honey.  I don’t recall any comment about paint.’ 

Wishart’s next most important witnesses were Terence Stevens and his eight-year old son Matthew, who were aboard Velocity, the family yacht, as they travelled down Queen Charlotte Sound to Gem Resort. Gem Resort is in The Bay of Many Coves, on the northern side of the Sound, just before Tory Channel enters on the south side. Three and a half months later Terence Stevens described a small yacht they had passed on the way Wishart quotes his statement of 17 March:

‘I noticed a boat directly ahead of me. I could see the stern and it looked like an old fashioned boat, approximately 26-27 ft long, in that region. It had browny red cabin sides, white lee cloth around the stern, whiteish coloured hull travelling south at a slightly slower speed than us. We believe that we were travelling at about 6 knots – so I would say it was doing about 5.5 knots. My yacht does not have a functioning Log therefore my assessment of speed is based on time & distance recordings I had made in the past. My yacht was travelling at full motoring speed which previous time on distance recordings earlier in the trip indicated that it was 6 knots. ..’

When the browny red yacht was seen young Matthew was at the helm of Velocity. He gave a statement on 19 March, two days after his father’s. He described the yacht in considerable detail:

Dad and Mum & me and Jonathan saw a wee boat just before Snake Point.
I was steering the boat and looking towards it because it was ahead of us. We were going at almost full speed because we were charging the battery up and you can only charge it up on full speed.
We got about 10 metres away from it. It took us about 5 minutes to catch up with it because it was going quite slow and we caught up quite quickly.

The water quite bumpy and this boat ahead of us was bobbing around a bit. We were bobbing around a bit as well. We were both motoring.

 It looked like the wee boat was heading to Picton or Waikawa, I never saw it come into Gem Resort.
The best view that I had of the boat was from the side.

The boat I saw was quite skinny at the back and wide in the middle, and it was skinny up the front as well. The boat was smaller than ours was, I think it was about 6 metres long.
I don’t think it had a dinghy anywhere on it.
The boat was quite white and clean looking, there was one brown stripe that went from the front to the back at the top of the hull. The stripe was about 3 inches wide.
When we came up beside it I was looking at it. Dad told me what side to go on because that’s the rules of boating. We went on the opposite side to starboard.
It was about 1 ½ of our boats length away

When we were coming up beside it I could see some of the floor and the seats at the stern of the boat. It had black stripes going down towards the back of the boat on the brown wood. This was on the seats & the floor.  I could see it was a keeler boat.  It looked the right size for a keeler.
The hatch was open and was made of wood and it had a little metal ring to open and close it.  I saw the hatch was closed but the washboards weren’t there. I couldn’t see into the cabin.  It was black.
The boat had cloth around the back.  It went halfway from the back into the middle.  You couldn’t see through it.  The cloth was white.  It was about 2 feet tall.  It was about 1 metre long side on.
I’m not sure what shape the windows were or how many there were but I saw cream coloured curtains that were shut.
It had just 1 sail.  It was on the boom.  It was quite little.  It wasn’t covering much of boom.  It was tied up with green and white ropes.  I couldn’t see any other sails on the boat.  There were ropes down the sides and on the top of the cabin.  They were coloured.  1 was black.  The ones on top were figure of 8’s.  The ones on the sides weren’t tidy.  I think  the side ones were jib sheets. 
It had safety lines down the side - one on the top and one on the bottom.  They were white.  The mast was white.  It had one spreader.

I saw a name but it was all joined together and messy.  The mast was straight, not curved like ours.  It had straight bits going out of the mast at the very top and it had the wind thing on the top.  I can’t remember the colour.  It looked like a plane with no wings. 
It looked older than our boat.  I’ve seen quite a few of those boats.  I saw one like it in Picton.

 Matthew’s memory of the little yacht seems extraordinary but no-one has doubted it. Wishart trusts it and so do I. Matthew went on to described the yacht’s occupants:

‘There were about 2 people on it.  They were both men.  Both had black hair.  One was steering.  The other was on the starboard side.  They were sitting down.  One had a glass or something in his hand – the one who wasn’t steering. The man steering had a green t-shirt and the other guy had a black sweater.  It might have been a woolly jersey. 
I think one was Maori.  He had a round face.  The guy steering had white skin and a skinny face.  I saw most of his face but I didn’t see all of it.  I don’t think they were talking.
I couldn’t see what colour their pants or shoes or socks were.
The guy steering had quite short hair and the guy on the starboard side had longer hair that came down to the middle of his neck.  It was long on top like Mum’s but I couldn’t see if it was curly or straight.  I could only see the back of his head.  The guy steering had short sleeves and the other guy’s sleeves came all the way down like a sweatshirt.  I’m pretty sure it wasn’t a t-shirt.
I have been shown a page with men’s faces on it.
I picked out the guy steering the boat.  I think he had the same hairstyle and same head.  It had a curl on the top on the right and had a few curls at the back and the rest was straight.
It was number three on the page.
He has some curls on the side of his head (Matthew indicates left side). He had that curl there on the left and had more going down the back of his head.  I think he looked quite like that guy but none of the other guys looked like him.
He was starting to grow a beard.  His face was quite straight.  He didn’t have a sad or grumpy or happy face.
I think it is the guy.  None of the other guys look anything like him.  I have never seen the man I’ve picked out from the faces before.’

There is utterly no question that this was Blade’, says Wishart, who of course goes a lot further. It is the yacht seen by the Wild Honey skipper being painted as it travelled.  ‘There is utterly no question that Blade was being repainted while the boat was motoring downQueen Charlotte Sound at maximum speed at 10 am on New Year’s morning. There is utterly no question that Scott Watson had an accomplice on the boat…

But there was a difficulty for Wishart. Matthew’ detailed decription of the yacht seen does not fit Blade. And how a Wishart deal with it? I’m talking here of the ‘journalist’ who boldly claims “...I have never been shy in any of my books about confronting difficult evidence.... and asks ‘....do you honestly believe I would select only statements that suited my argument...?

He solves it with some judicious ‘selecting’..
The essence of Terence Stevens’ description is : ‘it looked like an old fashioned boat, approximately 26-27 ft long, in that region. It had browny red cabin sides, white lee cloth around the stern, whiteish coloured hull travelling south at a slightly slower speed than us.'

Certainly that could well be Blade. But Matthew’s description was clearly troublesome to Wishart. A couple of its principal features don’t fit Blade at all:
 ..” there was one brown stripe that went from the front to the back at the top of the hull. The stripe was about 3 inches wide… I saw a name but it was all joined together and messy...
These two features – the stripe  and the name visible from the side and, logically, located on the side don’t fit Blade at all. She had neither stripe nor name. But they are very prominent features, unlikely for a lad with Matthew’s memory to get wrong. They tend to eliminate Blade, especially if a similar boat with those features happened to be in Queen Charlotte Sound at the same time. But Wishart’s scenario badly needs the rest of Matthew’s description of the boat he saw.

So what does a Wishart do about it? How does the journalist who has ‘never been shy in any of my books about confronting difficult evidence..”and would never  ‘select only statements that suited my argument ..handle this.? He handles it by ‘deselecting’ both. Neither of those key identifiers, the stripe and the name,  is published in his book. Both are excised from Matthew’s statement.

In fact all of the material provided above that I have treated with emphasis in bold has been deselected. None of the material in bold is included in the hateful book.

More smoke and mirrors:
Excision of unwelcome evidence is but one of a boatful of deceitful techniques in the book. Another is the misinterpretation of evidence apparent in Wishart’s false claim that the painting sighting ‘was backed up by Robert Aitken, a passenger on Wild Honey.’ I described this earlier. The same technique is present in Wishart’s false reference to another witness. He writes:

‘In case  readers are in any doubt that this was Watson and he had an accomplice on board , read the evidence of water taxi driver Sam Edwards who knew Watson and his boat well:

(Quotes Edwards): ‘The next day on the 1st January at about 10.00am, I saw his boat again somewhere between Edgecombe Point and Snake Point.  I’m pretty sure it was off Kurakura Point and he was heading south.  I was heading to Ship Cove  in Felix and when I passed him, I would have been about 50-150 metres away when I saw his boat.  His boat was still reddy/brown in colour then.  Scott was sitting in the cockpit and waved to me and I waved back. It was definitely Scott on board.
“I’m pretty sure that I saw a second person in the cockpit.”

Again Wishart uses his deselection technique. That last sentence has had the treatment. It’s been halved. Edwards’ statement reads:

‘I’m pretty sure that I saw a second person in the cockpit but I can’t be positive on that.  I’ve put two and two together after speaking with Zappa on the 2nd or 3rd of January and he told me that Scott and his sister had stayed for tea on the night of the 1st January.  I assumed that was who I saw on Scott’s boat.”

From this it’s not unreasonable to suspect that Edwards expected to have seen Watson and his sister on Blade and put her there in his memory. He’s demonstrably confused about what ‘Zappa’ told him. The evidence is undeniable that Sandy Watson did not visit him on 1 January at all. Zappa was the caretaker of the property Scott visited at Erie Bay on 1 January, but Sandy wasn’t with him then. She and Scott had called in to see Zappa the previous week, on Boxing Day. I’d say Zappa was unlikely to have thought on 2 or 3 January that the two had visited on 1 January when it had been a week earlier. The confusion plainly belongs to Sam Edwards.

But the real deceit is in Wishart linking the Edwards sighting near Snake Point with the alleged painting sighting by the Wild Honey skipper. That is again false. Edwards saw Watson and Blade between Edgecombe Point and Snake Point. So what? Nothing in that links Blade with the boat seen by Matthew Stevens. Nor is there anything in the sighting that is in conflict with what Watson said he had done on New Years’ day. He left Furneaux and went to Erie Bay. Snake Point, Edgecombe Point and Kurakura Point are all on the way to Erie Bay. Watson was seen by Edwards doing exactly what he said he was doing. It’s no more than standard Wishart smoke and mirrors to link that sighting with his alleged painting. All it means is that until or unless evidence links the two sightings, there must have been two similar looking yachts in that stretch of water on the morning of New Year’s Day.

However, there is utterly no question that when Sam Edwards saw Blade off Kurakura Point at about at 10am she was ‘still reddy/brown’. But again, there is utterly no question that at Ship Cove she was half-daubed. There is utterly no question that at Snake Point the painting odyssey was halfway through and Blade is supposed to have been half-blue. There is utterly no question that when Sam Edwards saw Blade earlier at Kurakura Point, she should have been a little bit less than than half-blue but more than half-daubed, for which Kurakura Point would need  be rich with reverse-time bubble universes. There is utterly no question that Wishart’s claims are again false

A pre-summary summary

In the light of the evidence and argument I have provided in this series of very insightful commentaries, there is utterly no question that:

  • There was no painting knee room on Blade’s deck beside its cabin. Therefore there was no painting unless a reverse-time bubble universe with knee-evasion properties had exerted its presence;   
  • The painting story does not just lack credibility. It’s profoundly stupid.
  • Anyone who would claim that a murderer would paint his boat to cover up fingerprints is profoundly stupid;
  • Anyone who would quote a policeman’s diary recording an attempt to remove paint from a boat cabin in order to uncover fingerprints beneath it and is unaware that it indicates a policeman’s belief that painting over fingerprints does not annihilate them is even more stupid than the policeman.
  • Watson would only have acquired paint if he had predicted he would rape, murder and paint. No-one has given evidence that he plans that well;
  • The spit problem is a problem.

As for the painting sequence and its demand for reverse-time painting, there’s utterly no question that painting as described would be accepted in evidence at a murder trial in a New Zealand court whether or not the court had access to a parallel, bubble  reverse-time universe .

The Final Act
If my analyis of the issues is to be fully accepted I realise that I must provide evidence that a yacht matching the descriptions given by young Matthew Stevens, his father Terence and the paint-reporting skipper of Wild Honey was in the vicinity of Snake Point mid-morning on 1 January 1998.

Eighteen years later this is obviously a tall order. The yacht must be one-masted, about 25-30 feet in length and have a cabin coloured reddy brown and a white hull. It must at that time have had a white canvas ‘dodger’ (I think that’s the term for the two foot high spray-catching cloth/canvas covers you often see around the rear of small yachts) two feet high and a metre long on each side. It must have a brown stripe about three inches wide at the top of the hull and a name on the side of its hull that was all joined together and messy...’. Since I also feel that Blade’s windows are too small for Matthew to have noticed that it had creamy coloured curtains that were shut, I’ll be looking for a little yacht with bigger windows.

Most important of all, it must have had two men aboard on the morning of 1January 1998.

Since I have no doubt whatever that the boat seen with two men aboard was not Blade, I have no doubt whatever that such a boat existed and was motoring off Snake Point on New Year’s Day morning 1998.

I had hoped to provide finality to this quest by the end of this working day but writing this pearl has taken longer than anticipated. I’ll report by 9pm. In the meantime here’s a picture of Blade in her reddy brown livery
KH

9.30pm: The result:

The 30 foot yacht RB spent New Year’s Eve at Punga Cove, a mile and a half up Endeavour Inlet from Furneaux. On New Year’s Day, at around 10am she left Punga Cove for Ruakaka Bay. Ruakaka Bay is the next bay in Queen Charlotte Sound south of the Bay of Many Coves, where the Stevens family was headed. Depending on the accuracy of the departure times offered by those aboard her, she would have been off Snake Point at 10.30-11am.

This fits the time the yacht seen by Matthew Stevens would have been at Snake Point. Matthew’s boat arrived at Gem Resort in the Bay of Many Coves at 11.30. The first thing his father Terence did was stock up on diesel. He paid for it with his wife’s credit card. The card details record that the diesel was paid for at 1142 that day. On their yacht, Snake Point would be 40-50 minutes from Gem Cove, where the Stevens paid for their diesel.

RB was a one masted yacht with a red-brown cabin and a cream/white hull. She had a three-four inch brown stripe around her hull a few inches below its top.  Her name was painted in the middle of the stripe. It is difficult to decipher in the photograph because it is in fancy, italicised , linked letters. You might describe it as ‘messy.
RB has large windows.If it wore cream-coloured curtains that were closed an observant boy like Matthew might well remember them.

There were four people aboard RB that morning, two men and two women.

Scott Watson would have motored past Snake Point up to an hour earlier. Sam Edwards thought he had seen Blade here at around 10am. That fits the time it would have taken Watson to get there after he was disturbed at Marine Head in Endeavour Inlet at around 9am..

RB fits the description of the yacht seen by Matthew and his father and the skipper of the Wild Honey in every possible way. Blade does not.

Here is RB as she was in 1998.

 

RB is the yacht Matthew, his father and the Wild Honey skipper saw that mornng. She was not being painted.
Wishart’s book relies completely on his claim that a yacht with two men aboard was seen being painted while motoring down Queen Charlotte Sound on New Year’s morning and that the yacht was Blade. It provides the climax to his book, his ‘Cracking the Case.’
But all it cracks is a very large egg.

His claims are false. His book is an odious fake.
KH

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16 April

Ian Wishart has made a suggestion that confirms 'wrong boat':
‘Bayloft’, a contributor to a Message Board discussion on the Trade Me website, has asked about the identification by Ted Walsh of a yacht he had seen being painted on New Year’s Day. Walsh thought it was Blade, although later statements suggest he wasn’t sure. I can only suggest it was an incorrect identification. Ted’s wife was with him and she didn’t see it and while I’ve not made a conclusive search for anyone else who saw it, I’m not aware of anyone else who did. Ted saw the yacht on 1 January but didn’t mention it until 30 January, so he had a month to develop a wrong memory. In that month Blade was depicted and described multiple times in the local press.

I imagine Ian Wishart would propose that Ted’s memory had been contaminated by the press coverage. In his view Ted couldn’t tell the difference between a two-masted scow with a high  box on its stern that he knew as a common sight in the Sounds, and the low, banana-shaped ketch he saw just twice, first moored near The Pines at Furneaux on the night of the party and again two days later off Cannibal Cove, with a young blonde woman aboard. Wishart would not be moved by an identification by a witness whose memory was so confused and vulnerable to contamination.  

I understand Wishart has also shown how to confirm the identification of RB as the yacht seen ‘being painted’ as it travelled down Queen Charlotte Sound on 1 January and I’m grateful for that. He’s noted that the RB was travelled ‘in tandem’ with another yacht and so, if the yacht seen was indeed RB, the sighting should have been of two yachts, not just one. The following quote has come from a website of his own. The emphases in bold are mine. They put the focus on the key issues. The key issues as described in his contribution are, admittedly, difficult to interpret.

“.. RB was travelling in tandem with a yacht suffering engine problems, so there would have been two yachts not one. There were four people on board, not two, the skipper was not poitively id'd as Scott Watson, and the boat wasn't being painted..’ (Wishart website)

Wishart is right to point out that two of the four people aboard RB, the two women, must have been in its cabin, perhaps making coffee for the men while they painted. More importantly, he’s also right about the tandem travelling and it is generous of him to point it out. It eliminates Blade as the painted boat altogether. Here’s the story:

The skipper of RB, the boat seen being painted, told the police (I’ve again emphasised the key point in bold):
“..On the 30th, both of the boats headed down the Tory Channel and ended up spending the night in Missionary Bay.  Both of the yachts, ‘Southern Endurance’ and ‘RB’ sailed in tandem from here on in.

The tandem two were Southern Endurance and RB and they should have been seen travelling hand-in-hand, as Wishart notes. And so, it seems, they were.
The man who ‘saw’ the ‘painting’ on a yacht which resembled Blade but which is now undeniably RB, was the skipper of the yacht Wild Honey. He stated that (the key points again in bold):

As we passed Bull Head heading to Snake Point, we passed a fibreglass 30 foot sloop with a flat, low cabin.  It was one I had seen earlier in the Furneaux Inlet.  The cabin and sides were cream.  It was motoring and had sail up.  There was no wind there though as they were in the lee of the hill.  It was being powered by a British Seagull motor.
Just in front of it, about 75 - 100 metres away, was a yacht similar to the description of the seized yacht that I have seen in the paper.  It was under motor”.
There were two people on board.  One was steering it.  I think it might have been tiller steering.  There was another person on the port side.  He had a paint brush in his hand..”.etc

To be clear: The yacht similar to the description of the seized yacht that I have seen in the paper was the yacht being painted. That was RB, although Wishart originally thought it was Blade. The Southern Endurance must have been the sloop just in front of it, the one that Wild Honey passed at Bull Head, the tandem yacht that wasn’t being painted. ‘75- 100 metres away’ in yachting terms  is equivalent to ‘arms-length’ in non-yachting terms. In dancing terms RB and Southern Endurance were all but doing a tango.

Of course, to be sure of the identification, the cream 30 foot fibreglass sloop just in front of the ‘yacht similar to the description of the seized yacht that I have seen in the paper’ would need to match a description of Southern Endurance by someone who knew her. Only then could she be one of the tandem yachts and confirm that the one seen by Wild Honey's skipper was the other.To fit the story and qualify as a tandem partner she needs to be something akin to a fibreglass 30 foot  sloop with a flat, low, cream cabin and sides. Unfortunately none of those aboard either of the tandem dancers described Southern Endurance, but – fortunately - the police had made up a photographic register of the boats that had been at Furneau on the night of the party. RB was number 110 in the register. Southern Endurance was number 105.  Here’s the register photo of her.

My thanks go to Wishart for indicating how to confirm that if a yacht was really seen being painted, it was not Blade but the yacht RB.

These matters aside, I have to report a rather chilling discovery made while preparing the postings of the last few weeks.
There are several references in the files to screaming heard out amongst the moored yachts that night. The police tried to track it down without success and so did I. Perhaps I should have gone further than I did.

The background to this is that all but one of the witnesss who gave statements saying that they had seen saw the ‘mystery ketch’ that night gave the same location for it. That location was well outside the inner rings of boats, over to the left of the jetty towards ‘The Pines”. Hayden Morresey, Bruce O’Malley and Robert Mullen, the water taxi driver I called ‘Nigel Tiller’ in the book, drew sketches of the location. All three sketches are published on pages 132-3 of Trial by Trickery. All three place the ketch over by The Pines. Page 133 also carries an aerial photo on which Eyvonne Walsh had marked the ketch location. It shows that she saw it in the same place out from The Pines. Ted Walsh also said he saw the ketch moored out from the Pines.  In my film Murder On The Blade? Guy Wallace identifies where he saw it - also out from the other boats and over by The Pines. All six put in the same place. Only Donald Anderson placed it elsewhere. In an early statement he said:

 ‘I can vaguely remember seeing the double masted sailing boat.  It was anchored on its own about 30 metres from the raft of boats which included “Nugget”.  I can recall going around the back of the boat and seeing a lot of gear on the stern. It looked different because it was not the sort of gear you normally see on a sailing boat - it would have been less unusual on a fishing boat.  I don’t recall taking anybody to or from that boat.  I took people to and from a scow which was moored not far from the other boat.’

The boat he described had  ‘a lot of gear on the stern’, a common feature in most of the reported sightings of the mystery ketch, and he distinguished it from  the double-masted scow Alliance. But the location is undoubtedly wrong.  He had previously placed it amongst the group that include Nugget. His second placement ‘about 30 metres’ from the Nugget group is where the scow Alliance was – but he made it plain he was not referring to Alliance. Obviously his memory was confused.

While checking the painting story I came across a statement from a witness who had rented a house near the Pines. He later told the police:

We purchased food and miscellaneous supplies at shops in Picton and then motored over to the Pines on my son’s boat. ….The Pines is about 20 minutes walk from Furneaux Lodge, it is the next bay down from the lodge. The house we stay at the Pines is a rental…

Two months later, the witness made another statement. Here it is in full:

“There is something that I meant to tell Police when they first interviewed me and I feel very guilty for not telling you this sooner.
I went to bed relatively early on New Year’s Eve.  I was in bed sort of semi awake when I heard a scream from a distressed female.

She screamed out “help” (about six times) “could somebody help me.”

The cries of help were said close together.  I could not tell if the cries were coming from the track below the house or from a boat on the water.  The house is situated about 100 ft from the shore.

I did not hear any male voices.  I never heard anything more afterwards.

I never looked at the clock when I heard the scream, however I estimate it would have been between 12.00 pm and 3.00 am.  I can’t be more specific than that.

I never really thought much about it until a month later when I realised I probably should have told Police.

I have spoken to everyone else that was in the house at the time.  No one heard anything.”

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Governor General - :

9 July 2013

It’s out. Scott Watson’s application to the Governor-General for the Royal Prerogative of Mercy has been declined by Minister Collins today. Wholly predictable in view of the Ministry of Justice’s administration of the application, it is the consequence of the most corrupt piece of paper I have ever seen. It suggests that Ms Collins only finds justice where the innocent are found guilty. Hence the Bain review is reviewed while the Watson review is confirmed. 

Written by Kristy McDonald QC under instruction from the MoJ’s Chief Legal Officer, Jeff Orr, the report was only made available to Watson’s legal team after they pressured former Minister Simon Power for access to it. Even then, the Ministry did not copy the report to the lawyers until they signed and swore agreements that it would not be copied to anyone else and that Watson and his father could read it but not have copies of it. The report is 150 pages long. Watson would have needed ten or a dozen prison visits by his lawyer just to have time to read it. That’s justice in the eyes of the Ministry of Justice.

Lawyer Greg King’s death last December changed those rules. His papers relating to the Watson case went to Watson himself and Watson himself had not signed the secrecy paper. Consequently I have been aware of the contents of the McDonald report for some months. It is a sick document that I suspect may have been written on the understanding it would never be made public. I can now say that it will indeed be made public, and that it will be followed by a sequel to Trial By Trickery which will detail Ms McDonald’s difficulties with the objectivity such reviews are presumed to demand.

The story predicting it has been written on this site several times in advance of this outcome.The key to McDonald’s ‘review’ is in the instruction she had from the Ministry of Justice’s Jeff Orr: namely to ignore Watson’s grounds for mercy and only consider a single ground Orr made up for himself. Watson’s application had been accompanied by copies of Trial By Trickery and Murder On The Blade? detailing his grounds. Both of these publications focus on the ground of ‘unfair trial’. They address it in great detail but although this ground is repeatedly demonstrated in the film and book, Orr instructed McDonald to consider only issues of ‘new evidence’. New evidence is not addressed in either book or film so Orr’s instruction was code for a command to McDonald that she ignore Watson’s case for mercy and recommend his application be declined.

I don’t know how or why Orr was allowed to get away with this. I don’t know why Watson’s legal team, led by the late Greg King, didn’t reject the review as soon as it came in. The fact is that Watson’s application has not been reviewed at all. McDonald has reviewed an application for mercy that Scott Watson did not make while the application he did make lies unaddressed because a Ministry of Justice official decided he should not be treated justly.

Briefly, here are the most basic facts of the evidence put before the Governor General, the facts that caused Orr to instruct McDonald to carry out a review they both knew would be false:

Fact 1:            The book and film focus on the ground of unfair trial. They demonstrate conclusively that the unfairness was occasioned by the conduct of the police, specifically the now dumped Assistant Commissioner Rob Pope, and of the prosecutorial team of Davison, Crutchley and Raftery.  The detail of the trial allows no doubt that the prosecutors intended to conceal their case from Watson until it was too late for him to reply to it. They succeeded and as a result Watson defended himself against the wrong case. That is undeniable cause for retrial.
Fact 2:             At trial the only eyewitnesses capable of doing so identified Watson as the ‘mystery man’ who had boarded a mystery ‘ketch’ with the missing Ben Smart and Olivia Hope. There were and are only three such witnesses: water taxi driver/bartender Guy Wallace, barman Chay Phipps and Furneaux Lodge bar manager Roz McNeilly. Phipps has made plain that during the police enquiry he was asked to identify Watson from a montage of 8 faces and declined to do so. That identification procedure was not disclosed to the defence and so was not notified to the court.
Wallace and McNeilly now say they were tricked into their earlier identifications.  Both now say Scott Watson is the wrong man.
Fact 3:             Only three witnesses saw the boat the missing pair boarded at the time they boarded it. One described its deck as being ‘chest-high’ to the missing pair as they boarded it from the water taxi. Watson’s boat is less than knee-high. The other two eyewitnesses both said Watson’s boat is the wrong boat.
Fact 4              It follows from facts 2 and 3 above that all of the eyewitness evidence makes Watson the wrong man and his boat the wrong boat. These are amongst the facts Scott Watson relied on in his application for the Royal Prerogative. In a case in which identification was acknowledged by all parties, the Crown, the Defence and the Judge, and after them the Court of Appeal, to be the main issue, they allow no doubt that if a new trial were held Watson would be acquitted.

The Ministry of Justice’s Orr ordered that these facts be ignored. To address them would result in the application being successful.

McDonald knows the rules regarding applications to the Governor General. She delivered a paper to a law conference about them in 2008. She knew the instructions she received from Orr were improper. Yet she accepted those instructions and acted on them. Furthermore her report is stuffed full of false logic and false argument. Her conduct is no less corrupt than Orr’s.

This is not going to go away. The Ministry’s advice to the Minister was predicted four years ago, on the day it was announced that career-long prosecutor/police counsel McDonald had been appointed to review an application based on misconduct by the police and the prosecutors. Another book is on the way. It will address the Orr-McDonald report robustly and in great detail. It will show New Zealand is a land with warts, many of them residing in and around its Ministry of Justice..

KH

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11 April 2012

The note sent out in early April to bring readers of Trial By Trickery up to date said:

" Scott Watson’s application for mercy is being opposed by the Ministry of Justice. It is a sorry story.
        Early in the process the Ministry took two steps patently designed to ensure Watson stays in prison. The first step was to appoint a career-long crown prosecutor and police counsel to review the application. Since the principal grounds for Watson’s application are improper and corrupt conduct by the crown prosecutors and the police, the appointee, Kristy McDonald QC, was purportedly commissioned to review the conduct of her colleagues and employers – an absurdity.
        The Ministry’s second move was clearly planned in advance to bypass  this problem. That move was to ignore the grounds Watson provided and choose its own,  after telling him repeatedly that it was his right to identify the grounds himself.         Watson provided his own grounds in twenty two pages of submissions drawn from Trial By Trickery and Murder On The Blade?. He supported the submissions with copies of the book and film themselves. The submissions and both publications focus on corrupt conduct by the Crown. Confronted with such unwelcome grounds, and despite its advice to Watson, the Ministry decided that McDonald’s inquiry would consider only “fresh evidence”, presumably chosen because the concept of fresh evidence is absent both from Watson’s submissions and from the two publications. That concept is irrelevant to the application he sent to the Governor General..
        The Ministry’s edicts directly contradict the purpose of the Royal Prerogative of Mercy. The objective is to ascertain if a miscarriage of justice has occurred - based upon the grounds put forward by the applicant. For the Ministry to claim authority to decide the grounds for Watson’s application is tantamount to a conspiracy to pervert justice and as blatant a scam as its choice of reviewer.
        Confining the grounds to fresh  evidence also contradicts Ms McDonald’s own professional opinion. In a paper she gave to a law symposium in November 2008 - two weeks after Watson applied to the Governor General for a pardon - McDonald discussed the role of the Court of Appeal in the Royal Prerogative process. She told the symposium that ‘the court does not consider itself bound by a requirement for new evidence if there is reason to think that this might lead to injustice or the appearance of injustice’.
        McDonald also told her audience that the process should be ‘transparent’. However, after her report was submitted to Minister Simon Power in March last year, Watson’s lawyers were required to swear and sign an agreement that they would not show it to anyone else before they were provided with a copy. Not even Watson himself was allowed a copy! He could be shown the report but not given a copy of it. I understand the report is 150 pages long. Unless Watson could speed-read and analyse  150 pages of detailed argument in the space a of a lawyer’s visit to his cell, the arrangement is little more than a secret deal the Ministry forced upon his lawyers by extortion, so as to prevent the process from becoming transparent to their client.
        In August the lawyers replied to the report with further submissions. They were then asked to provide affidavits from Watson’s trial lawyers. The affidavits were to discuss the grounds of appeal they took to the Court of Appeal in 2000. Those affidavits have apparently proven difficult to acquire – for reasons unknown.
        McDonald’s recommendations are apparent. If she recommended Watson be released he would have been out last March.
        There can be only one reason to decline a pardon here: McDonald has decided there is no ‘fresh evidence – which is what the Ministry obviously hired her to do in the first place. Instead there are the grounds she has ignored, those Watson identified and put forward himself - a long list of very corrupt acts by the Crown which led inevitably to a very unfair trial.
        It will be to the great shame of our justice system if the new Minister allows this scheming to keep in prison a man everyone now knows is innocent. Her response to her officials’ conniving will be a test of her integrity.
        In these days when demolishing the public service is of high priority, you may agree that it is time to clean out the Ministry of Justice, and the Crown Law Office, and those other august institutions which put justice aside in addressing the Sounds Murders ..

KH

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11 November 2011

The following reply to the Minister's letter of 26 October was sent to him on 5 November

Dear Minister,
Thankyou for your letter of 26 October.
I suggest your devotion to the cause of justice is well encapsulated in the following brief list.

* Scott Watson appealed to the Governor-General on 31 October 2008.
* Four and a half months later you appointed a lawyer to review the application.
* Watson accompanied his application with copies of Trial By Trickery and Murder On The Blade?, informing the Govenor-General that they detailed his grounds for exercise of the Royal Prerogative of Mercy
* The book and film focus entirely on the unfairness of the trial that convicted Watson. Both made it clear that the unfair trial had been brought about by the corrupt conduct of most of the figures who represented the Crown before, during and after the trial. These were and are his grounds for a pardon.
* The book and film do not conceal the identities of those whose corrupt conduct caused the unfair trial and conviction. They are the leader of the Police inquiry, Detective Inspector (later Deputy Commissioner Pope), the entire Crown Prosecutorial team of Davison, Crutchley and Raftery, the trial judge Heron, and the panel of the Court Of Appeal of Henry, Gault and Richardson. Journalist Cate Brett also belongs on that list. These are the people whose actions in RvWatson require examination.
* Mr Orr of the Ministry of Justice wrote to Watson on your behalf, saying:

** It is your decision to specify the grounds on which this application to the Governor-General is made. There is no obligation on you to present your application in any particular way nor any formal restriction on your ability to make a subsequent application on other grounds
** If you decide to proceed on the grounds specified in the current application, our advice to the Minister of Justice (and the Minister's advice to the GovernorGeneral) will necessarily focus on the issues you have identified.

* Orr lied on your behalf. You have refused to focus on the issues Watson identified . Instead, through Orr you appointed a career-long Crown Prosecutor and now senior counsel for the police to do the opposite, knowing she would do as she was told because she was dependent on your good will for her very handsome living, made entirely from the public purse mostly working with and for the people she was engaged to investigate.
* Ms McDonald (QC) refused to review the grounds Watson proposed as his grounds for appeal and chose her own. With utter contempt for any principle of justice and for the appplication before her, she sought and found a way to treat the application that allowed her to ignore the corrupt conduct of her colleagues and employers. She chose 'new evidence' because that meant she could throw away the documents that list the true grounds for Watson's application.
* Neither the book nor the film raise any issue related to 'new evidence'. The focus was entirely on the evidence given at trial and/or was always always available at trial but deliberately kept concealed by the Crown. That is the editorial content of the two documents Watson provided to support his application. 'New evidence' is absent from them as a concept and as a fact..

This list is very incomplete. A longer one will follow at a later date. However it summarises a few of the issues that now make it clear you were a worst case choice for Minister of Justice.
You know full well Scott Watson is innocent and that the System is guilty. That is why you responded to the book in the first plase and came north to discuss it with me.
If or when you leave Parliament with Scott Watson still in a prison from which you had the power to release him, you should have no doubt that your weak-kneed cowardice, and your lie expressed through Orr that you would investigate the grounds Watson identified in his application, will follow you for ever.
Yours Faithfully
Keith Hunter.

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=============================================================

1 November 2011

Minister of Justice Simon Power has replied to the letter to him of 12 October. His reply reads:

Dear Mr Hunter

I refer to your letter dated 12 October regarding Scott Watson's application for the Royal Prerogative of Mercy. I do not agree that there has been unacceptable delay in dealing with the application.

It is approaching three years since Mr Watson's application was lodged. The wide-ranging nature of the application, the way it has been presented, and the inquiries undertaken have all contributed to the time taken to consider the application.

As you know, the original application was made by Mr Watson on his own account and consisted primarily of the DVD and book. However, the applicant subsequently provided additional submissions on an ongoing basis up to February 2011. All the submissions and information were passed to Kristy McDonald QC as they came to hand for her assessment. She completed her application and provided a report on the application in March 2011.

At that point , Mr Watson engaged counsel to represent him and sought an opportunity to comment on Ms McDonald's report before a decision was made on the application. Consultation of this type is unusual. However the case has generated considerable public interest and I recognised the importance of ensuring that the advice I would unltimately provide to the Governer-General was as comprehensive and robust as possible.

A copy of the report was duly provided to Mr Watson's lawyers in June 2011. They in turn provided submissions in August 2011. Those submissions raised additional issues on which further details and evidence have been sought from Mr Watson's lawyers.

The Ministry is currently awaiting a response from Mr Watson's lawyers. As soon as that is received, it will be forwarded to Ms McDonaldQC, who will prepare a supplementary report.

I, or my successor, will then have all the information necessary to make a fully informed decidion on Mr Watson's application.

Yours sincerely

Hon Simon Power, Minister of Justice,.

 

 

 

 

 

17 October 2011

12/10/11

Simon Power
Minister of Justice,
Parliament,
PO Box 18,888
Wellington

Dear Minister,

According to the New Zealand Herald you have suggested “an independent body to consider applications for the Royal Prerogative of Mercy, for a pardon or reduction in sentence or referral back to court” and you “remain troubled by a number of these cases’. I have no doubt that Scott Watson’s is presently the most prominent of the cases which trouble you.
On election day, when you step down as Minister of Justice it will be five days short of three years since the Governor General received Watson’s application for a pardon. I suggest that there is little justice to be found in your management of that application and that the trouble the case now gives you is of your own making. Three years!
You may recall the trouble Watson gave you when you emailed me seeking a meeting six weeks after my book Trial By Trickery was published in March 2007. That trouble was still with you when we met to discuss it on 10 June 2008. Since then you have done absolutely nothing to provide justice to a man whom you have signified you know to be innocent of the charges which have now robbed him of his freedom for more than twelve years.
I’m sure everyone who has followed this case is aware of the tactic you have permitted the Ministry to employ to ensure Watson is deprived of justice. You know that Mr Orr will never provide a report recommending retrial, release or referral to the Court of Appeal. Ms McDonald, the pet QC he appointed to provide the report he wanted, has clearly provided that report already. It is the report that I and a multitude of others predicted she would provide against the evidence. Now  you are allowing Mr Orr to delay and play a waiting game in the expectation that you will depart Parliament with the matter unaddressed. That would leave both a new Minister and a new, non-lawyer Governor General – easy pickings for a predatory legal bureaucrat.

If you permit that and walk away from your responsibility to Scott Watson, it will be your reputation, your self respect and your conscience that will suffer, not Mr Orr’s or the new Minister’s.

There is nothing to complicate the decision demanded by the evidence here. The two documents Scott Watson attached to his application to the Governor General, a book and a film, cannot and will not be bypassed by Orr and McDonald except with deceit. The film depicts ,and the book confirms, the two essential witnesses in the case declaring that Watson is the wrong man. McDonald knows this because she has spoken to them herself. Disregarding the scores of other issues that utterly exonerate him, and regardless of  whatever sophistry McDonald and Orr bring to their reply to you, they know, and you know and everyone who has followed the case knows, that if another trial were held both Guy Wallace and Roz McNeilly would tell the court and the jury that Watson is the wrong man. At that point a jury’s verdict would not be required. Any judge with integrity would immediately stop the trial and release Watson.

The provision of justice does not call for any reference to the Court of Appeal. The fact is that there is no longer a case against Scott Watson, Mr Power, and there has not been for many years. Mr Orr is faced with the difficulty that results, that there cannot be another trial.

It’s time to act with the integrity lacking in the justice system you are leaving to pursue a wealthy future. Watson has the right to a future too. For God’s sake, let him go while you can.

Yours faithfully

Keith Hunter.

Back to the top

9 June 2011
The Minister has asked McDonald QC to ‘consider any submissions from Mr Watson’s newly appointed lawyers… before providing a supplementary report’ on his application to the Governor General for a pardon.

A supplementary report?  Why is there a supplementary report when The Report itself has not been sighted by anyone outside the offices of the Ministry of Justice except the Minister himself? This has never happened before. The routine is to read the report from the lawyer appointed to provide it and act on its recommendations. The only supplementary report after a QC report in an application to the Governor General I am aware of was in the Crewe case in 1979. Then Adams-Smith QC told Muldoon his first report should be followed by another on a related subject. The outcome was freedom for Arthur Allan Thomas,
Obviously McDonald hasn’t made such a recommendation. Otherwise Simon Power would not have to ask her to consider further submissions from Watson’s lawyers. Instead he has ordered her to consider them and then submit a supplementary report. That can only mean that he’s not happy with The Report.

It seems the Minister may be regretting appointing McDonald. He may regret appointing someone to address the bidding of the Ministry rather the requirements of justice. In that case the latest news is slap on the hand not just for McDonald but for the Ministry heavy Jeff Orr as well.
 
I imagine Watson’s lawyers have been asking to see the report handed in by McDonald on 21 March. Obviously they haven’t seen it yet, two and a half months later.

There can be no doubt Power knows Scott Watson is innocent. He asked for a meeting immediately after reading Trial by Trickery in April 2007. He wrote “Over the weekend I read the above book.  I am keen to chat to you about it…” The meeting took place in June 2008.
Watson has now been waiting two and a half years after applying to the GG for a pardon. What happened to Justice delayed is Justice denied?

Here is the schedule:
November 2008:          Watson applies to the GG for a pardon. He attaches copies of Murder On The Blade? and Trial By Trickery to his application and says they provide his grounds. The grounds arising from the book and film relate entirely to unfair trial brought about by corrupt conduct by the prosecutors, the judge, and the Court of Appeal.

Six months later:           McDonald is appointed to provide a report to the GG.  She is a lifetime Crown Prosecutor who is also the regular Counsel for the top ranks of the Police Force and commonly conducts the Force’s internal inquiries.

Six months later:           McDonald announces her inquiry will address seven isssues, They are all so-called “new evidence”. That is, she has been instructed to ignore the grounds the applicant Scott Watson has provided for a pardon, namely the corrupt conduct of her colleagues and employers, and to find some other way to get him out of prison. She hits on ‘new evidence’.

A year later McDonald hands in a secret report. She has interviewed two witnesses and may have read the book and viewed the film. She submits her invoice for her work - $134,000. In a paper she gave to a legal conference  a year or two earlier on the subject of applications to the GG, she had written that “for the ministry to disclose the basis of its advice and recommendation before it is considered by either the minister or the Governor General  would be consistent with natural justice principles in each case..….” The advantage, she says, is that “Transparency would be brought to the proces’.   Confronted with the Watson application she changes her mind. It’s to be a secret. An outright command from a regretful minister is needed before the applicant can see if she has recommended keeping him locked up for the rest of his life rather than address the issues he as raised.

Two months later:         Watson’s lawyers may be given a copy of the report on condition of complete confidentiality. It seems Watson himself may not be allowed a copy. Thus is transparency brought to the process by Kristy McDonald QC and her handler, Jeff Orr.

The truth is that Watson is in prison because ridiculously highly paid lawyers lied to put him there and keep him there. And now more ridiculously highly paid lawyers are being paid ridiculously high sums of money by the “Justice System” to look past that truth.

Unfortunately we can’t admit that because New Zealand is the least corrupt country on the planet.
KH

To the top

3 May 2010
The Governor General’s inquiry:
It can now be confirmed that an inquiry is actually underway. Kristy MacDonald QC achieved this by interviewing Roz McNeilly, the Furneaux Lodge bar manager at the 1997 New Year’s Eve party, in Nelson on or about 28 April 2010. This was little more than a year after McDonald was appointed to inquire into the grounds for the petition, the appointment having been announced on  28 April 2009. To manage an interview in just twelve months is an indicator of her appreciation of the urgency and importance the Governor General attributes to Scott Watson’s petition for mercy,

McDonald’s objective was to address one of the seven issues she has chosen after studying and analysing the documentation provided by Scott Watson as the grounds for his petition for the Royal Prerogative of Mercy. That documentation is Murder On The Blade? and Trial By Trickery.  McDonald considers the book and film allege that McNeilly has “purportedly retracted” her identification of Scott Watson as the man she served at the bar that night, the same man who waslater seen boarding a large two masted yacht with Ben Smart and Olivie Hope. It is the purported retraction which has demanded the attention of McDonald QC.

However things began to come unstuck when Roz  McNeilly asked to have a support person present during the interview. This was no surprise move. Scott Watson had been assured that all witnesses to be interviewed for the inquiry would be invited to bring a support person. When McNeilly sought to have a lawyer present, Ministry strongman Jeff Orr promptly told her that “the Ministry does not provide government funding for legal advice for witnesses in the context of Royal prerogative applications; it would need to be at your own cost”. 

Accordingly McNeilly then called a lawyer, who quoted her $250 an hour for probably three hours of his time, $750 altogether for her to attend an interview, not at her own request but at Mr Orr’s. So she looked elsewhere and asked Keith Hunter to be her support person. Her request was immediately granted, no fee sought. But Orr of Justice was apoplectic. He informed McNeilly that the meeting would be cancelled if Mr Hunter attended it. He gave her to understand that he wanted no-one present who had intimate knowledge of the issues. Mr Orr's response is solid evidence that the Ministry’s requirements for its inquiry are delicately arbitrary and its taste for transparency solidly opaque.

But McNeilly dug her toes in and held out on her choice of supporter. Confronted with the potential threat to the course of justice offered by Hunter's presence at the meeting, Orr lost his nerve. He changed his mind and agreed to pay for a lawyer to support her, driven also by his instinct for justice and concern for the integrity of the inquiry, providing the lawyer’s fee was no more than $750.

It is understood that at the beginning of the meeting McNeilly handed McDonald an affidavit detailing all the issues she thought relevant to the interview. A lawyer from Blenheim was present in support of Roz McNeilly.

 KH

(This explanatory note has been posted in accordance with the declaration by Kristy McDonald QC in a paper delivered to the New Zealand Law Society’s Criminal Law Symposium of  November 2008, that inquiries relating to petitions for the Royal Prerogative of Mercy should be transparent. Unfortunately Mr Orr disagrees with Ms McDonald's call for transparency and Mr Orr has the power. When Roz McNeilly asked to videotape the meeting with McDonald Orr refused permission. It is to be presumed that had she turned up with a camera the meeting would have been cancelled.. )

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------------------------

27 November 09

Simon Power, Minister of Justice, has announced the issues to be addressed in the report he has commissioned from Kristy McDonald QC's following Scott Watson's petition to the Governor General for mercy. As expected and predicted, the report is to be a whitewash. The following note, sent to readers of Trial By Trickery on 26 November, summarises:

A Note to Readers of Trial By Trickery,
on the Justice Sytem’s next corrupt treatment of Scott Watson:

Re:     The  Aristocracy Confirmed

 In October 2008 Scott Watson petitioned the Governor General for a pardon. He included copies of Trial By Trickery and Murder on The Blade? with his petition as the documentation providing grounds for it. The Governor General passed the application to the Minister of Justice, who in April appointed a QC to inquire into the case and provide an advisory report on it. This note relates to that appointment and its present outcome.

Everyone familiar with my book or film will be aware that it is crucial for the inquiry to address the conduct of several high-ranking members of the New Zealand justice system. Saving the late Richard Heron, all of these people have been invited to explain their conduct as described in the book. None has taken the opportunity and their silence can convey only the obvious meaning. They are the present Deputy Commissioner of Police (Rob Pope), the Crown Prosecutors Davison, Crutchley and Raftery, trial judge the late Justice Heron, and the three judges of the Court of Appeal, Richardson, Gault and Henry. The first requirement of the inquiry is therefore that it must be conducted by a qualified person who has no prior association with any of these people. Any lawyer with any of the following backgrounds must be disqualified from appointment:

  • A history as a Crown Prosecutor or association with the Crown Law Office in Wellington. This is particularly relevant since at the time of Watson’s trial until 2006 prosecutor Nicola Crutchley was the Deputy Solicitor General (Criminal), the Crown Law official whose function was to approve and appoint Crown Prosecutors;
  • An obvious relationship with the police, particularly with its upper echelons.
  • A connection with Christchuch legal circles in the 1980’s and 1990’s, since Deputy Commissioner of Police Rob Pope spent all of his early career as a policeman there.

Obviously no lawyer at all can report on the conduct of the Court of Appeal except to find that the conduct needs address by a superior process.

The lawyer Minister Simon Power appointed to conduct the inquiry into Scott Watson’s conviction is Ms Kristy McDonald QC. 

  • Ms McDonald has been a crown prosecutor for almost 30 years, starting in Christchurch in the 1980s. It is reasonable to assume that she prosecuted cases in that city brought by Mr Pope and that they have an association going back to that time.
  • Ms McDonald is still a Crown Prosecutor. Now she is in Wellington, where she has continual contact with the Crown Law Office. From the mid-nineties to 2006, each time she was appointed prosecutor to a criminal case her appointment was made by Deputy Solicitor General Nicola Crutchley and she was responsible to the Crown Law Office as her employer. It would be remarkable if Ms McDonald avoided a close professional and personal relationship with Ms Crutchley during the years of their association as Crown Prosecutors and as employer and employee in the same city.
  • Another of Ms McDonald’s major employers is the Police Force. She has acted as counsel for the police for many years and conducts internal inquiries for them. In 2004 she acted as counsel for the police in a major public inquiry. She has acted as counsel to the Commissioner of Police.
  • It is impossible for Ms McDonald not to have an ongoing personal and/or professional association with Deputy Commisssioner  Pope dating back perhaps twenty-five years,  and impossible for her to have no bond with the institution of the Police. There is no QC in New Zealand who has greater access to, association with, and both personal and professional links with the upper echelons of the police than Ms McDonald. There is no QC in New Zealand who might better be described as a ‘police lawyer’ than Ms McDonald.
  • Ms McDonald has other government appointments. She has chaired the Mental Health Review Tribunal and was a member of the Removal Review Authority. In 2008 she was appointed chairwoman of the Judicial Control Authority for Racing. Just four weeks before awarding her the Watson inquiry the Minister appointed her chair of the Real Estate Agents Authority. It would appear that there are few “independent” lawyers in New Zealand more obliged to the “System” for lucrative employment than Ms McDonald. She appears to be a political pet .

The appointment is cynical in the extreme. Barrring Paul Davison, there is no QC in New Zealand more ineligible for this inquiry than Ms McDonald.

There are also personal qualities required for the inquiry.  The first is transparent and unimpeachable integrity. Ms McDonald fails this criterion immediately. When she accepted an appointment that she patently should have declined she put personal ambition, personal associations and personal obligations ahead of personal integrity.

The “Yes Minister” television series described this process well. When a commission of inquiry is needed, a “sound man” is appointed to run it, the object being to acquire a safe, predetermined outcome. Here we have a perfect example. Ms McDonald’s commission is to protect the elite and to hide the issues that need to be exposed. She is to provide a fitting end to the whole process. Her commission is to cap a corrupt police investigation, a corrupt trial and a corrupt appeal hearing with a corrupt inquiry.

Any fears that Ms McDonald’s inquiry was a set-up have now proven well founded. Three weeks ago she advised the Minister of the issues she has identified for her inquiry. Not one relates to the conduct of the figures listed above. The ruse she has come up with is to confine the inquiry to events capable of interpretation as having occurred after the trial.

So the blatantly crooked and unfair trial and appeal are to be ignored - and with it Pope’s perfidy, his collusion with the journalist Brett to prevent a fair trial, his lies and their pretrial contamination of a trial judge who should have disqualified himself from taking the case, the raft of outright lies by the prosecutors and Court of Appeal, and the deliberate concealment by the prosecutors of their two trip theory with the specific intention of perverting justice. Ms McDonald’s pretence is either that none of these occurred or that none is relevant to Scott Watson’s conviction or to his petition. Only “new evidence” is relevant.

For a first world country in the 21st century the rort is monstrous. The primary focus of my book and film, the two publications detailing the grounds for the petition, is the corruption of our criminal justice system by elite officials who are plainly devoid of integrity. Pope, Crutchley, Davison, Raftery, Heron, Richardson, Gault and Henry, each the recipient of several hundred thousand dollars per year from the public purse and entrusted to act honourably in the interests of justice, are all guilty of criminal behaviour which would put any other New Zealand citizen in prison for many years. Their behaviour is to be ignored. McDonald QC is under instruction to look the other way. They are too special and so each of them is to be put above the law.

There are presently two newsworthy parallels. One is in a country few New Zealanders would look to as a model of integrity - France: “ ‘ We must not give the impression that there is a gap between the protected elites and the little people.’ Most of France agreed but Sarkosy was furious..” reported the NZ Herald three weeks ago, in the context of a politician upsetting her president in a nepotism scandal.

Clearly the Minister thought it advantageous if he were seen to proclaim the same taste for equality in law. And so just last week the Herald’s front page reported that he  “wants to stop the emerging “special class” of high profile people using their status to get name suppression.. Mr Power said he “instinctively disagreed with giving well known people an advantage when they became before the courts..”  in the context of suppressing the name of a entertainer convicted of indecent asault.

The Minister’s concern for equality in our courts is false. While he talks of ensuring high profile entertainers are not given advantage, his intentions towards his high profile mates in the legal apparatus are the opposite. And he is not just talking about it. He is actually putting into practice a protection scheme for a special class of New Zealanders who are to be immune from the courts. He is going to line New Zealand up alongside Fiji as a banana republic in which the forces of justice are directed only at the little people and do not apply to his new upper class. We are to be a two tiered society, the privileged and the subject, the aristocracy  and the commoners. This is the old world social structure that New Zealand’s European forebears left behind a hundred and fifty years ago.

The egregious Mr Power must be stopped and his corrupt associates made responsible to the same laws they themselves impose on everyone else. It’s not as if he is unaware of the issues. When the book was first published in 2007 he emailed twice seeking a meeting with me to discuss its revelations. Then as he looked to become the Minister of Justice his interest in justice began to subside. Then he became Minister and his interest in justice vanished.

In 2003 I produced Murder On The Blade? and naively assumed it would attract the attention of our Justice System. It didn’t. So I spent a further two years researching and writing a book on the case and in March 2007 published Trial By Trickery. I would not have believed that almost three years later Scott Watson would still be in prison and that there was a further step the System could take to demonstrate that it is bereft of integrity.

Now I have a better grasp of the depth and extent of the corruption involved, not just in Watson but throughout the “System”.  I believe that Scott Watson’s story should be as widely known as possible, both in and outside New Zealand, first to obstruct the Minister’s intention to sideline his duty to us all, but fundamentally to build a demand for a full and proper public inquiry into the administration of justice in New Zealand.

If you agree with this please find a way to make others aware of the scam about to be pulled. My suggestions are these:

  • Write to your local MP, to the Minister of Justice, to the Prime Minister, to the Governor General, and advise them that the steps they are taking are unacceptable:
  • Talk to your friends and colleagues about it;
  • Direct people to the websites that address these issues: freescottwatson.comtrialbytrickery.com;
  • Consider Trial by Trickery and/or Murder On the Blade?  when you come to consider Christmas gifts,
  • Google Scott Watson or Trial by Trickery and take part in the web discussions that are constantly under way,
  • Forward this message to your email contacts and ask them to circulate it too.

I welcome any other suggestion as to how the truth of  The Queen against Scott Watson might reach every New Zealander so that everyone knows what quality of justice we have. Principle is irrelevant to Mr Power and those like him.  The only forces capable of forestalling his planned false report, and of ensuring punishment for those who should be punished and freedom to those who should not, are public knowledge and public pressure..

Keith Hunter
26 November 09

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More correspondence relating to the appointment of Kristy McDonald QC follows below:

-----------------------------

7 June 09

An inquiry or the appearance of an inquiry?

Several weeks ago a lawyer was appointed by the Ministry of Justice to inquire into Scott Watson’s petition to the Governor General for mercy. She will report and make recommendations on the petition.

Any inquiry into the Watson affair must address issues relating to the integrity and conduct of the Deputy Commissioner of Police, three prominent Crown Prosecutors, being a former Deputy Solicitor-General, a prominent QC and the prosecutor who has just failed to convict David Bain, and three judges of the Court of Appeal, including two presidents of that court..

These people are the very cream of our justice system. The questions they should face up to are whether they all lied and perverted justice to convict Scott Watson. In my view all are guilty. Certainly none has had the integrity to speak to the issues when I have tried to engage them in correspondence.

The lawyer appointed to investigate is Ms Kristy McDonald QC. Her appointment is surely unconscionable. Ms McDonald has made a living as a Crown Prosecutor and police counsel for almost thirty years. She is firmly ensconced and identified as a creature of the system and cannot possibly be expected to provide an impartial report on its integrity - on the conduct and probity of her employers.

The implications are impossible to ignore: those who would be the proper target of her inquiry are too elite. Their integrity cannot be questioned and so a lawyer has been appointed who cannot question it.. Recognising the truth would undermine the System itself. New Zealand could not handle it.

These views were communicated to the Minister of Justice and copied to the Governor General on 26 May. The Minister has yet to reply, but after demonstrating much concern at the revelations of Trial By Trickery soon after its publication, his responses have become more and more muted ever since it came apparent that he would in fact become the minister. Formerly outspoken Watson supporter and system critic the Hon Rodney Hide has shown an even more dramatic metamorphosis. He has become invisible. The obvious inference is that these brave politicians have the courage to support calls for justice only when they do not have the power to provide it.

The letter to the Minister and covering letters to other politicans follow (below).

KH

--------------------------------

Here follows a reply to the letter from the office of the Minister of Justice (see below)

15/07/2009

Hon Simon Power
Minister of Justice
PO Box 18,888
Wellington
Cc: Governor General
Members Of Parliament
Chris Watson
Kristy McDonald QC
Dear Minister
Re: Inappropriate Appointment of Ms Kristy McDonald QC
to Inquire into the Conduct of her Employers

I refer to your letter of 17 June in which you advise that you will communicate about Scott Watson’s application for mercy only with him or his authorised representative. I reject your advice.

It is for every citizen of New Zealand to take an active interest in the country’s administration of justice, to communicate to the administrators his or her views on important issues, and to expect a true reply. I am in a particularly relevant position here. As the author of the publications on which Mr Watson relies as the text of his petition I am intimate with every one of the issues he has put before the Governor General.

However the issues are universal. They are whether the matters for any inquiry at any time can be properly addressed by a person who is compromised by a working lifetime of acquaintance and collegiate relationship with, and of employment by and responsibility to those whose conduct she must investigate. In my view it is axiomatic that such a person cannot conduct such an inquiry in any context at all, including the context of Scott Watson’s petition for a pardon, and that any fair minded person will agree.

It is your function and your responsibility to ensure that justice is both done and seen to be done. In this case neither is even attempted. Your appointment of Ms McDonald is plainly improper. All New Zealanders will believe, as I do, that the inquiry has been arranged to produce a specific outcome which will obscure and deny the truth. I want to assure you that the appointment, and your subsequent, seemingly cowardly, silence on it will rebound on you heavily.

I have previously quoted (letter 4 February) the view of your colleague the Minister of Local Government, the Hon Rodney Hide, when he wrote:

“…(Trial by Trickery is) a damning indictment of our "justice" system. It needs a full and comprehensive response..

Ms McDonald cannot provide that response. Any inquiry into the fairness of Scott Watson’s trial and the events which led to his conviction must, as Mr Hide suggests, inquire into the justice system itself, specifically into the conduct of those who had him convicted. Were there nothing to investigate then the many elite figures who are criticised and often seriously defamed in my book would have replied to it and to the specific issues I have put to them in direct correspondence published on my website. Instead, by their silence they concede that there is something to investigate.

The matter is not trivial. Any other New Zealander found to have committed the acts they are accused of would spend considerable periods in prison. It follows that the real question is whether New Zealand recognises an elite who are above the laws that apply to everyone else. Your conduct here is strong evidence that there is such an elite and that its immunity has your support. It doesn’t stop with you. In the present circumstances you confer that support for a law-exempt elite to the Governor General. I hope this will displease him.

Your Mr Orr has now written to Sott Watson in terms which compound your degradation of our justice system. He wrote:

You have questioned the appointment of Ms McDonald as Queen's Counsel to assist with your application, and consider that her ability to provide truly `independent' advice is compromised because of her work history.' I do not accept that Ms McDonald's background compromises her independence. Ms McDonald is an experienced Queen's Counsel. She has appeared for both the prosecution and defence in criminal cases. Her integrity is not in question. Therefore, I am satisfied that Ms McDonald's appointment to assist with your application is appropriate and I do not intend to engage further on this point

Mr Orr’s views are both absurd and irrrelevant. He has no place in this concern and his views are nothing more than a self-serving and officious preparation for the delivery to Scott Watson of a false report. However Mr Orr’s name now adds itself to the already lengthy list of citizens, all law-exempt, who are shown to be integrity-challenged. And he is wrong about Ms McDonald. She joined the list when she accepted the appointment. Her integrity is undeniably “in question”.

Nor is it Mr Orr’s views that matter. The important views are yours, Minister. The appointment is not by Mr Orr. It is by you on behalf of the Governor General whom you have made complicit in a blatant conspiracy against truth and justice.

Mr Orr’s credentials for membership in that list of prestigious low-life are confirmed in his letter to Scott Watson. He also wrote :

Your letter of application and supporting documentation refers to purported retraction/s by Mr Wallace of his evidence in relation to these matters. However, this is not direct evidence from Mr Wallace himself that is legally admissible in a court. In order to advance our consideration of these submissions, I request that you arrange for Mr Wallace to provide a sworn affidavit that addresses the following points

The bold emphases are mine. The phrases they adorn first claim that Ms McDonald is a court and then suggest that she is not going to conduct any inquiry at all. For some hidden reason Scott Watson is required to conduct an inquiry himself and provide “direct evidence” to this non-existent Court Of McDonald, unless, Minister, you could have Mr Orr explain which other court he is referring to. His implication appears to be a lie, fully in keeping with the most distinctive characteristics of R v Watson, and in keeping with the anticipated Report of McDonald. And so you reduce the office and the name of the Governor General with a patent lie.

The truth is that there’s yet another Ministry of Justice confidence trick going down here to keep company with all the others that have brought Scott Watson to the Governor General, isn’t there, Mr Power? Nothing could be more apparent. What is it this time? Please spell it out.

Yours Faithfully
Keith Hunter
As previously, this letter will be posted on my website trialbytrickery.com in due course.

----------------------------------------

The letter from the Minister of Justice, dated 17 June 09 reads:

Dear Mr Hunter:

...I have noted your views. However this is Mr Watson's application and any communication by me or my officials about the consideration of his application should be with Mr Watson or his authorised representative.

As indicated in my letter of 30 April 2009 it would be inappropriate for me to enter into correspondence with you on Mr Watson's application.

Yours Sincerely...

Hon Simon Power.

 

A reply rejecting this letter will be sent in due course.

KH

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Letter to the Minister of Justice, 26 May 09


Cc: Governor General
Hon Rodney Hide
Hon Peter Dunne
Keith Locke, MP
Chris Watson


Dear Minister
Re: Inappropriate Appointment of Kristy McDonald QC
to Inquire into Scott Watson’s petition to the Governor General.

I write to ask that you reconsider Ms McDonald’s appointment to pronounce on Mr Watson’s petition. In my letter of 1 April I submitted that any lawyer appointed to inquire into the matter must be of a background which cannot invite claims of bias. The appointment must allow justice to be seen to be done. I submitted that was not the case in the recent Haig inquiry. Nor is it at present with Watson.

Scott Watson has based his petition on revelations, claims and accusations published in my book Trial By Trickery and film Murder On the Blade?. The accusations are against the Deputy Commissioner of Police, the three Crown Prosecutors and the late trial judge. The publications also attack the judgment of the Court of Appeal, where a blatantly untrue statement falsely legitimises the whole trial as a fair one, provoking questions as to that Court’s competence and/or integrity.

As author of the publications on which Mr Watson relies I have repeatedly sought responses from all those accused of the transgressions detailed in them. My requests for explanations have been in vain. However the accusations are so serious that they must be addressed. That responsibility now falls first to your inquiry regarding Watson’s petition, and then to the Commission of Inquiry into R v Watson that I submit is clearly required.

It is obvious that the inquiring lawyer must be transparently devoid of any allegiance to police, prosecution or bench. There are many Queen’s Counsel appropriately qualified for this appointment. Ms McDonald seems not to be one of them. I understand that she is a highly respected counsel who has previously undertaken ministerial inquiries and has previously found against low-level police staff. However her background should clearly have excluded her here.

My book accuses the previous Deputy Solicitor General (Criminal), acting as or for the Crown Law Office, of repeatedly lying to and misleading a murder trial. It also accuses all three prosecutors of repeatedly and deliberately misleading the Court and concealing their case so as to deprive Mr Watson of a fair trial.

I believe Ms McDonald’s principal employer is the Crown, particularly as prosecutor for the Crown Law Office, and as counsel for the police. She began her career as a prosecutor, was appointed Crown Counsel at the Crown Law Office and is a Crown Prosecutor of long standing. Appointments as prosecutor are made by the Crown Law Office through the Deputy Solicitor General (Criminal).

Ms McDonald clearly cannot adjudicate on the conduct of her employer, her colleagues or her competitors.

The book has the present Deputy Commissioner of Police repeatedly deceiving and lying to the press and people of New Zealand, misinforming the trial judge in sworn affidavits, and depriving Scott Watson of a fair trial. It details events which indicate that he colluded with a journalist to commit contempt of court in the context of a sub judice defamatory publication.

Ms McDonald has a close relationship with the police and has had it for many years. She is commonly counsel for the police and commonly acts as a tribunal in internal police inquiries. In 2004 she was counsel for the police in a major inquiry into police conduct. It is obvious that she must have close acquaintance with the upper echelons of the police hierarchy. Now she is to be the independent tribunal in an inquiry into the conduct of the second highest in that hierarchy?
I suggest it is impossible for her not to be well acquainted with the present Deputy Commissioner, especially given their common background in Christchurch in the mid-eighties where they may well have worked together or otherwise have been acquainted as prosecutor and policeman. The Deputy Commissioner is one step from Ms McDonald’s direct employer. She cannot possibly adjudicate the accusations against him.

I do not intend any attack on Ms McDonald’s competence or integrity in any way. The point is that if I have quoted her background correctly then it should immediately disqualify her from this appointment. Scott Watson’s petition involves the most serious possible charges against the Crown in every role it could possibly have in a murder prosecution. The charges are public and widely known. They cry out for an inquiry which can only be seen as fair and objective. Instead, Ms McDonald’s appointment supports the charges. It is evidence that the Ministry of Justice gives no heed to the guiding principle that justice must be seen to be done, and if the appearance of justice is of no consequence to the Ministry, there can be little reason to assume that the provision of justice is of any consequence to the Ministry either. This attitude matches the charade that was R v Watson. If it is to persist it will do little to enhance the status and reputation of our justice system or of the office and person of the Governor-General.

I ask that the appointment be reconsidered and that Ms McDonald be replaced appropriately.
.
I note Ms McDonald’s view (Symposium as above) that:
1. inquiries of this nature should be transparent but in the past have not been, and that
2. outcomes of all such inquiries should be made available to the petitioner for response before a decision is made.

Are her views to rule in this inquiry? If so, I submit the new procedure should be published immediately. If not, it would be improper to not to publish the reason.

Yours Faithfully

Keith Hunter

As with previous correspondence this letter will be posted on the website “trialbytrickery.com”

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Letter to the Minister of Local Goverment the Hon Rodney Hide, 26 May 09:

Dear Minister
Re Scott Watson:
Petition to the Governor General for Mercy:

I acknowledge your reply to my previous correspondence and now enclose a copy of a letter posted today to the Minister of Justice opposing his appointment of a lawyer to inquire into Scott Watson’s petition for mercy.

You will be aware that the inquiry must investigate, amongst other matters, charges of serious misconduct by three senior Crown Prosecutors and the Deputy Commissioner of Police. The alleged misconduct includes misleading and lying to the press and public, misleading and lying to a murder trial, and conspiring to pervert the course of justice by concealing the case against the accused until it was too late for him to raise a defence to it.

The Ministry’s appointment is of a Crown Prosecutor and counsel for the police. You will appreciate that those whose conduct she must pronounce on are ultimately those who hire her services and substantially provide her with a living, the Crown Law Office and the Police Force.

You may feel concern at this astonishing appointment, whether it be due to incompetence, an intention to influence the outcome, or simply a base act of cynicism.

I cannot and do not speak for Mr Watson but, as the author of the publications on which he relies for his petition, I have no doubt he would appreciate any influence you could bring to bear to ensure that the anomalous appointment is cancelled. In view of your previously outspoken support for Scott Watson and your call for “a full and comprehensive response” to my book showing his innocence, I ask that you press the Minister publically to make a more appropriate appointment.

A further necessary step is, in my opinion, that those responsible for the present appointment must be fired immediately.

The Watson prosecution and now this latest conduct by the Ministry in addressing it are evidence that we have a malfunctioning justice system. I respectfully submit that it’s time to do something about it.

Yours faithfully

Keith Hunter

Similar letters were sent to the Hon Peter Dunne, Minister of Revenue, and to Keith Locke of the Gren Party and will today, 7 June, be sent to Peter Sharples and Tariasna Turia of the Maori Party.

KH

,

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6 April 09

The following letter was sent to the Minister of Justice on 1 April

1/04/09


Hon Simon Power
Minister of Justice
PO Box 18,888
Wellington

Cc: Hon Rodney Hide,
Hon Peter Dunne
Chris Watson

Dear Minister
Re Petition to the Governor General by Scott Watson

Thankyou for your advice that the Ministry of Justice is to supply a comprehensive report on Scott Watson’s petition for mercy. I write to bring to mind the report and the process which led your predecessor, Mr McLay, to recommend release in the instance of our most celebrated wrongful conviction, that of Arthur Allan Thomas.

In November 1978 Mr McLay appointed a lawyer to inquire into aspects of the conviction. The lawyer, Robert Adams-Smith QC, concluded that:

“...I feel that the Crown’s contention that it was late at night that Thomas came upon this couple by stealth is not warranted by the evidence as I believe it to be. This is so serious a flaw in the Crown’s case, a case based mainly on circumstantial evidence, that I have real doubt whether it can properly be contended that the case against Thomas was proved beyond all reasonable doubt.

“As I understand it, a great deal of significance was attached to evidence given by or on behalf of Thomas as to his whereabouts late in the evening of 17 June. If, as I believe it to be, that point is largely irrelevant, it not having been established that the Crewes were in fact killed at that time, it seems that an injustice may have been done…”

This was enough for Mr McLay. He acted directly on this single issue as reported in these terms by Adams-Smith. He released Thomas days after receiving the report. Then he instituted a Royal Commission of Inquiry, because he thought it obvious the case could not end with the pardon. He considered that too many questions were unanswered, police conduct being prominent amongst them. An identical situation exists with R v Watson.

Adams-Smith took over a year to carry out his inquiry. At the end of that year Thomas had spent another twelve wrongful months in prison. I now understand Scott Watson’s father, Chris, has been advised that the preliminary phase of the Ministry’s inquiry will take three months. During that time his son will spend another three months in prison. Then he may await a report by a lawyer.

Such a delay would be extremely unjust. There is no case at all that Watson’s conviction is proved beyond reasonable doubt. For example, the Court of Appeal stated that ‘It is beyond question that the case against (Scott Watson) depended substantially on the correctness of (the Guy Wallace) identifications, because if they were incorrect the Crown case was seriously undermined’. There can be no doubt: It is now beyond question that Wallace’s so-called identifications were ‘incorrect’.

On 23 June 2004 Wallace stood on the steps of Parliament with a petition in support of Watson’s innocence. Eight months earlier, when asked on nationwide television in Murder On The Blade? if Watson was the man last seen with Ben Smart and Olivia Hope in his water taxi that night, he replied ‘definitely not’. Scott Watson has remained in prison for more than five years since the Crown case against him was ‘seriously undermined’ by that very public reply, undermined to the certain knowledge of the three judges of the Court of Appeal who ordained it so.

It will not take a year, a month, or a week to confirm the undermining. Wallace can be reached and asked in a day. Documentation confirming his evidence does not need to be tracked down. It is held in Justice Department files and will take an hour or two to read. It will immediately be seen that he has been consistent from the beginning. He repeatedly rejected Scott Watson as the “mystery man” on the evidence of at least four photographs shown to him, including a moving television sequence. He later “identified” not the man but two eyes singled out in a montage of eight men in which only Watson was depicted blinking. When he exonerated Watson in the film, Wallace had become well aware of Watson’s normal appearance.

A case which is ‘seriously undermined’ according to the judgment of the Court of Appeal cannot possibly be proved beyond reasonable doubt. Justice demands that Watson therefore be released immediately, pending further assessment of the arguments for innocence or retrial.

A full inquiry into the issues of fair trial and the overall conduct of the Crown case, as Mr McLay required with Thomas, must surely follow these preliminary moves. Its objectives must include the inspection and analysis of every phase of R v Watson, and the creation of an office or identification of a process or person with the specific duty of acting in the interests of justice in such situations as this, where not one of three knowing judges of the Court of Appeal, nor anyone else in our justice system, has been required, or bothered, to take an interest in the justice of the case.

It may be, if justice is to be seen to be done, that any lawyer appointed as a preliminary one-man inquiry should be chosen according to different criteria than in the Barlow and Haig inquiries. A former judge of the Court of Appeal who was pressured to resign after pornography was discovered on his office computer, and who represented the interests of the police at the Royal Commission of Inquiry in the Thomas affair, will not be seen as appropriate to provide an impartial report relevant to conduct by the police and the Court of Appeal.

As a case for his immediate release pending retrial or pardon, I append a brief list of other matters demonstrating Watson’s innocence. I will under separate cover, respectfully suggest and list issues for address in an inquiry into the processes which led to Watson’s conviction.


As with previous correspondence this letter will shortly be posted on the trialbytrickery.com website.

Yours Faithfully

Keith Hunter

APPENDIX
The following list is of matters demonstrating innocence. It is not, and is not intended to be, comprehensive. A more comprehensive record is provided in Trial By Trickery and Murder On The Blade?, which Scott Watson has forwarded to the Governor General as the text of his petition for mercy.

1. All of the eyewitnesses evidence exonerates Scott Watson:
a. The Man:
i. Water-taxi driver Guy Wallace says Watson is the wrong man. Wallace is the central witness in the case. In a further trial his evidence by itself will cause immediate acquittal.
ii. Watson does not match Wallace’s descriptions of the man last seen with Ben Smart and Olivia Hope, nor the descriptions by water taxi passenger Hayden Morresey.
iii. Furneaux Lodge Bar Manager Rozlyn McNeilly retracted her identification of Watson five years ago in Murder On The Blade?, claiming that she was tricked into it by the police;
iv. Scott Watson does not match McNeilly’s descriptions of the man she served at the Furneau bar, said by the Crown to be Scott Watson;
v. There is no evidence at all, eyewitness or otherwise, of Watson matching the appearance of the man last seen with Ben Smart and Olivia Hope.
vi. There is consistent evidence from more than a score of witnesses which distinguishes Watson from that man (see Trial By Trickery Chapter 2) in terms of age, height, build, clothing, facial appearance and hair length.
vii. The unknown man was reported ashore at 6pm. Nine witnesses on Mina Cornelia and several on the Furneaux jetty, including security guards, say Watson did not go ashore, or was not allowed ashore, until 9.30pm.
b. The Boat
i. Watson’s yacht Blade does not match any description of the boat Ben and Olivia boarded given at any time by any of the three eyewitnesses, Wallace, Morresey and Sarah Dyer. They are the only witnesses to this boat.
ii. Both Wallace and Morresey say Watson’s boat is the wrong boat. Their evidence together is conclusive.
iii. There is no evidence at all that the boat Ben and Olivia were last seen boarding was, or matched, Watson’s boat or a boat like it.
iv. All evidence of the boat consistently describes a completely different boat, a large ketch. There is no other evidence of the boat except this.
v. There are multiple eyewitness reports of a large ketch moored at Furneaux Lodge outside the view of the Crown photographs. All the reports put that ketch in the same position, 100 metres distant from the mooring occupied by Watson’s small yacht.
vi. There are dozens, perhaps scores, of eyewitness reports of a large ketch matching the eyewitness descriptions of the mystery yacht in the wider area over the period around 1 January and further afield over the next month;

2. Secret Witness A long ago retracted his courtroom testimony that Watson confessed to the murders while in prison and claimed his testimony was written by the police for him to deliver;

3. Secret Witness B’s story that Watson confessed to him in prison is ludicrous. Its integrity is now undermined by Witness A’s claims and by the unwarranted leniency with which he has been treated by the police despite his life-long record of violent crime;

4. There is no viable Crown scenario which provides for the disposal of bodies by Watson;

5. The Crown case is wholly dependant on Watson returning to his yacht at 2am but the statements of all nine people moored alongside on the Mina Cornelia make this highly unlikely, while evidence from two witnesses, Deborah Corless and Deanna Cunliffe, kept from the jury by the prosecutors, make it impossible;

6. The Crown case is wholly dependant on Watson having made two return trips from Furneaux to his boat, respectively with water taxi drivers Guy Wallace and the man I have styled ‘Steven Shipwright’. However the strongest evidence for a return lies with John Mullen, a water taxi driver aged in his late-fifties who generally wore a cowboy hat. Evidence not sought for the jury but provided to Murder On The Blade? by Mullen, is that he took a man of Watson’s general description as the sole passenger in his water taxi, to a yacht moored in the general vicinity where Watson’s yacht was moored in the early hours of the morning of New Year’s Day 1998. Since Watson’s pretrial statements were that he was taken back to his yacht in the early hours of the morning of New Year’s Day 1998 as the sole passenger in a water taxi driven by ‘an old man with a hat on’, Mullen is obviously the driver he went with. .

7. If the Crown’s “two trip theory” is to be upheld, the evidence has two water taxi drivers, Mullen and Shipwright, saying they took a man of Watson’s description to his boat, while a third, Guy Wallace, says he did not take Watson at all. The only opportunity for two trips therefore lies with Shipwright and Mullen. There is no room for a trip with Wallace and Ben and Olivia.

8. The Crown case, namely its ‘two trip theory’, is wholly dependant on Watson returning ashore after being taken to his yacht in the early hours of New Year’s Day 1998 but there is no any evidence in any statement or in any testimony by any witness at any time that he made such a return. Nor was there any attempt by the Crown to establish such a return.

9. The Crown failed to provide any evidence rebutting Watson’s case that his conduct of his affairs at the time was other than the normal conduct of a yachtsman responding normally to yachting matters.

10. The only remaining evidence which links Scott Watson with the missing pair, excepting a ludicrous allegation by a prison inmate who was a stranger to him, consists of two long blonde hairs found in plastic bags of short dark hairs six weeks after the bags had been inspected and the long blonde ones not seen in them. Since they alone connect accused with victim, for these two hairs to have evidentiary force four questions need to be satisfied:
? The first is to explain why the hairs were not seen the first time the bags were searched.
? The second is to explain the slit found in the bag of reference hairs taken from Olivia’s bedroom;
? The third is the safety of their identification as coming from Olivia Hope.
? The fourth is to show that hairs from Olivia Hope were not found on any of the other boats except the one she arrived on, and that a connection of this type was unique to Watson and his boat.

KH

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The previous letter of 2 February 09 to Simon Power follows below

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4 February 09
Scott Watson has petitioned the Governor General for a pardon under Section 406 of the Crimes Act.. On 31 October he sent off a 22 page letter in which he wrote that the case against him had “dissolved” since his conviction. The letter summarises the main points in each chapter of Trial By Trickery, which, along with the film Murder On The Blade?, he included as the text of his petition. (see Herald On Sunday: Scott Watson has broken an 11-year silence).

Section 406 of the Crimes Act awards “the prerogative of mercy” to the Governor General in Council, that is, the Governor General in conference with the Executive Council. The Prime Minister’s Department’s CabGuide notes that
‘all Ministers of the Crown are members of the Executive Council, (which) is presided over by the Governor-General.
The Executive Council usually meets every Monday, after Cabinet, if there are items for consideration.
…’

Those members of the Executive Council who have responded to Trial By Trickery have been mailed letters (see below) reminding them of their previous interest in the matters raised in the book. They are:
* Minister of Justice Simon Power, who emailed the author within weeks of the book’s publication and who met with him for an hour over coffee in June 2008;
* Rodney Hide, Minister of Local Government, who along with former Greens MP, Nandor Tanczos, has been the strongest and most public political figure to back Scott Watson on the evidence provided in Trial By Trickery

* Peter Dunne, Minister of Revenue, who has indicated support for Watson in parliament in May 2007 and elsewhere at other times, has been copied the letter to Simon Power.

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The letters to Simon Power and Rodney Hide follow:

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04/02/.09

Hon Simon Power
Minister of Justice and Member of the Executive Council
PO Box 18,888
Wellington

Cc: Hon Rodney Hide,
Hon Peter Dunne

Dear Simon
Re Petition to the Governor General by Scott Watson

I refer you to my letter of 17 June last year and to our discussions on 10 June .

As the outcome of a series of corrupted judicial processes, Scott Watson has now been in prison for over ten years for a crime he plainly did not commit. Your quick response to my book in 2007, followed by our meeting last June, reflected your concern for these matters then. I am sure the concern has not been eroded.

Watson’s petition for mercy under Section 406 of the Crimes Act was forwarded to the Governor General on 31 October last. It may by now have been put before you in the context of the Executive Council. Other members of the Council have indicated support for Watson and criticism both of the criminal justice system and of those who put him in prison with false argument and misinformation and by depriving him of the opportunity to defend himself. The Hon Rodney Hide published his views both on his website and in correspondence to me. To a third party he wrote:
Not only is Scott Watson innocent, Keith's book is … a damning indictment of our "justice" system. It needs a full and comprehensive response. There are many mps who agree with that.”
The Hon Peter Dunne raised the Watson case in the House in May 2007 in a question addressing the ills of the adversary system.

My point is that others on the Executive Council have also acknowledged that the adversary justice system now under your oversight is in poor condition and due for an overhaul. Furthermore, press polls have shown that most New Zealanders agree with the view of Rodney Hide and the “many mps” he quotes in respect of Watson’s innocence.

I ask that you act quickly in recommending Watson be released to conduct his life according to his own free will, bearing in mind that he has already been unjustly deprived of a decade of his youth. The matter is urgent.

As for the adversary criminal justice system, it is plain that the people of New Zealand have long lost confidence in the one we have. The political leader who has the courage to stand up to the inevitable challenges that will confront any systemic reform will enjoy the admiration and respect of all of us, and of others elsewhere.

As with previous correspondence, this letter to you will be posted on the website trialbytrickery.com.

Sincerely

Keith Hunter

For the 17 June 2007 letter to Simon Power:

--------------------------------
04/02/09

Hon Rodney Hide
Minister of Local Government and Member of the Executive Council
PO Box 18,888
Wellington


Dear Rodney
Re Petition to the Governor General by Scott Watson

For your information I enclose a copy of my recent letter to the Minister of Justice.

I have no doubt Scott Watson is grateful for your forthright views on the issues surrounding his conviction and imprisonment. I certainly appreciate the straightforward way you have made them a matter of public knowledge. Would that others were as plainspeaking.

Watson has forwarded copies of Trial By Trickery and the film Murder On The Blade? to the Governor General in a petition for mercy. The petition was sent on 31 October last year and will shortly be before the Executive Council - if that has not already occurred.

Releasing Watson is a matter of urgency. Addressing the ills of the adversary criminal justice system which has created Watson, Thomas, Ellis, Haig and so on is no less urgent. Both are now within your ambit as a member of the Executive Council which advises the Governor General. On Scott Watson’s behalf I urge you to ensure that your views remain public and that you impress them upon the Council in consideration of the petition.
As with my other correspondence regarding the Watson fiasco, this letter to you will be posted on the website trialbytrickery.com.

Regards

Keith Hunter

For Rodney Hide's previous support:

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Police Complaints Authority

(now The Independent Police Conduct Authority)

In 2004 Scott Watson's father Chris made a formal complaint to the then Police Complaints Authority, (Judge Borrin) that Police Deputy Commissioner Pope had repeatedly sworn false oaths during his command of the inquiry into the disappearance of Ben Smart and Olivia Hope in 1998. The false oaths were sworn in support of applications to bug the homes and phones of the Watson family. Judge Borrin said he had no jurisdiction in the matter because it involved accusations of criminal practice by Pope hich could only be addressed by the police. This was despite it being his specific duty to investigate any such complaint. He advised Chris Watson to complain directly to the police.

This Chris Watson did. It took the police four years to address his complaint. Their report was released four days before last Christmas . The outcome was always predictable: Pope did nothing wrong. For the details see:

* the police press release, Review clears Deputy Commissioner,

* the report of the officer who carried out the investigation, Detective Inspector Ross Pinkham (This file relates..) ,

* the report by the officer Pinkham reported to, Assistant Commissioner Gavin Jones (This Report outlines..).

It may be significant that after four years of investigation and due consideration the police released their report on Sunday 21 December, the last Sunday before the Christmas break and the departure of New Zealanders on holiday away from the news media. That the last Sunday was chosen for the announcement is significant because it prevented the Herald on Sunday from reporting, or commenting on, the police report. The Herald On Sunday has been the most persistent press organ by far in following the case since the publication of Trial By Trickery in March 2007.

However there is a second and later complaint against Pope which has yet to be answered. It was directed to the Police Complaints Authority's successor, the Independent Police Conduct Authority. In late July 2007 the Authority, Justice Lowell Goddard, requested and was sent a copy of the DVD Murder On The Blade?.The Authority had already acquired a copy of Trial By Trickery. Following this a formal complaint against Deputy Commissioner Pope was made. It is a wider ranging complaint than the one the police have answered, However it includes the same matters relating to false oaths as are purportedly addressed by the police in their report on Chris Watson's complaint. In view of this, a response to the police report was sent to the Independent Police Conduct Authority on 12 January 09.

The text of the formal complaint to the IPCA follows. The January 2009 response to the police report is posted after it (click here)

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Formal Complaint:

The formal complaint to the Independent Police Conduct Authority reads:

28 August 2007.....

Dear Justice Goddard,


Re: Trial by Trickery and Murder On The Blade?,
and complaint against Deputy Commissioner Pope

I write to formalise the complaints against Deputy Commissioner Rob Pope that are inherent in the book and television documentary noted above and in my letter to him of 18 June, and to forward documentation in support of them. I understand that you have copies of both publications and the letter.
The complaints are outlined principally in Chapters One and Two of Trial By Trickery, and relate to Mr Pope’s conduct of his inquiry into the Hope/Smart disappearance, to his relationship with the press, to statements he made for press publication and to affidavits sworn by him for the High Court.
Further issues involve Mr Pope’s dealings with the secret witnesses who testified against Scott Watson, detailed in Chapter Four (pp 167-173), and with the man given the pseudonym ‘Mr Erie’ in Chapter Five.
In sum the overall complaint is that Mr Pope, then Detective Inspector, undermined Scott Watson’s right to justice:
1) by controlling and manipulating the press during his inquiry into the Hope/Smart disappearances in such a way that his sole suspect, Scott Watson, would be tried in the media and debased in the public mind prior to his arrest,
2) by swearing false oaths on at least six occasions in affidavits to the High Court;
3) by buying or otherwise improperly acquiring false evidence from Secret Witnesses A and B and from ‘Mr Erie’ and his two children.

Furthermore:
4) I submit that an investigation should be made by your office into the provenance of the hairs alleged to have come from Olivia Hope that were used against Mr Watson at the trial. There is discussion of these hairs in Trial By Trickery, in the section devoted to DNA evidence at pages 173-181 of Chapter Four.
5) You will see that the affidavits of 2) above, as I have them, include several sections which are blacked and hidden from view. I have reason to believe that several of these blacked sections refer to members of Scott Watson’s family. I submit that copies of the affidavits which are transparent where they relate to the Watsons should be sent immediately to Scott Watson’s father as of right under his power of attorney for his son, and on his own and his family’s behalf.

Background
The present complaints are a development of those detailed in the folder titled ‘Previous Complaints’ of the enclosed compact disc. These latter comprise communications between Mr Chris Watson and your own office, the office of the Commissioner of Police and various police officers and political figures. They detail a history of complaints about matters raised here which extend back four years but have not been addressed.
The initial complaint laid with your office on 6 November 2003 by Chris Watson, Scott Watson’s father, was in respect of 2) above. The complaint was declined on the grounds that the actions alleged were criminal and for that reason it was for the Authority ultra vires. Chris Watson was referred by the Authority to the Commissioner of Police. Mr Watson took this advice and but there has been no result to any inquiry by the Commissioner either. The matter is addressed briefly on pages 169-171 of Trial By Trickery and will be recorded in correspondence on your files.
Your records will also contain the inquiry by Mr Watson senior referred to on pages 168-170 of Trial By Trickery about the retraction by the Secret Witness A of his accusation that Scott Watson confessed to two murders while both were in prison together. Although an inquiry was alleged to be held into the matter but there has been no outcome. If there ever was an inquiry it has been shelved and hidden from view. I suggest that this is not merely improper. A man is in prison for life on the word of Secret Witness A and on the word of others in a similar position. Watson, and every New Zealander, needs and has a right to know the truth of this.

Narrative Of The Complaint
1) To achieve 1) above, Mr Pope’s overarching tactic was to make public statements through the press saying that he had no suspects, while at the same time telling selected press members unofficially that Scott Watson was guilty, being well aware that this advice would be circulated and become common knowledge. At the same time he spread amongst these journalists false and defamatory stories about both Watson and his family, knowing that these stories would also be circulated and become common knowledge.
The outcome was that reporters and their editors considered themselves at liberty to write and publish what they liked about Watson, free from the normal rules regarding sub judice reportage. Inevitably it soon became common knowledge throughout the country that Scott Watson was the police’s prime and sole suspect and that he is anyway a lowlife who should be in prison guilty or not.
Watson was publically identified as the suspect at the beginning of Mr Pope’s inquiry when much of the country’s press happened to be present on a Picton wharf as the police seized Watson’s yacht Blade. His name was concreted solidly in the public mind as the owner of the boat and soon afterwards by the release of a ‘suspect profile’ which named him and published elements of his criminal record along with a defamatory police perspective of him.
Within days of Mr Pope taking over the inquiry the police search for an unknown mystery man and mystery yacht was put aside and the inquiry focused solely on Watson and his yacht. There was no evidence supporting this development beyond Watson’s presence amongst the hundreds at the scene and Mr Pope’s ‘instinct’. The ‘ketch’ the missing pair had boarded was downgraded in media stories to the mistaken evidence of one man (water taxi driver Guy Wallace) when dozens had reported seeing it, including two eyewitnesses who had been present at the time. All the public focus then went to Watson’s yacht and he was maintained in the public eye as the sole suspect throughout the inquiry, reference to him being commonly invoked through reference to Blade as a metaphor for Watson himself.
The process of defamation was continued into the High Court with Mr Pope’s falsely sworn affidavits and, shortly before Watson was arrested, in a highly prejudicial magazine article in which there is reason to infer collusion between Mr Pope and the journalist concerned. Throughout this time Watson was, along with his family, repeatedly and falsely defamed thoughout New Zealand. This process has been continued through the years since, while he has been in prison, and evidence of this is to be found in the enclosed transcript of a Radio NZ interview of the Southern General Manager of the Corrections Department, also posted on the ‘Defamation of Scott Watson’ page of the website trialbytrickery.com.
Watson’s right to justice was further prejudiced on 11 January 1998 when the police accused the principal witness to identification of complicity in rape and murder, in a lengthy videotaped interview which effectively ‘softened him up’, after which he and others were persuaded to identify Watson solely by reference to a photograph which lied.

2) Five of the six affidavits subject to my complaint were sworn by Mr Pope prior to arresting Scott Watson and relate to applications for authority to place listening devices on his yacht and on the telephones and in the homes of his family and friends. The sixth was sworn in opposition to the grant of bail after the arrest. Some, but not all, of the statements in the affidavits which I submit were known by Mr Pope to be false are listed and briefly discussed on pages 56-61 and 240-242 of the book.

3) The secret witnesses and their evidence against Mr Watson are discussed on pages 167-173 and page 200 of the book.
The issue relating to ‘Mr Erie’ and his children is the subject of Chapter Five of the book.

I enclose documentation, and a list and notes thereof, relating to the documented references in the book and film..

Please note that, in accordance with my view that the issues at the heart of my complaint should be treated with full transparency, this letter and all correspondence relating to it will be made public by posting on the website trialbytrickery.com.

If there is any difficulty with the documentation, if it is unclear or inadequate, please inform me and I will attend to it as soon as I am able.

Yours Faithfully
Keith Hunter,
Author/publisher: Trial By Trickery, Writer/producer/director: Murder On The Blade?

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Response to the Police Report to Chris Watson.

This site's January 2009 response to the police report on Chris Watson's complaint reads:

12 January 09

Justice Lowell Goddard,
Independent Police Conduct Authority
PO Box 5025
Wellington

Dear Justice Goddard

Re: Police inquiry re Ben Smart and Olivia Hope:
Conduct of Deputy Commissioner of Police Rob Pope

I understand the Police responses to Mr Chris Watson’s four year old complaint to them that Mr Pope swore several false affidavits against his son Scott Watson have been copied to your office, and that the responses are a report by Detective Inspector Ross Pinkham to Assistant Commissioner Gavin Jones and a review of that report by Mr Jones. The two papers clear Mr Pope. I refer to the internet publication of them at:

http://www.police.govt.nz/resources/2008/report-operation-tam/

As several of the Chris Watson complaints are also included amongst my complaints to you I believe it is appropriate for me to provide to you my views on the police response in those matters. The issues involve untrue statements included in several affidavits Mr Pope swore in support of applications for interception or “bugging” warrants.


* Re: Chris Watson Complaint 1 (Item 4, Trial by Trickery at page 58)
At about 5.30 am Mahony woke and noticed that the "Blade" had gone. He also noticed that Watson had left his fender, which had been placed between the two yachts, behind.”
The police reply is that a typographical error has resulted in “Mahoney” being incorrectly typed instead of “Eastgate”. But it doesn’t matter who is quoted as making the claim, which in context implies that Scott Watson left the fender behind in his haste to up-anchor and leave with a kidnapped couple. The issue is the claim itself. Mr Jones asserts that:
The statement in the affidavit attributed to Mahony should in fact have been attributed to the witness Eastgate”
Mr Jones is wrong. Mahoney surely did not make the claim, but nor did Mr Eastlake. No-one made the claim except Mr Pope and the police have not explained why. The circumstances and truth of the matter are detailed in Trial By Trickery at p59.


* Re: Chris Watson Complaints 2-4. (Items 5 and 6, Trial by Trickery p59, ) relating to Scott Watson’s appearance at the Furneaux party and whether he attempted to mislead the police by tidying himself up and cutting his hair.
Notwithstanding the replies by Mr Jones and Mr Pinkham, the photographic evidence is irrefutable. It cannot be challenged by witness statements. The police attempts to overrule the photographs by quoting selected witnesses are sophistry.
Mr Jones’ response relies on several unsigned, anonymously authored documents which have never been seen or heard of before but are newly discovered amongst the police files. These documents are alleged to draw on lost or discarded notes by the police officer who repeatedly lied to water-taxi driver Guy Wallace and threatened him in a videotape three hour interview on 11 January 1998 (see TxT p 138-141)/. The documents refer to alleged comments by Scott Watson which became the cause of central accusations against him and which are alleged to have been made on 12 January 1998 during an interview session with two police officers while elsewhere his boat was being seized. Following the interview the officers each wrote lengthy jobsheets relating to it and presented Watson with a thirteen page, three thousand word statement recording what he had said during it. The alleged comments are absent from the statement and both jobsheets, despite the officer-who-lied allegedly recording them that same day in a lost notebook or jobsheet.
Mr Jones notes he has been unable to find the officer-who-lied’s jobsheet relating to the 12 January interview. It is Document Number 40483 and I am able to provide him with a copy if need be.
I submit that the circumstances relating to these documents qualify the present police response to Chris Watson complaints 2-4, and therefore to my parallel complaints, to be ignored and the police response in general to be treated with caution.


* Re: Chris Watson’s complaint 7 (Item 3, Trial by Trickery at p58)…,
The water taxi driver, Guy Wallace, and passengers on the Naiad at approximately 4 am on 1 January 1998, Morresey and Dyer, described a person of similar description to Scott Watson as being dropped off the water taxi in the company of Olivia Hope and Ben Smart near where Scott Watson's yacht was rafted
The defence by Mr Jones against this complaint is not credible. Excepting the first statement by Guy Wallace which awarded the “mystery man” short hair, not a recorded word by any of the three is compatible with the sworn claim quoted above.
Despite Mr Jones’s views, Mr Pope needed to read only the statements by Guy Wallace, Hayden Morresey and Sarah Dyer to see that his claim is entirely untrue. I cannot believe that six weeks into his inquiry Mr Pope had not read every word in the statements and jobsheets relating to his most important witnesses, the three eyewitnesses who saw Ben Smart and Olivia Hope boarding the “mystery yacht”. At the time of his first affidavit this numbered just 15 statements.

Mr Pinkham provides an overall defence of Mr Pope by asserting that while he swore and signed the affidavits he did not necessarily know that what he signed and swore was true - because he had not himself sighted evidence of it and instead relied on the words and reportage of others:
In the role of an OIC of an investigation It not always possible to read all documents. It is not always possible to understand the relevance of each and every piece of information, whether it be fact or opinion, or what might be construed at an early stage as evidence…

However, for the purposes of the affidavits it was not necessary for Mr Pope to read and understand the relevance of all the documents arising in the inquiry. The only ones he had to read and understand in order to confirm that what he signed and swore was true were those that could confirm that what he signed and swore was true. That was a small number of documents each and every one of which were essential to his conduct of his inquiry. If he didn’t read the statements of the key witnesses - or look at the photographs of his sole suspect taken on the night of the crime - what evidence was he familiar with?

Another main line of defence in Mr Pinkham’s report is that Mr Pope is absolved from all responsibility because while he didn’t know it was all true he thought it was, and because he appended to each affidavit that :
"..the information contained in the application … is still to the best of my knowledge true and correct" .

This is a nice escape clause but if it’s good enough for police inspectors who have access to everything and everyone they need to ensure that what they swear to be is true is in fact true, then it must surely be good enough for everyone else. In that case sworn affidavits and oaths would mean nothing. Mr Pinkham (at p11) quotes the authority R v Williams and Ors seemingly in support of Mr Pope here, but Mr Pope’s affidavits ignore its dicta.

Mr Pinkham also seems to shift responsibility for the affidavits to Mr Ian McArthur, Canterbury Senior Legal Adviser and a police expert on such matters. If Mr McArthur is wholly or partly responsible, then I assume he must be included as subject to my complaint.


It is now nineteen months since the police first referred my complaints to your office as they are detailed in Trial By Trickery and more than a year since I confirmed them separately. I understand your research and analysis of my existing complaint is complete. I would be grateful for your advice as to when you expect your report will be available.

Please note that this letter to you will be posted on my website, hunterproductions.co.nz, on Wednesday 14 January, in keeping with my usual practice in matters relating to Trial By Trickery.

Yours Faithfully

Keith Hunter



Justice Goddard replied on 15 January. She noted that her inquiry "is well advanced" but cannot offer a report date.

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Recent (1 Feb- 29 March 2010) correspondence relating to the complaint to the IPCA against Pope follows, posted here 15 April 2010:

1 February 2010

Justice Lowell Goddard QC
Independent Police Conduct Authority

Dear Justice Goddard,

Re:       Complaint Dated 28 August 2007
Against Deputy Commissioner Rob Pope

……   Last June I was given to understand by your investigator Bob Grinstead (email 25/06/09) that your response to my complaint “should be finalized and with (me) in the near future”. On 23 November 09 he advised that his report on the complaint was with you.

My complaint is and has always been an urgent matter. At its heart is a trial for murder prejudiced and made abominably unfair by the conduct, some of it plainly criminal, of the Deputy Commissioner of Police. Your report may well influence the liberty of a man who has now been wrongly imprisoned for eleven years. Every day the report is delayed may be another day that man, patently innocent not just to me but apparently to most New Zealanders, remains wrongly imprisoned. While I understand that your office is confronted with many other complaints, I suggest that few of them can carry such urgency.

It has now been almost two and a half years since my complaint was laid. In the context I  have just described that must surely be a sufficient period to formulate and complete a response. Please advise when I can expect to receive one.

Since, as you will be aware, Kristy McDonald QC is conducting an inquiry under the auspices of the Governor General into Scott Watson’s conviction, I would also appreciate your assurance that her inquiry and yours are entirely separate and not interdependent or in any way interrelated.

Please note that, as with previous correspondence, this letter to you will be posted in due course on my website, hunterproductions.co.nz, in keeping with my usual practice in matters relating to Trial By Trickery.

Yours Faithfully

Keith Hunter

===============
18 February 2010
Dear Mr Hunter:

… Mr Grinstead is right in his advice that his investigation report on your complaint was provided to me in November 2009.
I appreciate the serious nature of your complaint and my responsibility as Authority.

I am aware that Ms McDonald QC has conducted an inquiry pursuant to s.406 of the Crimes Act 1961. I am of course interested to read her report when that is made available to me and I am unaware of its terms of reference or contents. Her inquiry and my investigation are entirely separate and are not interdependent or in any way related.
I cannot give you a firm date as to when my report to you will be concluded but I can assure you that all matters are being carefully considered.

Yours Faithfully
Hon Justice Lowell Goddard.

======================
29 March 2010
Dear Justice Goddard

Re: Police inquiry re Ben Smart and Olivia Hope:
Conduct of Deputy Commissioner of Police Rob Pope

Your letter of 18 February is disappointing. Although my complaint has been with your office for more than two and a half years and you confirm that your investigation was completed four months ago, you provide neither your report on the complaint nor a reason for withholding it. This is not compatible with your claim to “appreciate the serious nature of (my) complaint”. The liberty of an innocent man locked up in prison for twelve years is the underlying issue. The  situation demands an urgent response, not a leisurely one.

The unexplained delay also undermines your advice that Ms McDonald’s inquiry and yours are not interdependent or in any way interrelated.  Given the full context of R v Watson, no objective observer could be blamed for suspecting that the delay is to ensure that the two are in unison. 

I now understand that the police report on Chris Watson’s five-year-old complaint against Mr Pope also lies with you. At  http://www.police.govt.nz/news/release/4617.html the offical police website records a press statement dated 21 December 2008 which said that the report was to be referred to your office “for further review”. That police report found Mr Pope innocent of any wrongdoing, in the most imaginative of ways, but no review of it by the IPCA has since been announced and I believe none has received by the complainant Mr Watson. If the report, which took the police four years to construct, was in fact referred to your office, then it’s been there for fifteen months.

Your statement that Ms McDonald “has conducted an inquiry” is incorrect. There is little reason to believe that Ms McDonald has even started an inquiry, let alone finished one. She qualifies as another competitor in the contest for slowest response to a complaint against the justice system.

Faced with three reports on this case all being performed in an ultra slow tempo – when presto is indicated - the objective observer would reason that the guilty are too elite and too many to suffer criticism. Three reports from three different arms of the judicial system should all sing the same song of innocence in the same key. In my own experience this would undoubtedly have been the agenda of the office that preceded the IPCA.

Your review of the police report, when it is published, should remind New Zealanders of the “the buck stops below” argument proposed, objectively, by Mr Pope’s subordinates to explain why their superior is not a liar criminally guilty of swearing multiple false oaths. Mr Pope’s staff held, impartially, that a police inquiry leader who swears a series of repeatedly false affidavits in the High Court, and who can not possibly be unaware that they are repeatedly false, is innocent of any offence if he claims his team didn’t tell him they were repeatedly false. Dissemination by the IPCA of this police defence will benefit all New Zealanders who wish to swear false affidavits in the High Court. The defence will obviously be of particular interest to the legal industry.

I submit that both the public interest and the public good require that you advise when the reports and review before you will be available. I also submit that after so many years of delay it is the plain duty of your office to announce a date and I ask you to do so with haste.

I regret to advise that my previous advice to you that you had not replied to my letter of 12 January  2009 was incorrect. I apologise for my error. Your reply stated that I would be notified when the Authority had finished its investigation and had formed an opinion, and that “the enquiry is well advanced.”  The reply is dated 15 January 2009.

Yours Faithfully
Keith Hunter

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Posted on 15 August 2010:

In late May the IPCA, Justice Lowell Goddard supplied, by mail, what was assumed to be a draft version of her report. The report had taken, allegedly, two years and ten months to compile. Her office has advised the report will not be published.

On 3 August Justice Goddard was provided with a 49 page commentary on the report. Little more than a week later she advised that no change would be made to the report in relation to the commentary. The following covering letter accompanied the commentary :

 

3 August 2010

Justice Lowell Goddard,
Independent Police Conduct Authority
PO Box 5025
Wellington

Dear Justice Goddard
Re: Report on Police inquiry re Ben Smart and Olivia Hope:
Conduct of Deputy Commissioner of Police Rob Pope

Thankyou for your report. I make the following notes to it:

You have noted that the police force forwarded to you both my letter to Mr Pope and my book Trial By Trickery on the basis that they constituted a complaint against it. Following this, on 23 July 2007 I provided, at your request, a copy of my  film Murder On The Blade?. I then formalised my complaint in a letter dated 28 August 2007.

My book and film make many statements of fact and go on to ask questions and draw inferences based upon those facts. They provide many verbatim quotations from relevant documents. For each of the facts, and for every one of the verbatim quotations, the two publications identify and name the source. Every one of those sources is available to you both because the sources are either public media or Operation TAM documents and because I accompanied my letter of complaint with comprehensive documentation, including the relevant case documents sourced by the film and book,  electronic copies of  the press reportage of the Dominion, Evening Post, Marlborough Express, Christchurch Press, Nelson Daily News (et al) during January – May 1998, electronic and hard copies of relevant magazine stories, and a library list and descriptive summary of all TVNZ news and current affairs reporting of the police inquiry up to Watson’s arrest in June 1998.

Your report in response is astonishing.  I have not seen its like before. You overrule my facts and my arguments  but provide no supporting documentation at all. While you offer mild criticism of some aspects of the police conduct, instead of taking stock of the hard, incontrovertible, widely and prominently published factual evidence provided to you in support of the complaints, the report has ignored every word of it. You repeatedly contradict the demonstrated facts attested by the two documents in providing the grounds for complaint, and instead rely exclusively for your contradictions on anonymous documents which you do not attach to your report. Where the report does not claim support from these alleged ‘internal’ police documents, it relies on argument and inference which are often utter nonsense.

Were such unsupported argument and profound illogic proposed to you by counsel in court I submit you would reject it as wishful drivel..

 

I was led to believe that the new office of Independent Police Conduct Authority was both independent and true, a real advance in those contexts on its predecessor. I was given to hold, and indeed held, you, your office and your investigators in the highest regard.

I have been cheated. Your arguments are false. Your ‘facts’ are edicts - facts only because you say so. Your contradictions bear every possible hall mark of falsity. They rely on allegations of support from unnamed, undated, unseen and previously unheard-of secret police documents by unnamed and unknown police authors. None of their sources is available to me. Those of  your claims which can be assessed against nationwide press reports responding unanimously to police statements are invariably refuted by the hard evidence of those press reports. The claims are demonstrably untrue.

I attach a copy of an affidavit I provided for Ms McDonald’s inquiry in which I swore that every statement of fact in my book and film is a fact. I take responsibility for every one of my statements. That is, after all, the purpose of a sworn affidavit. In contrast, Mr Pope has your acknowledgement that all the false statements in his sworn affidavits are either the fault of subordinates who failed to tell him what the truth was, or ‘drafting errors’. Mr Pope, with your comforting approval, takes no responsibility for his sworn statements of fact, and you provide no evidence for your conclusions.

 

I have been advised several times by a senior political figure, on one occasion in the presence of another senior political figure, that the present Minister of Justice has decreed that no part of the justice system will be impugned in the Watson case. The Minister’s  decision has been made regardless of, or more accurately, because of  the gravity and breadth of the issues involved and the prestige and unprecedented number of elite citizens who stand accused. Your report confirms that advice. It provides further sad commentary on the integrity of all concerned, now including the “Independent” Police Conduct Authority, a title belied by the 2007 amendment to section 6 of your governing Act.

Perhaps at some future time those who administer our judicial system will be able to comprehend that coverups do it untold harm and that its integrity will only be enhanced when it conducts its affairs in accordance with the standards it requires of everyone else. Taking your report as it stands, I will in the meantime do my utmost to make the Minister’s edict and its outcomes as widely known as possible.

I attach a detailed commentary on your report

Yours Faithfully
Keith Hunter

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Posted on 21 August 2010

There have been many requests to post the entire IPCA report here. There will be an appropriate time for this. In the meantime the following commentary on the IPCA’s paragraph 38 is an example of her report’s patent deceit.

The context is Pope’s tunnel  vision in pursuing Scott Watson to the exclusion anyone else, from the very first days of his inquiry. TxT explains (Chapter 3. p119 ff) Pope’s decision on14 January 1998  to put all ketch sightings aside and focus solely on Watson’s sloop Blade.

The opening sentence in italics is from Paragraph 38 of the report, and is followed by the commentary upon it as sent to the IPCA. Readers should bear in mind that the documents provided to the IPCA as comprising the text of a complaint were the book Trial By Trickery (forwarded by the Police) and the film Murder On The Blade? (provided at the request of the IPCA) :

 

 Para 38           Re:      ‘It is evident from the material reviewed that the police did not exhibit clear preference for information about a sloop over and above a ketch before 27 January 1998’


This statement is blatantly false. It is unanimously contradicted by a huge body of unambiguous press reportage which obediently quoted the words of Mr Pope from 15 January onwards. The statement does no more than reflect your total, utterly inappropriate reliance on a single, one-sided  alleged source of information,– anonymous police files.

  • (John Goulter’s police-approved book) Silent Evidence is definitive at pp 120/ 121. TxT at pp40, 121 and 136 refers to Goulter on the matter and on page 138 quotes Goulter’s page 120 verbatim:

‘In his evening briefing on Wednesday 14 January 1998, Rob Pope told the Operation TAM staff that the decision had been made to announce publicly that the inquiry had shifted its focus from the ketch to Watson’s boat. Admitting that the ketch had been a red herring would be a major public relations hurdle, but they would just have to confront it.’

  • Silent Evidence continues:

    ‘We will leave the door open in terms of ketch sightings but essentially the public will be told that despite extensive inquiries and saturation of boat owners and occupants, we have yet to identify this ketch” Pope said. The plan would be to issue a press release that put the emphasis on the Blade’

  • And on page 121:

    "The press release that marked a major turning point in Operation TAM went out at 1pm on Wednesday 14 January...
    Pope said… ‘he is still interested  in hearing from anybody who saw a similar boat (to the ketch) in the Sounds over this period’ . But then Pope shifted focus to Watson’s boat

  • Silent Evidence was checked for accuracy by D/I Pope, who also wrote its Foreword.
  • TxT at p37:

    On 14 January the Dominion noted that ‘Police have seized a yacht owned by Picton man Scott Watson … They wore plastic gloves and were looking for traces of blood in the cabin …
    ’…TVNZ reported that:
    Police have announced that they’re focusing their inquiry on the sloop seized from a bay near Picton two days ago …’


    Mr Pope said on Television Onethat the owner of the boat had ‘similarities to the physical description of the man we believe was on the vessel Ben and Olivia were last seen stepping on’..

  • Although I provided them electronically with my complaint, I now specifically attach to this commentary all of the reports published electronically by the two Wellington newspapers, the Dominion and the Evening Post, between 14 and 27 January relating to the search for the mystery yacht, being 22  reports in all. Every one refers to or focuses on ‘the sloop at the centre of the inquiry’ or its owner. They confirm Mr Goulter’s claims in Silent Evidence and Mr Chappell’s claims on my website and in the media.

Following is a selection of verbatim quotations from those stories:

  • Evening Post, 15 January 1998, by Georgina Bailey:

    “POLICE SAY KEY WITNESS MISTAKEN
    ‘…Police now do not believe the ketch ever existed, saying they think Mr Wallace was mistaken in his description. Instead forensic tests continued on a sloop….owned by Picton man Scott Watson”…’

  • Evening Post 16 January 1998, by Mark Stevens, Crime Reporter:

    ‘Inquiry head Detective  Inspector Pope said today the forensic examination of the sloop was substantially complete….
    …The sloop’s cabin and trim were painted sometime bewteen 4pm on New Year’s Eve and lunchtime on New Years’s Day. Police had originally focused on looking for a ketch..’

  • Evening Post 17 January, by Tom Cardy and NZPA:

    ‘Police spokesman …. today downplayed their search yesterday of a Picton house occupied by the parents of Scott Watson, a man who owns a sloop at the centre of the hunt for Olivia Hope and Ben Smart…’

  • Evening Post 19 January 1998, by Mark Stevens, Crime Reporter:

    ‘Police are appealing for any sightings of the sloop until January 12, when it was seized..’

  • Evening Post 19 January, by Mark Stephens, Crime Reporter ( a full page story focusing all but exclusively on the call for ‘sloop’ sightings, including:

    ‘Police are appealing for any sightings of the sloop until January 12 when it was seized.
    If anyone has seen the yacht anywhere in the Sounds during the first week of January could they pleas contact the inquiry base… Obviously we need to hear from them all. The places on the map will not be definitive of the sloop’s movements“Mr Pope said.
    Police are seeking information on a distinctive single masted yacht…..(A full and detailed description of Blade followed )

  • Evening Post, 21 January:

    ‘Mr Hope said there was still confusion over exactly what was important and what information was needed.  He had spoken to people in the search area who still thought the mystery ketch was the focus of police investigations and were not aware of the importance of the seized sloop’.

  • Dominion, 15 January 1998, by Alison Tocker:

    ‘Police also believed that the sloop had been repainted in the first week of January.. and they revealed that the mystery ketch they had been seeking probably did not exist..’

  • Dominion, 17 January, by Lin Ferguson:

    ‘Police said they were concentrating their investigation on the sloop..

  • Thirty two lines of reportage on the sloop followed this statement. Only the following last two lines referred to the ketch:

‘Police were interested in hearing about ketches after water taxi driver said he had dropped the pair off at a ketch on New  Year’s day’.,

  • Dominion, 24 January, by Alison Tocker:

    Police have discounted a report the boat was a ketch  and are focusing their inquiries on the sloop…’

  • As he insisted on total control of all  press reportage of his inquiry (v. Cate Brett’s academic paper at p9) Pope cannot have failed to check daily that what he told the press was what it published. The above reports are from the newspapers of Mr Pope’s home town, the papers he must have read every day. None of the reports were contested by the police at any time. Instead they were confirmed and repeatedly re-stated from 15 January onwards in every newspaper in the country. They confirm the claims of former Detective Michael Chappell, originally described by the Dominion as Operation TAM’s ‘Acting Communications Co-ordinator’, who on 8 May 2007 posted on the trialbytrickery.com  website:

    ‘I and the Police Media Liason Officer, answered the phones when queries came in. We received hundreds of calls about the ketch. I am not exaggerating. All were documented as we had a special form made up. But after only a few days of receiving calls about sightings of the ketch, we were told not to record any more. That was Pope’s orders. So we just took the calls and really just took no notice of them.’

  • Mr Chappell has restated his claims repeatedly on national media outlets over the past three years without contradiction by the police.
  • There is not a single press story after 14 January which refers to a search for a ketch other than a handful in the context that ‘originally’ the police had sought a two masted ketch, or in a context which devalues that quest.
  • If the ‘material’ which has informed your report on this issue consists of police files then I suggest that they have been written specifically to falsify the record. Mr Goulter’s reportage, having been checked for accuracy by Mr Pope himself, is evidenceof this.
  • It is continually disappointing that ‘the material reviewed’ for your report has not included any of the hard, incontestable evidence and documentation which I have provided to you or which is plainly sourced in both my book and film

Your assertion is impossible.

 

The IPCA's response to this commentary was to email advice that it would it would ignore it.

Readers might like to review the two press stories above dated 15 January in the light of paragraph 43 of Justice Goddard's report, where she says, :

On 3 March 1998 Detective Inspector Pope was quoted in the media as saying he believed the ketch did not exist.

 

 

 

 

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Court of Appeal

The following letter was sent to the three judges of the Court of Appeal, copied to the Chief Justice, on 26 August. There has been neither acknowledgment or response of any sort. A followup letter will be sent to the Chief Justice and the President of the Court of Appeal on Monday 29 October and posted here the following day, 30 October .

26 August 2007

Sir Ivor Richardson
Court of Appeal
PO Box 1606
Wellington

cc Dame Sian Elias, Chief Justice

Dear Sir Ivor

Re: The Appeal in R v Watson, 1999.

I am the author and publisher of Trial By Trickery, a book on the justice system and its treatment of Scott Watson. I enclose a copy. I also enclose a DVD copy of the television documentary Murder On The Blade?, which was broadcast on Television One on 7 November 2003.

I write in respect of your part in declining Watson’s appeal in 1999.

While there are many matters I would draw your attention to, I refer you in particular to chapters Six and Eight of the book and to Part Three of the Film. The book chapters relate to ‘The Two Trip Theory’ and to Watson’s appeal, and the film segment to identification issues.

I remind you first that in your judgment you stated:

In summing up, the trial Judge clearly treated the Wallace evidence as visual identifications of the appellant not only on the water taxi but also on earlier occasions at the Lodge. It therefore becomes apparent that the Crown, defence, and the trial Judge all regarded (Guy) Wallace as having made a visual identification of the appellant. It is beyond question that the case against him depended substantially on the correctness of those identifications, because if they were incorrect the Crown case was seriously undermined .

I ask that you then consider the following passage in Part Three of the film, where eyewitness Guy Wallace makes the following answers, in person, to questions posed by the film:

NARRATOR: If someone had pointed, not at the photograph in Montage B but at Watson himself in court and then asked Guy Wallace if this was the mystery man what would he have said?
WALLACE “I would have said obviously not”
NARRATOR Why?
WALLACE “Because he is not the mystery man..
NARRATOR Was Scott Watson the man in the water taxi that night or not?
WALLACE “Definitely not.

You will find elsewhere, in both film and book, a discussion of identification issues and the retraction by Wallace and other key eyewitness of their testimony at trial on the grounds that they were misled by what is essentially a trick photograph.


Secondly, please note the following passage in your judgment:


The two trip theory must have been a possible Crown contention from the outset, and certainly became so as matters developed in the way the defence anticipated they might. Mr Antunovic submitted that the so-called late acknowledgement by the Crown on this point impacted adversely on the defence. It was suggested that more extensive cross-examination of the witnesses who were on board the "Mina Cornelia" and the "Bianco" as to the timing of the appellant’s return with Mr Anderson would have been undertaken. Similarly as regards the witnesses to the Perkins incident ashore, and the absence of evidence as to how the appellant may have returned to the shore. But an examination of the transcript shows that there was extensive cross-examination on those issues.

Your final statement above, ‘… an examination of the transcript shows that there was extensive cross-examination on those issues..’ is incorrect. There is no such cross examination at all. In particular, the question of a return by Watson to shore is entirely absent from the transcript of the trial. It is to be found only in the final address to the jury by the Crown Prosecutor, and there only in the words the prosecutor spoke on the second and final day of that address. An examination of the transcript shows in fact that Watson was convicted on a murder scenario of which neither he nor the jury had been aware until that moment.

Scott Watson’s conviction, by your own judgment, has been ‘seriously undermined’ by Guy Wallace on nationwide television. Even more importantly, he was convicted after being kept unaware, throughout his whole trial, of what he was alleged to have done. For that reason only, he had not mounted a defence against it. The book shows that in fact evidence was available which readily absolves him. Instead, he was tried and convicted on a secret charge. I’m sure you will agree that there can be no greater evil in any justice system than this.

I’m also sure you will find Watson’s continued imprisonment unacceptable in view of these and other issues raised in book and film, and that you will take immediate steps to have Scott Watson treated with the justice he has so far been denied.

I look forward to your response to this letter and its information to you. The letter has also been sent to your colleagues who sat with you in R v Watson, Gault J and Henry J, and has also been copied along with the book and film to the Chief Justice, Dame Sian Elias. It will be posted on the website trialbytrickery.com along with any response you care to make.

Yours Faithfully,


Keith Hunter

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None of the Court of Appeal judges nor the Chief Justice responded to the above letter. The following was written directly to the Chief Justice on 5 November, copied to relevant politicians and the president of the Court of Appeal. (The unfortunate typographical error in the first sentence is admitted)

The Rt Hon Dame Sian Elias,
Chief Justice,
Supreme Court
PO Box 1606
Wellington

Cc: Hon William Young, DCNZM, LLD, QC, President of the Court of Appeal
Rt Hon Sir Ivor Richardson, PC, KB, PCNZM, LLB Hon LLD Cant, LLM SJD Mich, Hon LLD
Rt Hon Thomas Gault, PC, DCNZM, QC, LLM
Rt Hon John Henry, PC, DCNZM, QC
Hon Annette King, Minister of Justice
Hon Clayton Cosgrove, Associate Minister of Justice
Hon Michael Cullen, Attorney General
Hon Charles Chauvel, Parliamentary Undersecretary to the Attorney General

Dear Dame Sian Elias,

Re: The Appeal in R v Watson, 1999.

I refer to my letter of 26 August which you have not unacknowledged (sic!) .
The letter was enclosed with a book, Trial By Trickery, a documentary film, Murder On The Blade?, and a copy of a letter to the three Court of Appeal judges who sat in R v Watson. The book, film and letter have all been widely published, by nationwide sale, television broadcast or posting on the website trialbytrickery.com. They reveal that those judges were either seriously mistaken or lied in their judgment. If the matter remains unaddressed the latter is the view many will undoubtedly prefer.
The film depicts the principal witness to identification in Watson publicly retracting his identification on the grounds that he was tricked into making it. The Court of Appeal openly relied on the testimony of this witness when it declined the appeal. It also claimed that the scenario on which Mr Watson was convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment had been addressed at his trial. The book shows that claim is untrue. The trial transcript indicates instead that the Crown deliberately concealed its alleged murder scenario from defence counsel throughout the trial, always aware of evidence that exonerated Watson.
I suggest that for these two reasons the matter demands your urgent attention and I look forward to your response.
The three judges have also declined to acknowledge receipt of my letter, book and film and in doing so put at risk the Court’s value and public standing.
Like its predecessor, this letter has been posted on the website trialbytrickery.com

Yours Faithfully,

Keith Hunter

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3 December: A letter from the office of the Chief Justice was received on 28 November. Unfortunately Elias CJ's Judicial Administrator was deceived by the 20 October missive above into thinking it asked her to reopen R v Watson and did not note its request that she inquire into the conduct of the Court of Appeal. The text of the Administrator's letter, which will be answered shortly, reads:


Dear Mr Hunter
I refer to your letters of 26 August and 20 October 2007 to the Chief Justice concerning Mr Watson.
In your letter of 20 October 2007 you suggest that the issues raised demand the urgent attention of the Chief Justice. I assume by that you mean that the Chief Justice should take some steps to review or reopen the case.
The Chief Justice does not have the legal authority to intervene or review any court proceeding unless it comes before her on appeal to the Supreme Court. The only avenues through which a court decision can be challenged is by way of review or appeal through the court system.

Yours Faithfully
Kieron McCarron
Judicial Administrator to the Chief Justice.

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14 December: The following reply was sent to Mr McCarron to correct the unforeseen misunderstandings apparent in his above letter. The reply said:

Kieron McCarron, Judicial Administrator to the Chief Justice.

Dear Mr McCarron

You assume in your letter of 26 November that the underlying intention of my letters is confined to re-opening the Watson case. It is not. My purpose was plain and is threefold:

One is my clear and public allegation that the Crown Prosecutors concealed their case from a man they were prosecuting for murder, with the specific intention of securing his conviction by denying him an opportunity to defend himself - that is, by cheating him into prison for the rest of his life. My interpretation of the Crown’s conduct relates both to the integrity of those it hires to prosecute murder cases and also to clauses 115 and 116 of the Crimes Act, where the offences of conspiring to bring false accusation and to pervert justice involve prison sentences of up to 14 years.

Two is the problem with the Court of Appeal - also, I thought, clear and public. The issue here is that unless someone addresses the matter and announces that the three judges who declined Watson’s appeal were seriously mistaken in making the claim I described, the New Zealand public might be justified if it came to the conclusion that those judges ‘lied in their judgment’.

Three is the situation of Scott Watson, who may languish in prison until he dies, after a conviction acquired by a multitude of false statements by every eminent officer of the law the Crown entrusted with the duty of supplying him justice.

Yes, it would be good if the Chief Justice were to agitate to re-open the Watson case. It would be even better if the Chief Justice recommended that the conduct of the Crown Prosecutors be investigated in the terms of sections 115 and 116 of the Crimes Act. It would be superb if the Chief Justice acted to protect the reputation of the Court of Appeal.
All of these seem to me to be within the purview of a ‘Chief Justice’, whether or not the rules allow her to move the mountains that stronger action might involve.

But, frankly, I and several readers of my book would be pleased if the Chief Justice just took an interest in the matter. Has she?

This letter to you will be posted on the website trialbytrickery.com.

Yours faithfully, Keith Hunter

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2 January

A reply to the above was received on 20 December. It reads:

18 December

Dear Mr Hunter

The Chief Justice cannot respond to the matters you raise in your correspondence. I reiterate, she does not have the legal authority to intervene or review any court proceeding unless it comes before her on appeal to the Supreme Court.

Yours sincerely

Kieron McCarron
Judicial Administrator to the Chief Justice.

---------------

The following has been posted in response to the above letter:

.2 January 2008
Dame Sian Elias,
Chief Justice of New Zealand.

Dear Chief Justice,

Re: Your Previous Responses via Mr McCarron.

I am unable to convince Mr McCarron that my purpose in writing to you is not specifically to seek that you reopen or review the Scott Watson case. It is rather out of concern for the reputations of the High Court and Court of Appeal and our criminal trial process in general. Anyone familiar with the detail of the Watson case is likely to assess those reputations poorly and written responses from readers of my book Trial By Trickery allow no doubt of this.

The issues are:
o ..A New Zealand prosecutorial team apparently concealed its true case until the last minute from a man accused of murder, depriving him of any opportunity to defend himself against that case. The prosecutors’ conduct of the trial consequently has the appearance of a conspiracy to pervert justice (I refer you again to S.115 and 116 of the Crimes Act);
o ..The same prosecutorial team repeatedly misled the jury by misquoting the evidence to it, that is, apparently by lying to the court;
o ..The alternative conclusions available from the documentation of the Court of Appeal proceedings are that that Court either lied or was profoundly incompetent or negligent in its judgment.

I will be astounded if these matters, all now widely published, are not a proper matter for the Chief Justice, either formally or informally, because for you to ignore them allows that they are normal in the conduct of criminal trials and appeals in New Zealand. If they are not for the Chief Justice personally then surely the Chief Justice will refer them to the appropriate office for investigation.

Mr McCarron implies in his letter of 18 December that the only judicial role of the Chief Justice relates to the Supreme Court. It follows that prior to the creation of the Supreme Court the Chief Justice had no judicial role at all. I trust Mr McCarron is incorrect.

As with previous correspondence, this letter to you will be posted on the website trialbytrickery.com.

Yours faithfully
Keith Hunter, Author and Publisher, Trial By Trickery
---------------------------------

18 March 2008
A (disappointing) reply has been received to the letter sent to the Chief Justice on 2 January. Although that letter sought to elicit a view directly from Dame Sian herself, today’s correspondence is again from Mr McCarron. A response to his letter will be posted here shortly. In the meantime readers might contemplate what Mr McCarron means by “directly challenged” as in his letter transcribed below.
Mr McCarron’s letter reads:

10 March…..
Dear Mr Hunter,
Thank you for your letter of 2 January 2008. The functions of the Chief Justice are principally judicial and it is not appropriate for her to intervene in matters of controversy which could end up in cases before the courts on which she may have to sit. You identify issues touching upon fair trial and judicial determinations which, if directly challenged, could well come for determination before the Chief Justice in her judicial capacity.
Yours sincerely
Kieron McCarron..
Judicial Administrator to the Chief Justice.

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2 April 2008: The following reply to the above was sent to the Chief Justice on 30 March:

30 March 2008

Dame Sian Elias,
Chief Justice of New Zealand.

Dear Chief Justice,
Re: Conduct of the Court of Appeal and the Crown team,
and also of the trial judge in R v Watson

I refer to Mr McCarron’s 10 March letter to me on your behalf.

My correspondence relates not to judicial determinations but primarily to the conduct and integrity of the Court of Appeal and of an entire team of Crown Prosecutors in a murder trial, all prima facie liars and conspirators against justice in this instance. If such matters do not attract the formal interest of New Zealand’s Chief Justice, please advise me as to whom I should take my concerns.

However I ask that you reconsider your position since any determination I might seek could relate only to the Scott Watson case, which lies under the purview of the Privy Council. My understanding is that action in relation to the case would therefore not involve the Supreme Court on which you sit. Moreover my concerns relate to officers of the court who, unlike all other New Zealanders, seem to be conveniently immune from legal action that would otherwise arise when they act disgracefully in and on behalf of the court.

Regarding Mr McCarron’s concern about issues of principle were you to take an interest in a matter on which you might later sit as judge, I draw your attention to pages 239-252 of Trial By Trickery, the book sent to you on 26 August 2007. These pages detail the involvement in the Watson case of the late Heron J, who a year prior to conducting Watson’s trial for two murders, issued a decision stating that Watson was properly suspected as guilty of murder. You will know by now that Justice Heron’s decision was substantially informed by false information provided to him in secret by the then Detective Inspector Pope.

I assume Mr McCarron has in mind the discussion about apparent bias in the conduct of judges set out in Muir v CIR, CA46/06, [2007] NZCA 334 at 57ff, where the Court of Appeal supported in principle the relevant Australian, Canadian and American standards. Muir reads at 57:

[57] Recently the Council of the Chief Justices of Australia (of which the Chief Justice of New Zealand is a member) published its revised Guide to Judicial Conduct (2 ed 2007), which provides at 11:
The ultimate issue is whether a fair-minded lay-observer might reasonably apprehend that the judge might not bring an impartial mind to the resolution of the case.

In deciding against Watson in 1998 and then accepting the conduct of his trial in 1999 Justice Heron would have failed this test, which is the same as that proposed for New Zealand in Muir at 62. Nor would he have passed the New Zealand standard at the time of the Watson trial, confirmed in 1995 in Auckland Casino Ltd v Casino Control Authority and quoted thus in Muir:

[45] ..... the court should ask itself whether, having regard to (the relevant) circumstances, there was a real danger of bias on the part of the relevant member of the tribunal in question, in the sense that he might unfairly regard (or have unfairly regarded) with favour, or disfavour, the case of a party to the issue under consideration by him ... .

On both tests Justice Heron’s conduct of Watson’s trial must present an abuse of process.

You are yourself a party to the establishment of the Australian view and the reference to it above allows no doubt that the issue relates to judicial conduct which is overseen by the Chief Justice in an administrative role additional to the judicial one ascribed to you by Mr McCarron. Justice Heron’s conduct is a matter for reddress and I suggest that it is improper to test further the patience or resources of the Watson family by requiring it to mount an expensive and undoubtedly prolonged legal attack on the late judge when it is the proper duty of the judicial system to deal with the matter of its own initiative.

In view of the arguments presented above, please advise what action you intend to take in respect of the conduct in R v Watson both of the Court of Appeal and the Crown team and of Heron J.

As with previous correspondence, this letter to you will be posted on the website trialbytrickery.com.

Yours faithfully.. Keith Hunter

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Back to beginning of the correspondence regarding the Chief Justice and the Court Of Appeal.

--------------------

The Chief Justice's reply reads reads:

14 April 2008

Dear Mr Hunter
I acknowledge receipt of your letter dated 30 March 2008. The Chief Justice has no authority to enter upon the enquiries you suggest and it would be entirely improper for her to question the conduct of legal proceedings except by judicial process.

Yours Sincerely
Kieron McCarron
Judicial Administrator to the Chief Justice.
---------------------------------------

A further note has been sent to the Chief Justice. It reads:

26 April 2008..

Dear Chief Justice,
Re: Conduct of the Court of Appeal and the Crown team,
and also of the trial judge in R v Watson

I refer to Mr McCarron’s letter of 14 April and his advice on your behalf that it is improper for you to question the conduct of legal proceedings except by judicial process.

I have written that the issue is not the conduct of legal proceedings but the corrupt or incompetent conduct of three judges of the Court of Appeal and of three Crown Prosecutors who plainly, continually and deliberately misled a trial for murder. To impress upon you the gravity of the matter I have styled the prosecutors and Appeal Judges as “prima facie liars and conspirators against justice”. But regardlesss of the clarity of my purpose you again misinterpret it.

I must now assume that the blind eye with which you have greeted my inquiries is cast upon them deliberately and that you are simply evading an unpleasant issue. This is unfortunately par for the course of the Watson outrage where all those who are personally implicated have preferred either a smokescreen or a guilty silence on their involvement. I had hoped for more from the Chief Justice.

My remaining request relates to the other issue which escaped your attention, Justice Heron’s control of the Watson trial. You are party to a document which makes it improper for him to have accepted the trial had he been an Australian. I ask whether the standard relating to bias that you find appropriate for New Zealand judges is equal to the standard you have found appropriate for Australian judges.

As with previous correspondence, this letter to you will be posted on the website trialbytrickery.com.

Yours faithfully...

Keith Hunter
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Court of Appeal.

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The following reply was received on 3 June

29 May 2008
Dear Mr Hunter
I refer to your letter dated 26 April. Nothing further can be added to the responses you have already received on the concerns you have.
Kieron McCarron, Judicial Administrator to the Chief Justice.

Comment: And so it is that a nation’s Chief Justice is unable, or unwilling, to concern herself with documentary evidence that its Court of Appeal lied, that its police force lied and publically defamed a man with the intention of depriving him of a fair trial, that an entire team of Crown Prosecutors conspired to lie and intentionally deceive a murder trial, all in order to convict and imprison a patently innocent man in the name of ‘justice’. The issue is not confined to the incentive to corruption provided by the combat system of law. It relates to that wider palliative set of rules which require, or allow, our most elite only to pretend to an interest in justice and to masquerade as a judicial system while it stands in the way of both..
KH
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Cate Brett, Journalist

On 11 August the following letter was sent to Ms Brett, currrent editor of the Sunday Star Times, seeking an explanation of the false and defamatory article she wrote for North & South Magazine against Scott Watson. Ms Brett has not replied.

11 August 2007
Ms Cate Brett
Editor
Sunday Star-Times,

Dear Ms Brett,
Re: Your reportage of the Hope-Smart Inquiry
I am the author and publisher of Trial By Trickery, a book on the justice system and its treatment of Scott Watson. I write in respect of your involvement in the reportage of the case against Watson during the police inquiry.

In early 1998 you researched and wrote an article titled “The Loneliness of Detective Inspector Rob Pope” which was published in North & South Magazine on 18 May of that year. You followed this later with a paper for a Master of Arts degree at Canterbury University which you called “Control of the Crime Story, free speech vs fair trial”. The magazine article in particular, you will recall, was profoundly defamatory of Watson. A false and vicious story about a man you knew was the prime and sole suspect in a murder inquiry, it was published on what seems to have been the very day of his intended arrest,.

In Trial By Trickery, at pages 67-75, you will find a discussion of the two publications and also specific reference to a number of issues which will have disturbed readers of the book. These issues give rise in my mind to questions about the content and timing of your magazine article, and I ask you to address them principally for the benefit of the book’s readers and of visitors to the website, trialbytrickery.com.

The content, of course, was defamatory. The timing indicated you were unaware an arrest was imminent while other reporters at the time were well aware of it and handed in stories predicting it. They had worked it out. But if any reporter should have known then it was you. You were in the position of enjoying better and more confidential access to Inspector Pope than any other reporter throughout the inquiry.

And so my questions are:
• When did you become aware that Watson was about to be arrested for murder? Although the arrest occurred a few weeks after your article was published, it seems to have been originally scheduled for the very day the article hit the bookshops.
• When you had your article ‘heavily lawyered’ (see Control of the Crime Story…at page 42), was it because you knew Watson was to be arrested for two murders? If so, did you not consider it was grossly unjust to him? Or did you think that the article should be published because it would help to convict him? Are you aware of the term ‘sub judice’ and what it seeks to maintain? Or do you not concern yourself with such matters? This, obviously, would indicate that you have dispensed with ethical standards in your reportage. Is that so?
• Did Inspector Pope tell you that Watson was about to be arrested? If so, did he encourage you to publish by promising that he would not charge you with sub judice contempt of court if you did? And if so, is this why your lawyers approved publication?
• Did Inspector Pope promise that he would postpone arresting Watson until a few weeks after your publication to ensure that there was no perceivable connection between arrest and publication? (You’ll recall your defensive comment in Control of the Crime Story... that the magazine article was “published before any arrest” ).
• Did you speak directly to any of those whose stories about Watson were contained in statements to the police but were so distorted in your article? Or did you get all your information from Inspector Pope and just publish what he told you?
• For instance: Who told you and why did you report that Watson wanted cash to buy bourbon the day before the New Years Eve party? You will be aware that the mystery man was reported to have drunk bourbon after bourbon at the Furneaux bar on the night of New Year’s Eve. You’ll also know, had you carried out the most elementary research a student reporter would conduct before publishing defamation, that Watson bought and drank a bottle of rum and that he disliked bourbon. Did you know this and deliberately print a lie, or was the bourbon story something Mr Pope had told you which linked Watson with the murderer and was included in the article for that reason?
• As an other instance: Has it ever been of concern to you that you believed Pope about the existence of witnesses who saw the missing pair board a boat which was not a ketch? Assuming of course that what you reported was what was said, when did you realise it was a lie?
• Your academic paper claims to investigate the relationship between the police and the press in this case, but it never examines the issue that determined that relationship – namely Mr Pope’s constant advice to the public via the press that he had no suspects when he had actually told you and your “select few journalists” from the beginning that Watson was guilty. Given your chosen topic, this was the fundamental matter for you to address, because it allowed Watson to be tried in the media prior to his arrest – witness your North & South article. Why is it not examined in your academic paper? Without it, it seems to me that your paper and your MA are worthless.

As things stand, many of the book’s readers may well regard your article as a contemptible little publicity sheet for Mr Pope, and the academic paper as a pretentious sequel to it. This is my own view at present. I can’t see other than that you wrote your false and defamatory story about Watson to please Mr Pope by preparing the public appropriately for an arrest soon after publication. My view is that you betrayed journalism’s most vital function of questioning the power structures of the state, that you prostituted yourself and the power of the press by selling to one of those power structures your access to the people.

If my view is accurate then it could, and should, be seen to colour everything else you write or report. However, if there are answers that would cause me, and others who think as I do, to think differently then I urge you to provide them. For instance there may be innocent answers relating simply to ignorance or to your ability or experience as a reporter.

In the public interest, this letter to you will posted on the website trialbytrickery.com on Monday 13 August, and I will promulgate it through the media as far as I am able. A copy will in the coming week be sent to every member of parliament. Considering that the general thrust of my questions and opinions published here has you, the editor of a major weekly journal, as either a journalist bunny or a police publicist, your reply and any other relevant information will be similarly posted and distributed in fairness to you.

I enclose a copy of Trial By Trickery, which is widely and publicly available in New Zealand and overseas.

Yours Faithfully,
Keith Hunter
Author and Publisher, Trial By Trickery

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At 2 December Brett has not acknowledged the above letter. Instead her columnist Rosemary McLeod has leapt to her aid. Perhaps McLeod was even called into arms by her employer. If so she has been duly and unpleasantly obedient. In her column on 25 November McLeod dispensed with Trial By Trickery and its author by describing the book as written by "some enthusiast". In response the following letter was sent to Brett for publication. But instead of publishing the letter as it was written Brett edited it to provide the opposite thrust. As written for publication the letter read:

The Editor
Sunday Star Times

Dear Editor,
Re: Rosemary McLeod on Scott Watson, 25 November.

Rosemary McLeod’s repeated swipes at the growing movement in support of Scott Watson acknowledge your sympathy with Deputy Commissioner of Police Pope and his fragile case against Watson. My recently published book was the stimulus for the North & South cover story that provoked Mcleod’s scorn last week (25 November). She is pleased to dismiss me - along with all those others who have unclothed the judicial system’s frequently disgraceful conduct - as “some enthusiast”. Pope has a similar view. Sent a copy of the book, he returned it unopened with the clairvoyant claim that it revealed nothing new. The two make a nice pair. He hasn’t read the book. Has McLeod? If so her opinion as to whether the guilt resides with Watson or the system may have value. If not she rates for Pope-compliant ignorance.

Keith Hunter
Author/Publisher
, Trial By Trickery

The letter was obviously written to deliver the last line and an attack on McLeod, who is known to this writer not to have read the book several months after publication. Brett's response has been to publish that letter thus:

My recently published book Trial By Trickery was the stimulus for the North & South cover story that provoked Rosemary Mcleod’s scorn last week. She is pleased to dismiss me as “some enthusiast”. Rob Pope [who headed the case] has a similar view. Sent a copy of the book, he returned it unopened with the clairvoyant claim that it revealed nothing new. The two make a nice pair. He hasn’t read the book. Has McLeod? If so her opinion may have value.

Keith Hunter, Auckland

That's how the Sunday Times has published it - as a letter of consent and commendation which entirely omits any reference to the original's critical view of Pope's inquiry and the system that supported it and which, in omitting the final sentence converts an attack on McLeod into support for her. It notably refuses to answer the question which provoked the letter in the first place as to whether McLeod comments on books she hasn't read. It seems she does.

So much for Cate Dishonore Brett and her obedient serf. Why an apparent police toady with an integrity vacuum is editing a major weekly will be a question for her employers and the Press Council.

KH

To original letter to Brett. To top

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The above letters to Brett may help to explain her reluctance to print the following letter written to her for publication on 6 January

The Editor
Sunday Star Times
PO Box 1327
Auckland

Dear Editor
Re Page 3 Paul Davison QC story, 30 December

In your quotations from The Listener’s story on the Scott Watson case, Paul Davison QC discredits unwelcome reportage just as in court he discredited unwelcome evidence - by aiming at the messenger. In court it was Hayden Morresey, one of the passengers who watched Ben and Olivia board a high-sided yacht from Guy Wallace’s water taxi and who is missing from all Davison’s current accounts of the case, including the one you quoted last week. Now it’s Trial By Trickery, which is ‘superficial in the extreme and somewhat sensationalist”. Clearly it is not so superficial as to forget Morresey and his testimony that Watson’s Blade was the wrong boat, nor his partner Sarah Dyer’s testimony about the yacht with the ‘chest-high’ deck.
Nor is it so superficial as to forget that a defence ground for appeal was that Mr Davison’s ‘Two Trip Theory’ was only made known on the last day of his closing address.
Nor is it so superficial as to be unaware that the prosecutor’s duty is to support all of his case with evidence. Mr Davison’s view that it didn’t matter that there was no evidence as to how Watson returned to shore in his Two Trip Theory, and the fact that no-one was asked about the alleged return seem better suited to the ‘superficial’ label.

Keith Hunter
Author and Publisher, Trial By Trickery.

To beginning of Brett correspondence:

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Posting 15 February 2008:
Diary Note 1, 24 January 2008: An email from the Marlborough Sounds reveals that a Sunday Star-Times reporter has been phoning around in pursuit of a hitherto unknown confession by Scott Watson. The email tells of a call to a Sounds resident from a (male) Star-Times reporter looking for “Mr Erie”, to have him claim in 2008 that Scott Watson had confessed to him in 1998. (Mr Erie was the police witness who changed his evidence about the time of Scott Watson’s arrival in Erie Bay on New Years Day from 10 am to 5.15pm after the police found 250 cannabis plants in his care. The changed time allowed the police to claim that Watson had had time to have dumped bodies in Cook Straight before motoring off to Erie Bay.)The email reads “He wanted to contact (Mr Erie) as he said that they had been informed that Scott had told (Mr Erie) that he had "dunnit". It was said that his editor had told him to follow it up.”
Unknown to the Star-Times at this time, Mr Erie died in 2003. The Star-Times editor, Cate Brett, readers of Trial By Trickery will recall, has been silent about accusations that she colluded with the police in defaming Watson immediately prior to his arrest. Instead of answering the accusations against her (click
here to see them) Brett may have decided to further the sub judice defamation of Scott Watson she published in North & South Magazine just before Watson’s arrest in 1998, seemingly at the behest of the police.

Diary Note 2, 24 January 2008: A second email, from Scott Watson’s father, Chris, suggests Ms Brett has allocated a team of reporters to chase the defunct Mr Erie - for a Watson confession he didn’t mention when dealing with the police over his dope plantation ten years ago. A (female, possibly a ‘Deirdre’) Sunday Star-Times reporter has called Chris Watson “wanting to know the whereabouts of (Mr Erie)” but omitting to mention why the Star-Times was looking for him.

Diary Note 3, 29 January. An email from Kim Knight, a feature writer with the Sunday Star-Times, indicates Ms Brett has been apprised of Mr Erie’s decease. There’s a new plan of attack. “I’m about to start working on a story about the people who have thrown their energy behind convicted killers: what drives people to spend (sometimes) a lifetime on a crusade for justice”.
I’m hopeful you will agree to being interviewed….
I’d be grateful if you could send through a contact number so I can discuss this story with you further. I would also appreciate if you could keep this correspondence confidential,

All three requests rejected.

Diary Note 4, 12 February 2008. The Sunday Star-Times has discovered my number. A call from feature writer Anthony Hubbard, the fourth reporter Brett has put on the case, has unveiled yet another avenue of attack. Hubbard is specifically not going to deal with the police investigation, an unsurprising editorial decision. He is avoiding the principal issue the Star-Times needs to address by focusing on the Watson trial.
There ensues a lengthy telephone interview which a cynic might describe as desperately seeking vindication. It plumbs the depths of the absurd, starting with a discussion about the timing of Watson’s arrival in Erie Bay as claimed by Mr Erie and his children in 1998. Erie Child One told the court that the arrival was between 5 and 6pm and now ten years later, insists Mr Hubbard, stands by that testimony. I fail to point out that Erie Child One, now aged 24, has the choice of making this claim or confessing to perjury worth 14 years in gaol.
Hubbard appears to concede that Watson could not have been in Cook Strait at 4.30pm on New Years Day 1998 as the prosecutors claim. Instead he goes one better. Who says Watson wasn’t out there earlier that day, allowing time for him drop bodies into the Strait’s deep waters and then sail to Erie by 6pm? Hubbard has not concerned himself with evidence that Watson was in Cook Strait earlier. That’s not at all surprising because there isn’t any such evidence. To achieve some unstated goal he has simply plucked a new story out of the air to suit the goal instead of the evidence, an inventive solution that could have occurred, but didn’t, to a team of prosecutors who never bothered about the evidence either.

We move on to the Two Trip Theory. Hubbard suggests that the theory is perfectly logical if you accept a few drink-related variables. The nine holiday-makers on the boat Watson had moored up to may all have drunk too much and all were mistaken in thinking that they all went to bed at the same time - 2am. The one amongst them who consulted her watch at that time, Deborah Corless, may have been too drunk to read the watch correctly. The two who were woken by Watson when he returned and clambered over their boat, at 4-5am they thought, may have been too drunk and sleepy to know the real time. My dissertation on the many other difficulties the two trip theory faced relating to the people in the boats next door gets politely curtailed. The Two Trip Theory may have been drink-validated.

Next is Watson’s violence. Hubbard has heard that he had been violent in prison. This smells like Brett territory. So, I’m sure, had she heard in 1998 because Hubbard can only be clearly harking back to what his editor was told by the police when she was preparing her gross North & South article in April that year. Never mind that Watson’s only prison experience had been for non-violent offences during his adolescence eight years earlier. Never mind that no-one has ever provided any documentary evidence of him being violent in prison or anywhere else save for a ‘common assault’ at age 16. Never mind that no-one during the trial ever accused him of being violent. Never mind that even if he had taken an axe to a hundred and murdered them all, it would not change a single droplet of the evidence that reveals him innocent of the Sounds murders. No. Watson is violent because the police say so. That may prove he killed them.

Next : When Olivia was allegedly seen, by a multitude of partygoers on the chartered Sweet Release, sailing out of Queen Charlotte Sound on a ketch with a blue stripe, she did not jump up and wave her arms at them. Instead she sat still, eyes unwaveringly ahead. The implication? Presumably that it could not have been Olivia or that the witnesses all saw a mirage. My response that an Olivia rendered catatonic by kidnap and rape and perhaps after witnessing the murder of her partner might not make jumping up a viable option is not appreciated - nor my suggestion that she might have been put where she was visible to give the impression that she did not warrant concern because she was holidaying happily on a ketch which therefore did not warrant pursuit eeither..

Next: The oldest, tiredest and most absurd of the chestnuts apart from the hatch scratching - painting Blade in Erie Bay ‘to change her appearance’. Watson had not said he intended to paint her specifically on New Year’s Day when he was in Erie Bay the week before. Therefore, presumably, painting was a last minute decision made obligatory by his having just murdered two people aboard her. Never mind that he had indeed discussed painting the boat with Mr Erie the week before. Never mind that Mr Erie had suggested the colour he should paint her and had supplied the paint. Never mind that Watson had talked of painting her months before. Never mind that what he painted was just the cabin sides and not her hull or deck. Never mind that there was no perceivable positive outcome to be achieved by 'changing the appearance' of his boat. Never mind that at least sixteen people who had been at Furneaux knew he had been there too, because he partied with them and they all knew where he had moored his boat and could identify it no matter what colour its cabin sides were. So how was his painting his boat relevant to the missing pair? He wanted to change her appearance, says Mr Hubbard, who takes his argument no further.

Are we going to discover on Sunday that by painting the sides of a boat’s cabin you can destroy other people’s memory cells? That Watson was out in Cook Strait getting rid of his victims at 2 in the afternoon of New Year’s Day, unseen because Blade was wearing Harry Potter’s cloak of invisibility? That there is a new witness who followed Blade’s voyage to Erie Bay and took photographs from above while strapped to the back of a flying pig? That all those witnesses on Sweet Release who thought they saw a woman identical to Olivia on a blue striped ketch on 2 January 1998 were wired together and experienced a sudden bout of group hysteria, as proposed on nationwide television by a psychologist back in 1998? Or will we learn that the blonde woman they saw was someone else struck still and silent who hasn’t bothered to come forward to clear it all up because she’s too busy knitting a hatch cover? Will we find out that all nine on Mina Cornelia were unconscious all night and the following week and that Ms Corless’s watch tells fortunes and not the time and she’s blind drunk even when she’s sober and can’t see the dial let alone read the fortune anyway?

Or will the Sunday Star-Times and its editor surprise with some journalism of integrity?


KH
PS: Mr Hubbard also asked for secrecy about his story, specifically that his competitor, the Herald On Sunday, not be informed of it.

To the beginning of the Brett correspondence:

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Posting 18 February
The concerns outlined above, while not at all groundless on previous experience, were not born out in fact. Mr Hubbard’s article covered several of the principal issues reasonably and without distortion of any sort. Most interesting was the revelation that he had made several approaches to Paul Davison QC and found his calls not answered. This is the same Paul Davison QC who complained to the Listener that his views were not sought for inclusion in Trial By Trickery. It might have been expected that he would take every opportunity offered him to put forward his truths. So too with Deputy Commissioner Pope. Hubbard also sought an interview with him with the same result. Two very meaningful silences by key figures who seem unable to answer the serious charges against them - tunnel vision, false oaths, lying to the press, connivance in sub judice contempt of court, conspiracy, misleading the court, perverting the course of justice. It’s a far better list than anyone could properly put against Scott Watson.

So - congratulations to Mr Hubbard on a fair and reasonable story. As far as the Sunday Star-Times is concerned it would be churlish to assume Ms Brett was on holiday last week and thus not unreasonable to assume that she is about to answer the questions put to her on 11 August .

KH
For the Star Times
story
For the correspondence with editor Cate Brett beginning
11 August 2007
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The following letter has been written to the editor of the Listener in response to her eight page attack on Trial By Trickery in her 30 December 2007 issue.

3 January 2008

The Editor
The Listener

Dear Editor
Re Joanne Black on Paul Davidson QC, 5 January

Joanne Black’s article awarding Paul Davison QC eight pages to attack my book unopposed reveals a journalist confused on key issues. She has Scott Watson’s defence lawyers contesting the proposition that he was ashore at 3.00-3.30. They didn’t. She also implies that the defence challenged Donald Anderson’s recollection of taking Watson to his yacht Blade. On the contrary, proving it, which they did, had seemed a total defence - until late in his closing speech Davison trumped them with his ‘two trip theory’. Suddenly, far too late for examination, the issue became not the trip but its timing.
If Watson was to be convicted the Anderson trip needed to have been before 3.00, allowing Watson to have gone to Blade first with Anderson and then to have returned ashore before going back to his boat with Ben and Olivia. Prosecutor Davison looked solely to what he labelled ‘Fact A’, an early statement quoting Watson as saying ‘I think it was about 2am ..I’m not exactly sure’. Against this single piece of ‘evidence’ on which the prosecution’s entire case now rested, was the evidence of four witnesses setting the trip at after 4am, and vital evidence destroying the two trip theory which was not brought out in court because the defence did not realise it was relevant at the time.
Black allows Davison to instill the usual Crown propaganda that only Guy Wallace saw a ketch. Again he overlooks Hayden Morresey and Sarah Dyer who were there too and who both saw Ben and Olivia board a boat Morresey ‘positively ruled out’ as Blade, and which Dyer said was ‘chest-high’ at deck level (Blade is less than knee-high).
The rest of Davison/Black’s eight pages repeat Crown claims comprehensively discredited by the evidence given in court or to the police and published in Trial By Trickery, none of it challenged by Davison or anyone else. Trial By Trickery raises a multitude of questions Black might have put to Davison.
For example: How can a boat capable of 6 knots travel eleven miles against the tide in half an hour? How could Olivia have scratched edges of a hatch cover which were concealed when it was closed against the hatch surrounds? How can bodies weighted to sink float up against a boat’s hull and clean weed from it? Why would a man’s semen on a squab in his own boat be evidence of murder? Does he think Watson expected everyone he had partied with at Furneaux would forget him if he painted Blade’s cabin sides ? Why was Wallace’s identifying a photograph of a man with his eyes half closed more genuine than his rejecting a photograph of the same man with his eyes fully closed?
Last March your writer Amanda Spratt and photographer Jane Ussher spent between them about ten hours with me on a promised feature story on Trial By Trickery which never materialised. You made no attempt to contact me about this or to apologise for wasting my time. I must now assume that the reason was editorial and that the eight pages on Mr Davison’s views represent the Listener’s editorial stance. Putting aside your discourtesy to me, you should have made this stance clear to your readers.

Keith Hunter
Author/publisher, Trial By Trickery.

ADDENDUM
Paul Davison’s protest that he did not “deliberately mislead and trick the defence” is expanded in a letter now posted publically on my website, where he claimed that my “suggestion that there was a ‘two trip theory’ which was deliberately withheld and then sprung on the defence for the first time during the closing address is utter nonsense”.
In view of your eight page dissertation opposing my book while allowing me no reply (despite publishing Davison’s reciprocal complaint against me), I ask you to publish under these words the following relevant clauses from the Defence application for appeal, specifically in the public interest, so that your readers may assess the matter for themselves.

Ex Defence Application for Appeal:
IT IS SUBMITTED THAT:
8.1 1. The Defence was prejudiced by the last minute/late concession by the Crown that the evidence given at the trial by Donald Anderson was correct, namely that he had returned Scott Watson to his vessel on the mooring at Furneaux Lodge;
2. IT IS FURTHER SUBMITTED that the Defence was prejudiced by the last minute/late assertion by the crown that Watson had subsequently returned to shore before later boarding Guy Wallace's naiad…..
8.2.3 Furneaux Lodge water taxi driver Donald Anderson had taken a lone passenger (Watson) to Blade. This fact was first known to the Defence shortly prior to the depositions hearing in November 1998. Anderson had been interviewed by the Police on many occasions following 1 Jan. The Police disclosure contained numerous references by Anderson that he had taken Watson to his boat. Ultimately at trial the Defence relied on this evidence and by cross-examination established that it in fact occurred. It was not until the Crown closed its case (in fact on day two of the Crown closing) that the Crown actually conceded that this had occurred.
8.2.5 ….. Prior to this late concession made by the Crown, the Defence understood the Crown Case to be that despite what Anderson had said, Watson only made one trip back to his yacht after midnight and that that trip was with Guy Wallace….
8.2.7 This concession, and contra assertion that he returned to shore, came for the first time the day before the Defence closing address. It was unexpected for the following reasons:
7 . ….On Thursday 2 September near the end of the Case and after the evidence had closed, Counsel saw the Judge in chambers concerning arrangements regarding the jury request to view the Blade "again", with the naiad alongside. At that meeting His Honour asked the Crown what they were intending to do about the Anderson evidence. The Crown replied that they had "some theories", without stating what they were. No indication one way or the other was given by the Crown.
8. Next event - concession came from Crown Counsel during day two of the Crown closing address together with the assertion that Watson went back to shore.


KH

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Crown Prosecutor Paul Davison

The following letter and a copy of Trial By Trickery were mailed to Crown Prosecutor Paul Davison QC on 30 July. He has replied twice to correspondence and each time has received a response. The further correspondence is posted later.

For his reply click here ; for the subsequent reply to him click here ; for his next reply click here; for the subsequent reply to him click here .

30 July 2007

Paul Davison QC
23 Victoria St East
Auckland Central.

Dear Mr Davison
Re: Your Conduct of the Case against Scott Watson

I am the author and publisher of Trial By Trickery, a book on the justice system and its treatment of Scott Watson. I write in respect of your part in this.

In brief, my view is that you and your colleagues acted with neither integrity nor human decency and that Watson would be a free man if you had acted properly in the cause of justice. The book supplies a factual background for that view and a summary is available on the website trialbytrickery.com. This letter is to offer you the opportunity of making a public response.

I refer you in general to the book’s chapters 2 – 6, which treat issues relating to identification and circumstantial evidence, the secret witnesses, and your claims about a clearly fictional boat voyage by Scott Watson from Cook Straight to Erie Bay.

Most intriguing is your extraordinary announcement of your even more extraordinary Two Trip Theory at the very end. Although you had been aware of the theory for some months before the trial, your announcement of it, you’ll recall, was effectively after the trial was over. This prevented Watson from defending himself against your two charges of murder.

Obviously, if it were a planned maneouvre, agreed in advance amongst you and your colleagues, it could signal a band of corrupt prosecutors in the pay of a corrupted legal system. It would certainly have made winning the case a simple proposition requiring little more than the ability to lie or dissemble convincingly. Dishonest men in these circumstances have a dishonest advantage and win easily when they compete against honest men in honest employment because the honest men assume their opponents are honest too.

Absent a reasonable or convincing response from you, this is a scenario that is open to readers of Trial By Trickery and so I invite you to comment on the following issues:
• Your treatment of the “mystery ketch”. Did you ever consider that a ketch of the required description – but which you told the jury so magnificently did not exist - might have been anchored a few metres away from where you needed it to be to convict Watson?
• The fingerprints on Blade. Why did you tell the jury there were none – or ‘just a couple’ - when you knew there were heaps?
• The music cassettes. Why did you tell the jury they had all been wiped down when you knew they had not?
• The little yacht Blade’s fabulous Cook Strait - Erie Bay voyage that you garnished for the jury. Did you really believe it happened?
• The Two Trip Theory. After you asked the skipper of Mine Cornelia about hearing Watson return to Blade on New Year Morning why did you not ask him if he heard Watson leave again? Was it because you knew Watson did not leave again and wanted the jury not to know it? Was it because the question would have let the cat out of the bag? Did you think it irrelevant? Or did you just forget to ask?
• Did you truly believe in the two trip theory or was it just a gambit to achieve a conviction, as your words to the Court of Appeal allow?
• As I put to your learned friend Mr Raftery a little while ago (he has not replied yet) , you will recall that your team told the Court of Appeal that some months prior to the trial you had identified the Two Trip scenario as “..one of the crucial issues for resolution at trial...”. Why did you not ask a single question capable of resolving it – or capable of revealing it?
• Why didn’t you tell the judge about the theory when he plainly asked you to declare your hand a week before you gave your closing speech to the jury. The book allows the view that you didn’t want the defence to know about it and have a week to prepare a closing speech countering it.
• Why did you malign your young witness Hayden Morresey? Was it, as the book suggests, because you didn’t like his evidence?

To satisfy my own curiosity:

• Is it your normal technique to suggest to the jury that evidence has been given when it has not? I have in mind comments you made in relation to Amelia Hope (‘confirmed’ the reason for the slow water taxi trip) , John Mullen (‘did not describe such a trip’
taking Watson to his boat), and the Picton Harbour master (‘didn’t see Watson’s boat coming the other way”\’) in particular, but of course there are many more examples.
• Is R v Watson representative of your work generally?
• If so, are you proud of your work?

In the end Watson’s lawyers were unaware of your case and thus never addressed it. Their client was convicted on a case they had not opposed – because you and your colleagues had prevented them, and him, from discovering what it was.

As with Mr Raftery, in the public interest a copy of this letter to you will posted on the website trialbytrickery.com on Monday 30 July, and I will promulgate it through the media as far as I am able. A copy will in the coming week be sent to every member of parliament. Considering that the general thrust of my accusations makes you a conspirator against the course of justice, your reply and any other relevant information will be similarly posted and distributed in fairness to you.I enclose a copy of Trial By Trickery, which is widely and publicly available in New Zealandand and overseas.

Yours Faithfully,


Keith Hunter
Author and Publisher, Trial By Trickery

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Davison reply:

Mr Davison replied to the above letter. His letter reads:

24 August 2007

Keith Hunter
Hunter Productions Ltd
P0 Box 46115

Herne Bay
AUCKLAND

Dear Mr Hunter

I refer to your letter dated 29 July 2007.

I reject all your criticisms of the manner in which the prosecution case was presented. There was no "trickery" involved in the presentation of the Crown case. The prosecution case relied upon the evidence and an analysis of the evidence.

You do not appear to have an informed understanding of the evidence or the trial process, but have nevertheless taken it upon yourself to make some extravagant claims suggesting that I (along with the other members of the prosecution team), presented the case in a manner that was intended to "trick" Mr Watson and his defence counsel. I totally reject that.

Your suggestion that there was a "two trip theory" (your phrase), which was deliberately withheld, and then sprung on the defence for the first time during the Crown's closing address is utter nonsense.

Anyone with even a superficial knowledge of the case would appreciate that the Crown case was that Mr Watson was the man in the water taxi and in the company of Ben and Olivia when they were dropped off to the man's yacht by the water taxi driver Guy Wallace at around 4.00 am. As that water taxi trip had commenced at the jetty only minutes beforehand, plainly and obviously for Mr Watson to have been on the jetty and a passenger on the water taxi, he could not have stayed on board his own yacht, if he had returned to it "at about 2.00am", in a water taxi driven by an "old guy wearing a hat", as he had explained to the Police (Scott Watson written statement to Police dated 8th January 1998). Commonsense and simple logic make that self evident.

As part of its case the prosecution called (Steven Shipwright) as a witness. Mr (Shipwright) was one of the water taxi drivers. He was a young man and on that basis did not appear to fit the description given by Mr Watson of the water taxi driver who he said had taken him back to his yacht. Nevertheless, (Steven Shipwright) said in evidence that he recalled taking a man on his own out to a boat at about 2.00 2.30 am. His recollection of the man's appearance was consistent with a description of Mr Watson, and under cross examination by defence counsel he accepted that he had previously said that he was confident that it was Mr Watson that he had taken in his water taxi. So the prosecution evidence itself suggested that Mr Watson may well have returned to his yacht at around that time of 2.00 2. 3Oam.

That being the case, an obvious explanation and reconciliation of the (Steven Shipwright) evidence was that for Mr Watson to have been on the water taxi with Mr Guy Wallace at around 4.00 am, he had to have returned ashore by some means or other between returning to his yacht with (Steven Shipwright), and the water taxi trip with Guy Wallace.

While there was no direct evidence of Mr Watson making a trip ashore, there was other evidence from which the jury could conclude that he could well have made such a return trip.

At around 3.00 3.30am another prosecution witness, Mr Ollie Perkins, was confronted by a man who he later identified as being Mr Watson. The confrontation apparently arose when Mr Watson, who had been talking to Ollie Perkins, grabbed the necklace that Perkins was wearing, and made some disparaging comment about it. The necklace belonged to Ollie Perkin' s sister who was ill with cancer at that time, and that explanation was given to Watson. The incident led to a confrontation between a number of friends of Ollie Perkins and Mr Watson, and it appears to have been a memorable event.

Other witnesses put the timing of this confrontation at around 3.30 3.45am and perhaps even later. So it was obviously well after the time that Mr Watson said he had already returned to his yacht. Ollie Perkins not only gave an accurate description of Mr Watson, but he also recalled that Watson was wearing a dark coloured, fisherman's rib jersey (There was evidence to show that during the night and early hours, many people had been going back to their boats to get some warmer clothing.). Mr Watson himself confirmed the occurrence of this incident when he told the Police that he had had an argument with a man who was wearing a woman's necklace ( Scott Watson written statement to Police dated 12" January 1998).

So that evidence showed that even if Mr Watson had been taken back to his yacht by (Steven Shipwright) at around 2.00 2.3Oam, he was back ashore at around 3.00 3.3Oam and possibly later. Other evidence relating to the events immediately before Guy Wallace took the water taxi out to the Tamarak, strongly supported the prosecution case that Mr Watson was one of the passengers who got onto the last water taxi trip for the night that Guy Wallace made, and which went out to the Tamarak.

Of course it was always the prosecution case that Mr Watson was on that water taxi driven by Mr Guy Wallace, when he collected Ben Smart and Olivia Hope from the Tamarak, and that it was Mr Watson who invited Ben and Olivia to go with him and stay aboard his yacht. So the proposition that Mr Watson must have returned ashore after he had gone out to his yacht at around 2.00am, so as to be amongst the group that departed from shore on the Guy Wallace water taxi trip at around 4.00am was entirely open on the evidence and a self evident explanation and analysis of the evidence.

Anyone who proceeded on the basis that that proposition was not an available analysis of the evidence would be ignoring the obvious. This self evident proposition was not concealed in any way - to the contrary, it was plain and obvious. In the final address to the jury the relevant evidence was summarised and analysed, and the jury invited to conclude that on the basis of the evidence it could be inferred that Mr Watson must have returned to the shore after he returned to his yacht at about 2.00am, and had rejoined the gathering ashore so that he was still there and amongst the group that accompanied Guy Wallace on water taxi trip which first went out to the Tamarack and which Ben and Olivia were to get onto.

There is no basis whatsoever for your claim that the prosecution had "tricked" the Watson defence. The prosecution presented the evidence and in closing the case I presented an analysis of the evidence. Such is proper and appropriate manner of presenting a case, and involves no element of surprise or "trickery" whatsoever.

I do not propose to respond to the questions you pose or to comment further on the extravagant and unsupportable criticisms of my conduct as counsel. I am satisfied that the prosecution case was conducted with integrity and accuracy, and in accordance with the proper standards of professional conduct. Your claims to the contrary are a disgrace, and the trial by trickery allegation is arrant nonsense.

Yours sincerely

P J DAVISON

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To the original letter to Davison QC

---------------------------------------

Response to Davison's letter:

September 10, 2007

Paul Davison QC
PO Box 105 513
Auckland 1143.

Dear Mr Davison
Re: Your letter of 24 August

Your letter in reply to mine is disappointing. It answers none of the questions put to you. Instead it reruns the secret prosecution case that you laid against Scott Watson in court.

Perhaps your recall of the issues is insufficient to attempt a real answer. For instance, when you note that the ‘two trip theory’ is my phrase you fail to recall the judge’s comment in his summary to the jury: “..One more question on the two trip theory. At some time, this is doubt going to confuse you rather than elucidate…”
You also ignore the Court Of Appeal’s “..The Crown conceded that the appellant had returned to his boat at about this time, but contended that he had then returned to Furneaux Lodge. This became known as the two trip theory….”
And you forget your own written submission to the latter Court:“Accordingly, the "two trip theory” was advanced as one possible resolution of this issue…”

If, as you claim, the theory was not ‘sprung on the defence’ for the first time in your closing address, the questions you have ignored remain critical. Here again are some of them, none being addressed by your devotion to Mr Shipwright’s evidence:
o Why did you not explain your theory to the judge when he asked, after the evidential phase of the trial was completed and before the final addresses, what you intended to do about the evidence of Mr Shipwright?
o Are you claiming that the defence was aware of the two trip theory? If this is your claim then you are branding the defence counsel as liars, since they made their ignorance of it the basis of a ground for appeal.
o You state ‘there was no direct evidence of Mr Watson making a trip ashore’. Given your claim to the Court of Appeal that this was ‘one of the crucial issues for resolution at trial’, why didn’t you try to resolve it at trial?
o Why didn’t you ask someone, anyone, any witness at all from the more than a hundred boats moored off Furneaux that night, if he or she had seen Watson returning ashore?
o Why didn’t you ask the people in the boat moored alongside if they had heard Watson returning ashore?
o Why didn’t you ask the security guards if Watson had returned ashore?
o Why didn’t you ask any of the water taxi drivers if they had taken Watson ashore?
o Why didn’t you ask Mr Shipwright if he had taken Scott Watson from his yacht to the shore, or, for that matter, from the shore to his yacht?
o While you note that Mr Shipwright did not respond to Watson’s description of the driver who took him to his yacht, why didn’t you ask the water taxi driver who did respond to that description, namely John Mullen, if he had done so?
o Isn’t asking questions like these the very purpose of criminal trials? Wasn’t asking these specific questions, amongst just a few others, the very purpose of this trial? Why didn’t you ask them?

Only two alternative conclusions are possible here. Either you deliberately hid these questions by leaving them unasked or you deliberately misled the Court if Appeal when you told it the issue was crucial for resolution at trial – since you made no attempt at trial to resolve it. However, as the questions are all too obvious, elementary and ‘crucial’ to have been omitted in error, it is plain the first conclusion is the correct one. You hid the questions firstly because you knew that asking them would alert the defence to your true case and secondly because you knew the answers you would get would destroy that case and reveal it as false.

You and your colleagues are together co-conspirators in a planned programme of deceit designed to secure the conviction for murder of a man patently innocent on the evidence – deceit of the judge, the jury and the man himself, and of our system of law. You hid the key questions capable of revealing innocence behind three months of obfuscating nonsense and as a result the defence was unaware of the case against its client – as it told the Court of Appeal, as you certainly knew then and as you certainly know now.

I will retract these accusations if you can show that prior to your closing speech you plainly investigated in court a scenario in which Watson made two trips to his yacht and an intervening one ashore. If you can’t, the accusations stand.

As for Mr Shipwright’s alleged voyage with Watson from shore to yacht, if it happened at all his evidence in court was that it happened after other events that did not occur until 4.am. Just as there was indeed ‘no direct evidence of Mr Watson making a trip ashore’ afterwards, nor was there any indirect evidence either. The evidence in respect of your two trip theory is that there was only one trip.


You have also put aside my questions relating to your misleading statements to the jury in the High Court. You would better have addressed them because the omissions all make your letter a transparently Clayton’s reply. It’s only purpose, I suggest, is to ensure that it cannot be said that you failed to reply. I reject that. You have not replied.

This letter will be posted publically, as the previous correspondence has been, on the website trialbytrickery.com.

Yours Faithfully,

Keith Hunter
Author and Publisher, Trial By Trickery

To original letter to Davison

To Davison's Reply to the original letter

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Second Letter from Paul Davison QC:


9 October 2007….
Dear Mr Hunter,
I refer to your letter dated 10 September 2007.

I do not propose to engage in further correspondence with you on these issues. Your letter is another example of your misconceptions and misunderstandings of the case and the trial proccess. The allegations which you make are categorically rejected.

Yours Sincerely

P J Davison.

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Reply to the above letter from Paul Davison QC::

14 October 2007

Paul Davison QC
PO Box 105 513
Auckland 1143.

Dear Mr Davison,

I have little reason to thank you for your letter of 9 October since it puts me in a most unfortunate position. I must convey to visitors to my website that you are apparently resigned to being labelled a conspirator against justice and perhaps even a liar - by implication in the High Court but directly in the Court Of Appeal. With these notions in the public domain your professional employment may well be compromised, since they can be used against you by opposing counsel.
I assure you I have excellent knowledge and understanding of the Watson case and also of the trial processes that seem to have led you and your colleagues to pervert the course of justice in relation to it.
I urge you to address in correspondence the issues I raised in my previous letter.

This letter will be posted publically, as the previous correspondence has been, on the website trialbytrickery.com.

Yours Faithfully,
Keith Hunter
Author and Publisher, Trial By Trickery.

To beginning of correspondence with Paul Davison QC

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Prosecutor Kieran Raftery,

The following letter was sent to Mr Raftery on 15 July. He has not replied. A followup letter was sent to his employer on 23 October. It is posted later below.

15 July 2007


Kieran Raftery
Crown Prosecutor
C/O Meredith Connell
PO Box 2213
Auckland Central.

Dear Mr Raftery
Re: Your Conduct of the Case against Scott Watson

I am the author and publisher of Trial By Trickery, a book on the justice system and its treatment of Scott Watson. I write in respect of your part in this.

In brief, my view is that you and your colleagues acted without integrity and that Watson would not have been convicted if you had acted properly in the cause of justice. The book supplies a factual background for that view and a summary is available on the website trialbytrickery.com. This letter is to offer you the opportunity of making a public response.

I refer you in particular to chapter 6 of Trial by Trickery and the discussion there of the ‘Two Trip Theory’. I would like to know why you failed to raise - with any witness – any question which addressed the murder scenario you and your colleagues finally put to the jury. You will recall that your team told the Court of Appeal that some months prior to the trial you had identified this scenario as “..one of the crucial issues for resolution at trial...” But during the trial you didn’t ask a single question related to it. Consequently it was absent from the trial.

Specifically, please have regard to pages 229 and 232ff. I invite you to describe, for the trialbytrickery.com website, the reason why you failed to ask water taxi driver John Mullen if he had taken Scott Watson, or anyone of his description, alone to a small yacht moored off Furneaux Lodge in the early hours of New Year Morning 1998. You will recall that your colleague Paul Davison QC told the jury that Mr Mullen was the only water taxi driver who fitted the description of the man Watson said had taken him that night. In my view there are only two possible explanations for your failure. Either you are extremely incompetent or you planned with your colleagues to deny Mr Watson justice by depriving the court of the opportunity of investigating the key issues. My preference is for the second of these, but if there is another explanation here is an excellent opportunity for you to provide it for publication.

I have even more pressing queries about your handling of the testimony of Deanna Cunliffe and of the eight passengers aboard the Mina Cornelia, including especially Deborah Corless (please go to pages 221-226 of Trial By Trickery). The trial transcript persuades me that you conducted the testimony of these nine witnesses so as to give the appearance that they were surrendering their evidence whereas it was in fact being suppressed.

These witnesses were clearly your special responsibility and you must have read their statements to the police before you led their testimony in court. You must therefore have known that their statements had the potential to absolve Watson. It was clearly your specific duty as prosecutor to bring this to the notice of the jury by asking the Mina Cornelia witnesses questions pertinent to the theory on which you eventually convicted Watson. You didn’t. You were as silent on the essential issues with them as you were with John Mullen, and in my view for the same reason – intentionally to deny Watson a fair trial in circumstances where you knew the evidence was for innocence, by ensuring he would not know anything of the case you intended to putagainst him until it was too late for him to mount a defence.

In the end Watson’s lawyers were unaware of your case and thus never addressed it. Moreover, after all evidence had been given in court the judge asked the Crown team what you intended to do about key evidence which, it later transpired, related to your eventual case. You and your colleagues refused to say and consequently Watson was convicted on a case he had not opposed – because you had prevented him from discovering what it was.

Perhaps you might also explain your comment on television some three or four years ago when you said, I think to interviewer Brian Edwards, that you were certain you had prosecuted the truly guilty man, always knowing of the evidence which said otherwise and which you denied the jury.

In the public interest, a copy of this letter to you will posted on the website trialbytrickery.com on Monday 16 July, and I will promulgate it through the media as far as I am able. A copy will in the coming week be sent to every member of parliament. Considering that the general thrust of my accusations makes you a conspirator against the course of justice, your reply and any other relevant information will be similarly posted and distributed in fairness to you.

I enclose a copy of Trial By Trickery, which is widely and publicly available in New Zealandand and overseas.

Yours Faithfully,


Keith Hunter
Author and Publisher, Trial By Trickery

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Mr Raftery did not reply to the above letter. Consequently the following was sent to his employer, the Crown Solicitor, on 23 October

23 October 2007

Simon Moore
Crown Solicitor
Meredith Connell
PO Box 2213
Auckland Central.

Dear Mr Moore

Re: Letter to Kieran Raftery re R v Watson

I enclose a letter sent to Kieran Raftery on 15 July seeking an urgent response. I included with the letter a copy of my recently published book, Trial By Trickery. Mr Raftery has not replied.

You will see from the original letter to Mr Raftery that the issues raised are serious, capable of bringing Meredith Connell into considerable disrepute if the allegations contained in it are not addressed and countered. Moreover, as you will see, the letter has been openly published on the website trialbytrickery.com, as will be this present letter to you.

I urge you to advise Mr Raftery that he should respond to the letter without further delay. Silence can only serve to discredit both Mr Raftery and your company.

Yours Faithfully

Keith Hunter
Author/publisher, Trial By Trickery.

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To beginning of Raftery correspondence.

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The following reply was received from the Crown Solicitor on 15 November

Dear Mr Hunter

Thank you for your letter of 23 October 2007 together with the copy of your letter to Mr Raftery of 15 July 2007.
I note what you say, but regret that neither I nor any members of this office wish to enter into correspondence about your book or the trial of Scott Watson.

Yours Faithfully
SJ Eisdell Moore
Crown Solicitor

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--------------------------------

The following letter on 16 November replied to Mr Moore:

Simon Moore
Crown Solicitor
Meredith Connell
PO Box 2213
Auckland Central.

Dear Mr Moore
Re: Letter to Kieran Raftery re R v Watson

Your letter of 12 November is disappointing. It exposes your office and all its members and employees to a reputation for sharp and unethical practice in discharging the public duties entrusted to them.

I have not asked you to discuss my book. In view of the very public accusations against him, I expect you openly to review the performance, in my view the criminal performance, of one of your senior partners during a murder prosecution. Given your central role in the conduct of New Zealand’s criminal justice system, your silence about the matter is a telling silence. With it you discredit the entire system.

I urge you to review your position if you are to avoid the reasonable inference that you approve and yourself employ unethical practices on behalf of the Crown, as apparently did Mr Raftery in this case, deliberately aimed at the conviction of patently innocent accused.

Yours Faithfully

Keith Hunter, Author/publisher, Trial By Trickery.

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Prosecutor Nicola Crutchley

The letter below was posted to Nicola Crutchley, of the Crown Prosecutorial team, on 1 July. Ms Crutchley was Deputy Solicitor General (Criminal) at the time of the Watson prosecution. She is now a Crown Prosecutor in Queensland and is a Professor of Law at the University of Wollongong. She has not replied and letters have been sent to her employers on 23 October. They will be posted here on Saturday 29 October.

1 July 2007

Ms Nicola Crutchley,
Formerly Deputy Solicitor General
C/o Solicitor General’s Office
Crown Law Office
Unisys House
56 The Terrace
Wellington
New Zealand

Dear Ms Crutchley,

Re: Your Conduct of the Case against Scott Watson

I am the author and publisher of Trial By Trickery, a book on the justice system and its treatment of Scott Watson. I write in respect of your part in those matters.

In brief, my view is that you and your colleagues acted without integrity and that Watson would not have been convicted if you had acted properly. The book supplies a factual background for that view and a summary is available on the website trialbytrickery.com. This letter is to seek your response and to offer you the opportunity of making the response public.

Specifically, I would like to know why, when addressing the jury, you so often misquoted the evidence of your own witnesses, and why, without exception, you failed to raise - with any witness - questions which addressed the murder scenario you and your colleagues finally put forward. You will recall that your team told the Court of Appeal that some months prior to the trial you had identified this scenario as “..one of the crucial issues for resolution at trial...” But you didn’t even attempt to resolve it at the trial. You ignored it. As a result the defence was unaware of the matter and it was never canvassed. Moreover, after all evidence had been given in court the judge asked you what you intended to do about this matter. You refused to say and consequently Watson was convicted on a case he had not opposed – because had had not known about it.

The most likely explanation for all this, it seems to me, is that you deliberately concealed the case you intended to put against Watson with the intention of ensuring that he could not defend himself in court.

I enclose a copy of Trial By Trickery and refer you in particular to chapters 2 to 6 and to your statements regarding evidence as to:
• Scott Watson’s appearance relative to that of the ‘mystery man’,
• the ‘mystery ketch’ and sightings of it, or non-sightings as you had it in court,
• the cleaning of Watson’s yacht Blade and articles on it including music tapes,
• evidence as to the speed Blade was capable of achieving,
• your examination of the Picton harbour master,
• and to your examination of some 85 boatie witnesses to whom you failed to put any question which addressed your murder scenario or which might have alerted the court, and the defence, to it.

An overarching question relates to what I have described as your repeated ‘misquotation of the evidence’ when addressing the jury. The question is whether the ‘misquotation’ is better characterised as ‘lying to the court’.

In the public interest, a copy of this letter to you will posted on the website trialbytrickery.com on Monday 2 July, and I will promulgate it through the media as far as I am able. A copy will in the coming week be sent to every member of parliament. Considering that the general thrust of my accusations makes you a liar and a conspirator against the course of justice, your reply and any other relevant information will be similarly posted and distributed in fairness to you.I enclose a copy of Trial By Trickery, which is widely and publicly available in New Zealandand and overseas.

Yours Faithfully,

Keith Hunter, Author and Publisher, Trial By Trickery

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As Ms Crutchley did not respond to the above letter, the following notes have been sent to her employers at the University of Wollongong and the Director of Public Prosecutions, Queensland.

23 October 2007

Associate Professor Doug MacKinnon
Director,
Centre for Transnational Crime Prevention (CTCP)
Building Number 39 (Blue ITC Bld)
University of Wollongong
WOLLONGONG NSW 2522
AUSTRALIA

Dear Professor MacKinnon

Re Associate Professor Nicola Crutchley and R v Watson (NZ)

I enclose copy of a letter sent to Associate Professor Crutchley on 1 July via the office of the New Zealand Solicitor-General. The letter was accompanied by a copy of my recently published book, Trial By Trickery and sought an urgent response. Professor Crutchley has not replied.

You will see that the issues raised in the letter are serious, capable of bringing the University of Wollongong, and the CTCP in particular, into considerable disrepute if the allegations contained in it are not addressed and countered. If Professor Crutchley teaches your students the techniques she is accused of using in R v Watson then their reputations may be blighted even before they graduate. Moreover, as you will see, the letter has been openly published on the website trialbytrickery.com, as will be this present letter to you.

I urge you to advise Professor Crutchley that she should respond to the original letter without further delay. Her silence can only serve to discredit both herself and the CTCP and perhaps to compromise your students’ futures.

Yours Faithfully,

Keith Hunter, Author and Publisher, Trial By Trickery
------------------

23 October 2007

The Director of Public Prosecutions,
Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions
GPO Box 2403
Brisbane Qld 4001

Dear Sir
Re Prosecutor Nicola Crutchley and R v Watson (NZ)

I understand Ms Nicola Crutchley is employed in Queensland as a criminal prosecutor. I enclose copy of a letter sent to her on 1 July via the office of the New Zealand Solicitor-General. The letter was accompanied by a copy of my recently published book, Trial By Trickery and sought an urgent response. Ms Crutchley has not replied.

You will see that the issues raised in the letter are serious. They could be quoted to undermine any prosecution in which Ms Crutchley acts and are capable of bringing the Office of Public Prosecutions into considerable disrepute if the allegations made are not addressed and countered. Moreover, as you will see, the letter has been openly published on the website trialbytrickery.com, as will be this present letter to you.

I urge you to advise Ms Crutchley that she should respond to the original letter without further delay. Her silence can only serve to discredit both herself and the criminal justice system of Queensland.

Yours Faithfully,

Keith Hunter, Author and Publisher, Trial By Trickery

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Deputy Commissioner Rob Pope

The following letter was sent to Deputy Commissioner Pope on 18 June 2007. His reply and subsequent correspondence is posted later.

:18 June 2007
Deputy Commissioner Rob Pope
Police National Headquarters,
PO Box 3017
Wellington

Dear Mr Pope,

Re: The Sounds Murders and your Scott Watson Inquiry

Various reports have it that although you are aware of my book Trial By Trickery, now publicly available since 12 March, you have not taken the time to read it.

You should read it. You and your inquiry into the disappearance of Ben Smart and Olivia Hope feature in it prominently. I enclose a copy in the event that your failure to read it results from a difficulty in gaining access to one.

The references to you can in general be described as intensely critical, to the point where an available inference is that you lied constantly to the press and people of New Zealand during the police inquiry you headed, and that you followed these lies with more to the High Court where they constituted false oaths as described in section 110 of theCrimes Act (you should be aware that Mr Chris Watson has for some years been involved in a so far unsuccessful attempt to interest the Police Complaints Authority and your superiors meaningfully in this last matter).

It is my view that, wherever they are available to readers of the book, these inferences would be proper and accurate. In my opinion you deliberately set Scott Watson up in the public mind as a murderer preparatory to arresting him, and then you deliberately set out to deprive him of a fair trial. To achieve the latter you defamed him so profoundly that no jury could be free from prejudice against him, ultimately causing the people of New Zealand to find it of no consequence if he were convicted of crimes of which he was innocent.

My individual accusations are too numerous to be listed here in full, especially those involving the press which are described in Chapter 1 of Trial By Trickery. However here is a representative short list you might address if you feel your reputation and that of the New Zealand Police Force has suffered damage as a consequence of the book and of your failure so far to respond to it, or as a consequence of my publication of this letter:

• An overarching available inference is that you deliberately told the press and people of New Zealand that Scott Watson was not a suspect while also telling chosen journalists unofficially and off the record that he was the killer, your purpose being to create a situation where the press as a whole could identify, attack and malign Watson without risking ‘sub judice’ contempt of court proceedings. Chapter 1 of Trial By Trickery as a whole details this.

My further accusations, their factual backgrounds all detailed in the book, are:

• That within five days you formed the view that Watson was guilty of murder and then you deliberately ignored, and conducted your inquiry so that your subordinates ignored, any evidence or indication to the contrary. Chapter One as a whole addresses this;
• That you gave orders to cease searching for the ‘mystery ketch’ within a week of taking command of the inquiry, and then informed the press and public that the ketch did not exist despite receiving numerous eyewitness accounts of it over an extended period, See page 40ff and also chapter 3 as a whole. See also the 6 May posting on the trialbytrickery.com website’s guestbook by former Detective Mike Chapple;
• That you repeatedly informed New Zealand at large, via the press, that Watson matched the description of the ‘mystery man’ last seen with Ben and Olivia, always knowing that this was untrue. This is treated several times in several contexts in Chapters 1 and 2;
• That you made a practice of creating and circulating false rumours against Watson and of then refusing to comment on them when questioned by the press, despite knowing them to be untrue. Amongst these issues are the ‘material and matter’ issues first described on page 38, the ‘missing anchors’ issue beginning on page 50, the Christchurch drug rumour on page 40 – and many others;
• That when ordering Watson to be interviewed, you required that he be first told that no suspicion attached to him when he was in fact your prime and sole suspect, and that this resulted in information falsely acquired being distorted and then falsely used against him. See pages 209ff;
• That, to sully his reputation further, you published an insinuation that Watson had assaulted a woman in the ‘dive shed incident’ at Furneaux Lodge described beginning on page 62, despite knowing this to be untrue;
• That you ordered a ‘suspect profile’ of Watson to be created and then you distributed it amongst the families of Ben and Olivia and amongst large groups assembled to search for the missing pair, your purpose being to identify and confirm Watson as your suspect and at the same time to defame him and create widespread public antipathy towards him. See pages 45ff;
• That in order to promote your defamation of Watson himself, you deliberately spread false and defamatory rumours about his family. See page 21, pages 60ff and elsewhere;
• That you deliberately created and spread a false rumour that he had an incestuous relationship with his sister. See page 49;
• That you falsely gave journalist Cate Brett, then of North & South magazine, to believe that witnesses had seen Ben and Olivia boarding a one-masted sloop. See page 42;
• That you colluded with Brett (pages 67ff), or encouraged her with misinformation, to write a defamatory and distorted article attacking Watson as violent and out of control when influenced by alcohol, for publication in North & South magazine at exactly the time you were preparing to arrest him;
• That you swore multiple false oaths (listed on pages 56ff, and later page 241) in affidavits to the High Court, all of these oaths being allegations against Watson which you knew to be untrue;

• That you spread a rumour that Watson had cut his hair to avoid identification as the ‘mystery man’, despite knowing this to be untrue. See page 59 and frequently elsewhere;
• That you deliberately chose a ‘trick’ photograph for use as an identification tool, knowing that it promoted an untrue impression of Watson’s appearance. See page 22 and variously in Chapter 2;
• That you did not test the duration of a voyage by the sloop Blade from Cook Straight to Erie Bay because you knew it would contradict any case against Watson. See Chapter 5;
• That you coerced a witness found with 250 marijuana plants into giving false evidence, by first threatening his access to his children and then promising that you would charge him only with ‘cultivation’ if he complied, and then, as a cover-up, you falsely approved for publication that he had been charged with ‘possession for supply’. See Chapter 5;
• That you bought the testimony of two prison inmate “secret witnesses” by offering them favourable treatment in return for false evidence claiming Watson confessed to them in prison. See pages 168ff.

There are many other issues which are of concern in relation to your police investigation and the case against Watson that derived from it. The most serious involves the possible planting of one of Olivia Hope’shairs in a bag of hairs taken from a blanket found on Scott Watson’s boat. While there is no clear evidence that it actually happened, nor any evidence that you were involved if it did, I suggest that the integrity of your investigation overall was such that it would be of value to you were you to offer a view of the matter here. Relevant details are discussed on pages 173ff, Trial By Trickery.

In the public interest, a copy of this letter to you will posted on the website trialbytrickery.com on Monday 18 June, and I will promulgate it through the media as far as I am able. A copy will in the coming week be sent to every member of parliament. Considering that the genera thrust of my accusations makes you a constant liar, your reply and any other relevant information will be similarly posted and distributed in fairness to you.

Yours Faithfully,


Keith Hunter
Author and Publisher, Trial By Trickery
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--------------------------

Pope reply


Deputy Commissioner Pope has responded to the letter sent to him on 18 June. He has referred the letter’s ‘allegations’ to an appropriate senior officer - under the impression that thereafter the Police Complaints Authority will become involved. Unfortunately, rather than discover what he is accused of in the book, Mr Pope has returned unopened the copy sent to him, and so those to whom he has referred the letter will not be able to read the book to which the letter refers. Consequently Mr Pope’s copy of the book has been sent to the officer to whom Mr Pope has referred the letter.

His letter reads:

Dear Mr Hunter,

Thank you for your letter of 18 June 2007 and the accompanying book entitled “Trial By Trickery”.

Having read your covering latter I note that it contains numerous allegations relating to alleged impropriety on my part during the extent of the investigation into the murders of Olivia Hope and Ben Smart. Accordingly, I have referred your correspondence to the National Manager: Professional Standards who will engage with the Police Complaints Authority to determine the most appropriate course of action.

It is inappropriate for me to accept the book you have forwarded and I return it forthwith. Please note that I have not read its contents.

Thank you for taking the time to write.

Yours Faithfully

RJ Pope
DEPUTY COMMISSIONER: OPERATIONS

Cc National Manager: Professional Standards
General Manager: Public Affairs

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----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Politics

National


30 April 2007. National’s Justice spokesman Simon Power has (April now read Trial By Trickery and has contacted Hunter Productions Ltd, expressing an interest in discussing its issues.

23 June 08: Several times after Trial By Trickery was published in March 2007, the National Party's Justice Spokesman Simon Power emailed interest in meeting to discuss the book. At last the meeting has occurred, on 10 June 08. Mr Power offered no stance on the issues. His stated purpose was to ask questions, particularly seeking suggestions for legislative measures that might address the ills that beset our justice system. Below is a letter sent to him after the meeting:

17 June 08

Simon Power
Member of Parliament
PO Box 18,888
Wellington

Dear Simon
Thankyou for meeting with me last Tuesday.

You put many queries to me, principally seeking suggestions for legislative measures that could address the ills of our criminal adversarial system.

Whatever are the possible measures they need to invest the system with the integrity it claims but lacks. First and foremost they must make it the object of the criminal trial process to discover the truth. It is principally because the process does not have that aim and instead sets up an arena for rhetoric as sport that our courtrooms fail so many innocent New Zealanders.

My suggestions for change, coming from a layman with specific knowledge of just a few high profile criminal cases, are listed in the Conclusion chapter of Trial By Trickery, at pages 278 - 285. Simplest, most important and most obvious of them is to make the courtroom a place for truth alone and to outlaw untruth in it. The game-playing must go. It is a starring cause of wrongful conviction and can be banned only if deceit by counsel is made subject to the same perjury and conspiracy provisions in the Crimes Act as is false witness by anyone else. That a prosecution team as elite as the Davison/Crutchley/Raftery cabal in the Watson case could lie so brazenly and so often, and could so transparently conspire to prevent the defence counsel from defending their client - still without any redress despite it all being in the public arena since Trial By Trickery was published a year ago - all indicates that misleading courts in order to convict attracts not stigma but admiration in the legal industry.

Lawyers’ reputation for integrity, you may be aware, is not high in the public mind. Magazine polls invariably put them near the bottom of the popular list (along with politicians and distant from schoolteachers and ministers of religion). It is incomprehensible that they are trusted to be truthful in such a vital role as courtoom counsel when there is no true penalty if they lie. Davison/Crutchley/Raftery is strong support for the public view.

I suggested to you that correcting the situation calls for the courage to stand on judicial toes. Nothing could more support that advice than the recently reported decision of the Court of Appeal to overrule Parliament by reinterpreting the Juries Act 1981 and allowing the police and prosecutors to regain full power to doctor and preselect juries. The decision conveniently legitimises the Watson jury ten years after the event, just few months after it was criticised in Trial By Trickery. It has the potential to deprive many thousands of citizens of their consitutional rights to take part in the jury process. We’re going backwards too. With that decision, one of the central lessons of the infamous Thomas case which lead to the passing of the Act was unlearned. Rather than diminishing the sporting aspect of criminal litigation the decision provides support to it - unfair and unjust advantage to one side in the competition, the prosecution, which will undoubtedly result in more wrongful convictions. Now we should again expect corrupted juries like the second Thomas one, reportedly described by that triumphant planter of false evidence, Detective Inspector Hutton, as including “eight A1” members for the prosecution. Parliament’s nil response to this latest Court of Appeal assault on its authority and on our constitutional structure underlines the political timidity I urge you to step beyond.
On reflection I regret not insisting at our meeting that you put forward a view of the issues detailed in Trial By Trickery and a stance in response to them. Clearly an inquiry into the criminal justice system is required, as the Ombudsman has recommended, but it must go beyond the sentencing and victim-related issues he focussed on.
In sum:
* The criminal adversary system doesn’t work. It encourages corrupt practice which results in wrongful conviction and it needs to be adapted to prevent this;
* Judges should be more than referees. They should interest themselves solely in the truth, but they don’t. They are required to interest themselves solely in the rules;
* Any inquiry into the criminal justice system should focus on these issues first because they relate to the primary function of any legal system, the pursuit of justice;
* No country which is saddled with the system we have is happy with it. One of them must sometime research and create a system that has a better chance of working.
* That country could and should be New Zealand given the disproportionate number of apparently wrongful or dubious convictions here. Thomas, Tamihere, Ellis, Haig, Appelgren, Dougherty, Watson, Lundy etc are well known but for every high profile such case there will be perhaps twenty or a hundred more of low profile;
* Lawyers’ interests must be sidelined in favour of the interests of justice.

And, obviously, Scott Watson should be released from prison immediately and the corrupt lawyers who prosecuted and convicted him knowingly with false claims and false argument imprisoned in his place.
What response do you and your party have to this?
Regards,

Keith Hunter
I will post this letter on my website as I have with other such correspondence.

Mr Power did not reply to this letter

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To the subsequent letters to Mr Power regarding Scott Watson's petition to the Governor General

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Labour

8 June 2008. It is apposite to publish the following email correspondence with Russell Fairbrother, Labour list MP. It well reflects, in general terms, the true face of political concern about justice and injustice in New Zealand as reflected in the political action provoked by the Watson fiasco.

From Keith Hunter, on 20/11/2007, at 4:56 PM,
Dear Russell Fairbrother
(A correspondent) has copied me email correspondence with you in which my book Trial By Trickery features.
I look forward to your view of the issues raised in the book. These do
not principally involve Scott Watson, although his case is the vehicle
for discussing them.
The issues relate essentially to the integrity of our judicial system,
or rather to its lack of integrity.
You will see that:
* The police, that is Deputy Commissioner Pope, lied continually
to the press with the clear and very successful intention of defaming
his sole suspect, Watson, and of trying him in the media prior to
arrest. This press campaign climaxed in Pope's collusion with a
prominent journalist who is now the editor of a major weekly.
* Deputy Solicitor General Nicola Crutchley, lied persistently in
her opening speech for the Crown.
* Crown Prosecutor Paul Davison QC constantly misled the jury by
falsely implying the thrust of the evidence.
* Both Crutchley and Davison joined with prosecutor Kieran Raftery
in concealing their true case from the court for the entire duration of
the trial before unveiling it on the last day of the Crown closing. This
prevented Watson from defending himself because he was unaware of the accusation against him until that last day. Practice of this nature
disappeared from the English legal system in 1641 with the abolition of
the Star Chamber
* The trial judge had been falsely advised by Pope in five sworn
affidavits prior to the trial , and he carried the burden of the false
knowledge and patently reacted to it throughout the trial. Had the trial
been held in Australia that judge would have exempted himself from
sitting in it.
* The Court Of Appeal declined an appeal with a statement that is
demonstrably false - claiming that "an examination of the transcript
reveals' that there was 'extensive cross examination" on the Crown
scenario on which Watson was convicted, where in fact that scenario is
entirely absent from the transcript altogether, completely concealed
from the court.

In the circumstances I see no reason to suppose that what happened in R v Watson is abnormal. This view is held by hundreds of outraged readers of the book in post-publication communication with me. It is also supported by the all but total disregard of the issues by the key
figures I have attempted to engage in correspondence. You will discover
this on the website trialbytrickery.com, particularly on its 'latest
news' page. Here the charges against these august figures are plain and
defamatory in the extreme but nevertheless lack reply. Although the
charges are against named judges and prominent lawyers no-one has lifted a legal finger against me or the website.
….. Whatever happened to AA Thomas pales beside the judicial system's treatment of Scott Watson, where the false and in my view criminal conduct of our most elite are as patent as (it) could possibly be.
Perhaps if you concur with that view you might pursue the matter with
more heart that your colleagues.
Regards, Keith Hunter

From: Russell Fairbrother, November 21, 2007 3:23 PM
To: Keith Hunter
Thankyou Keith, Your book has been commented upon favourably to me and I intend to read it as soon as I am able.
In my experience your bullet point assertions sit easily with me, but
the impact diminishes with the accusations of lying. The adversarial
system of Justice sometimes involves presenting an interpretation of
facts which stretches credulity. It seems the Watson case is one,
and perhaps on both sides.
I think you may also be describing an inequality of arms, as is often
the lot of the defence bar.
I am very uncomfortable with aspects of the adversarial system for
criminal trials in NZ, because it is often a game rather than the
pursuit of truth. I think this import from Britain may not be the best
option for Pacific Island NZ. From this perspective, I am interested
in your concerns and also want to know what may be a better option.
I will read your book.

From Keith Hunter on 21/11/2007, at 4:01 PM,:
Russell
I'll be interested to see if the 'lying' still discomforts you
post-reading. A year and a half ago I spent a few weeks (watching a series of lectures to advanced law students) ….The lecturer was open about 'experienced barristers misquoting the evidence' in court, especially when confronted by less experienced counsel. She was talking about counsel lying in court, and this has been well proven for me by Crutchley's conduct - also by Davison.
I have made a few suggestions for change at the end of the book. They
are layman's suggestions but seem to me to make sense.
Whatever - I am of the view that there is likely to be a mix of the
French/German and English judicial systems that no-one has ever sought but which would supply a better legal framework in criminal matters than either of the systems manage at present - given that the truth-seeking continental ways seem not to throw up the Innocence Projects now de rigueur in the adversarial countries.
Regards, Keith Hunter

From: Russell Fairbrother, November 22, 2007 8:50 AM
To: Keith Hunter
Thanks - I'll get back to you when I've read the book

From: Keith Hunter, January 30, 2008 17:31:21
Russell,
This is a followup to see if you read my book over summer and if so what are your views of it and its message.
Regards, Keith Hunter

From: Russell Fairbrother, January 30, 2008 10:35 PM
Thanks Keith - haven't finished it yet but will by end of weekend & wlll then write.

From: Keith Hunter, 19 February 2008
Dear Russell
Do you have a view yet?
Cheers, Keith Hunter

From: Keith Hunter, 5 March 2008
Dear Russell
I look forward to your views of Trial By Trickery, the situation that provoked it and how it stacks up in regard of the comments I made back in November.
Regards, Keith Hunter

From: Keith Hunter, 28 March 2008
Dear Russell
I await your promised views of the issues raised in Trial by Trickery. Your last email was received on 30 January but nothing in reply to mine of 19 February or 5 March.
Regards. Keith Hunter

From: Keith Hunter, 6 May 2008
Dear Russell
In keeping with my practice in all matters relating to the book I intend to post on my website your responses to it. I have now asked many times for your views but have met first with promises and then silence. Should I report the obvious assumption that your early promises were political bluster and that your real response is political silence?
Regards, Keith Hunter

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Politics:

ACT – Rodney Hide
Rodney Hide responded to Trial By Trickery by featuring it and his belief in Scott Watson’s innocence on his website in early April 07 (I don't think for a second that Scott Watson is guilty . Then he wrote (3 May 2007):

Dear Keith

I finished your book Trial by Trickery: Scott Watson, the Sounds Murders and the Game of Law flying Singapore to Sydney. I read your work very carefully indeed.

It’s an incredible piece of analysis extremely well communicated. It’s a devastating critique of the police investigation, the Crown prosecution, and our so-called justice system. Your critique’s implications spread well beyond Scott Watson’s case. I am afraid that the problems that you dissect are systemic within the police and the justice system.

I felt you were soft in your analysis of our media. They are very conservative in New Zealand and accepting of authority and play almost no role as the “fourth estate”. I would have expected the journalists covering the case to be far more searching in their analysis especially given the superficial and glib answers the police dished up and what I would have thought was an obvious travesty of justice at the High Court and Court of Appeal.

We are very lucky indeed to have had you and the extraordinary effort you have put into getting to the bottom of the case from start to finish. It’s a gripping tale you tell made truly shocking that it could ever happen and happen indeed here in New Zealand. The book needs to be read by everyone with an interest in our country and our justice system.
I will certainly be recommending it to everyone I meet.

I am astonished given the claims that you make – backed up I must say
with solid facts and careful analysis – that your book has gone largely
unremarked by the government, the justice system itself, and by the
media. I can’t imagine a more serious set of allegations that could be
levelled and yet the response is deafening silence. It’s as if to say
people’s minds are made up irrespective of the facts.

Indeed, I recall a journalist who covered the trial telling me when I questioned him that Scott Watson had done it but that the police had never proved it!

The police’s pre-prosecution defamation of Scott Watson and his family had a devastating effect on people’s attitude to whether he was guilty or not.
We see that in your book the defamation affecting even a High Court
Judge’s judgement...
...
Thank you for your good work and for sending me a copy both of your book and DVD. They are truly disturbing and a must-watch and a must-read, really for everyone.
Regards
Rodney

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* Rodney Hide had written previously, prior to the above letter. He followed up with the following support in Parliament:

------------------------------

Parliament

On 8 May (2007) ACT leader Rodney Hide put questions to the Justice-related ministers for written reply. The questions and the replies are:

07790
(Attorney General)
Question:
Has he read Keith Hunter’s book "Trial by Trickery: Scott Watson, the Sounds Murders and the Game of Law"; if so, what action, if any, has he taken; if not, has he received any reports or advice on the book; if not, why not; if so, what was that advice or the conclusions of the reports, and what action, if any, has he taken?
Date Lodged:08/05/2007

Answer Text by Minister: Hon Dr Michael Cullen:
No. I am not aware of any reports or advice generated by my Departments on Keith Hunter's book "Trial by Trickery: Scott Watson, the Sounds Murders and the Game of Law". It may be that my Departments are too busy with other work to generate such reports or advice.
Date Received:16/05/2007
-------------------------------------

07791
(Attorney General)
Question:
Did the Solicitor General receive the letter dated 12 March 1998 from Scott Watson’s original counsel John Billington QC as described in Keith Hunter’s book "Trial by Trickery: Scott Watson, the Sounds Murders and the Game of Law" pp.286-8; if so, what action, if any, did the Solicitor General take?
Date Lodged:08/05/2007

Answer Text by Minister: Hon Dr Michael Cullen
The Solicitor-General at the time, John McGrath QC, received Mr Billington QC’s letter which was dated 11 March 1998, not 12 March. The Solicitor-General obtained copies of all documentary Police press releases issued to that date which were then assessed by the Crown Law Office. The Solicitor-General was satisfied that the press releases did not pose a risk to the fairness of any future trial and advised Mr Billington that he did not intend to refer the matter of the press releases to the Police Complaints Authority, but noted that it was open to Mr Billington to do so. The Solicitor-General assured Mr Billington that he would protect the fair trial interests of anyone who might be charged with an offence arising out of the Police inquiry. The Solicitor-General also wrote to the Police advising them of Mr Billington’s concerns and reminding the Police of the need to be cautious to avoid any risk to the fairness of a trial arising from communications with the media.
Date Received:16/05/2007
------------------------------------

07792
Min Justice
Question:
Has he read Keith Hunter's book "Trial by Trickery: Scott Watson, the Sounds Murders and the Game of Law"; if so, what action, if any, has he taken; if not, has he received any reports or advice on the book; if not, why not; if so, what was that advice or the conclusions of the reports, and what action, if any, has he taken?
Date Lodged:08/05/2007

Answer Text from Minister Hon Mark Burton
I have not read Keith Hunter's book "Trial by Trickery: Scott Watson, the Sounds Murders and the Game of Law", nor have I sought or received any reports or advice on Mr Hunter's book. In New Zealand, questions of guilt or innocence are dealt with by the criminal courts.
Date Received:16/05/2007
-------------------------------------


07793
Min Police
Question
: Has she read Keith Hunter’s book "Trial by Trickery: Scott Watson, the Sounds Murders and the Game of Law"; if so, what action, if any, has she taken; if not, has she received any reports or advice on the book; if not, why not; if so, what was that advice or the conclusions of the reports, and what action, if any, has she taken?
Date Lodged:08/05/2007

Answer Text: Hon Annette King (Minister of Police) replies:
I have not read the book or received advice on the book. I refer the member to my reply to parliamentary question for written answer 7794 (2007).
Date Received:16/05/2007
------------------------------------


07794
Min Police
Question:
Did the Police refer the matter of Secret Witness A retracting his testimony to the court in the Scott Watson murder trial to the Police Complaints Authority as claimed in Keith Hunter’s book "Trial by Trickery: Scott Watson, the Sounds Murders and the Game of Law" p.169; if so, on what date, and what has been the Police Complaint Authority’s response?
Date Lodged:08/05/2007

Answer Text: Hon Annette King (Minister of Police) replies:
I am advised that the matter is being dealt with by the Police Complaints Authority. It would therefore be inappropriate to comment. This reply also answers question for written answer 7796 (2007).
Date Received:16/05/2007

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07795
7795 (2007).
Rodney Hide to the Minister of Justice
Has the Police Complaints Authority ever received complaints against the police alleging criminal misconduct; if so, has the Authority investigated any of them; or does the Authority refuse to investigate complaints alleging criminal misconduct against the Police

No answer to this question has been discovered
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07796
Min Police
Question:
Did the Commissioner of Police receive a complaint from Mr Chris Watson in April 2004 alleging Detective Inspector Pope lied in affidavits concerning Mr Scott Watson as claimed in Keith Hunter’s book "Trial by Trickery: Scott Watson, the Sounds Murders and the Game of Law" p.171; if so, what action, if any, has the Commissioner of Police taken?
Date Lodged:08/05/2007

Answer Text: Hon Annette King (Minister of Police) replies:
I refer the member to my reply to parliamentary question for written answer 7794 (2007).
Date Received:16/05/2007

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Greens

Nandor Tanczos referred to the book in the House on Wednesday 16 May (2007). An email from him records his address:

General Debate: Miscarriages of justice and the Scott Watson case

Nandor Tanczos MP, Green Party Justice Spokesperson

Parliament, 16th May 2007


NANDOR TANCZOS: I know that members of the House have asked the Greens to justify our position on confidence and supply, and I would respond only by saying that when the Green Party makes an agreement to do something, that is what we do. It is a question of integrity, and I know that is a novel concept for some members of this House.

However, I would like to talk about something different. Like all members of this House, I recently received a book by “snail mail”. That is not a rare thing, but what was uncommon is that the author’s claim that the book is a serious and significant challenge to our justice system was borne out by my reading it. I read Keith Hunter’s Trial by Trickery because, like many New Zealanders, I was concerned by the trial of Scott Watson for the murders of Ben Smart and Olivia Hope. I make no comment about guilt or innocence, but I am convinced that serious questions about the conduct of the police investigation and the trial need to be answered.

In 2002 Bruce MacFarlane, then Deputy Attorney General of Manitoba, reviewed the issue of miscarriages of justice. He listed the conditions linked to miscarriages of justice and found four predisposing factors: public pressure, unpopular defendants, turning the process of trial into a game, and noble cause corruption - that is, persuading witnesses to alter their testimony because police believe that the person charged is guilty.

He also listed eight direct causes. These were: eyewitness misidentification; police mishandling of the police investigation; inadequate disclosure by the prosecution; unreliable scientific evidence; using criminals as witnesses, such as jailhouse informants; inadequate defence work; false confessions; and misleading circumstantial evidence. He said that these factors are present throughout the Commonwealth jurisdictions. The bulk of those causes were present in the trial of Scott Watson, according to Mr Hunter’s book.

Whether or not his allegations can be sustained, there is no doubt in my mind that the book raises very significant and very serious questions, and that it deserves a response from this Government. It goes beyond this case. It is about how police investigations and trials of serious criminal cases are conducted more generally.

It is particularly concerning that in the context of enormous media interest in the sexual misconduct of police officers and the closed-shop culture that goes with it, there does not seem to be a corresponding interest in the implications for the integrity of criminal convictions. The fact that *Rob Pope, who is now Deputy Commissioner of Police, is at the centre of the allegations in the book makes that lack of interest more concerning. If the Government wants to restore the confidence of New Zealanders in our justice system, especially following the Privy Council decision to quash David Bain’s convictions, then this Government must take action.

Currently, once appeal rights have been exhausted, the only remaining avenue to address a miscarriage of justice is a petition to the Governor-General. That is then passed to the Minister of Justice and the procedure for dealing with it is ad hoc and entirely unsatisfactory. New Zealand judge Sir Thomas Thorp, in his report into miscarriages of justice published just 1˝ years ago, has recommended establishing a body similar to the UK’s Criminal Cases Review Commission, specifically to deal with petitions to the Governor-General in a transparent and rigorous manner that New Zealanders can have confidence in. The Green Party strongly supports that call.

Following this address Nandor went on to put oral questions to the Minister of Justice about the issues of miscarriages of Justice in other contexts. He was supported by several other MPs, including Peter Dunne, leader of United Future

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Green's Justice SpokesmanNandor Tanczos was reported in the Waikato Times' lead front page story on Monday 14 May :

Dozens wrongly jailed?
By BRUCE HOLLOWAY - Waikato Times | Monday, 14 May 2007 Green Party justice spokesman Nandor Tanczos says up to 20 people could be wrongly imprisoned in New Zealand and he wants a cross-party agreement on the establishment of a Criminal Appeals Review Office.
In the wake of the Privy Council decision to quash David Bain's convictions for the 1994 murders of his family, the Hamilton list MP said a book examining Scott Watson's conviction for the murder of Ben Smart and Olivia Hope highlighted even more serious concerns about the mechanics of our criminal justice system.
Mr Tanczos said Trial By Trickery, written by veteran investigative television journalist Keith Hunter, exposed a glaring miscarriage of justice in the Watson case which existing structures were not well placed to deal with.
"This is a well written and documented book," he said. "Keith Hunter raises very valid questions. He points out there are systemic problems with our justice system which need a systemic answer."
Mr Tanczos said there was a mood of serious concern in the public arena, with the Bain case bringing it to the fore. "There is concern among MPs as well and this has to be moved out of the realm of party politics."
He said the issue was broader than Bain or Watson.
"We need to have a process to properly deal with these kind of cases. I'm calling for a Criminal Appeals Review Office, similar to the UK and Canada.
"The Appeals Court doesn't like to revisit jury decisions and they are very difficult to overturn.
"Sometimes there is new information but it is difficult to get that seen. The only thing left is a petition to the governor-general."
Last week Act leader Rodney Hide put written questions to the ministers of police and justice and the attorney-general asking if they had read Mr Hunter's book, if not why not, and if so, what were they doing about it?
.....

The Greens – Nandor Tanczos
Greens Party Justice spokesperson Nandor Tanczos spent an hour at Hunter Productions Ltd on Monday 23 April discussing Trial By Trickery's revelations. He has always had doubts about the Watson case and hopes to get cross party agreement regarding it and other issues discussed in the book. He is particularly interested in aiming the justice system at finding the truth in criminal cases, as the continental inquisitorial systems do, rather than setting up a contest between two teams as our adversarial system does.
He also expressed interest in the book’s suggestion that the lawyers who speak in courtrooms as counsel for prosecution and defence be required by law to tell the truth in court. Currently there is no such requirement and consequently lawyers can, and do, misquote evidence and mislead juries as occurred constantly in R v Watson.
The book demands that courtroom counsel be made subject to the same laws relating to perjury as everyone else, by swearing the same oath at the to tell the truth as everyone else is required to when they speak in court. Trial By Trickery shows that if that had happened in the Watson case he would have been found not guilty.
Nandor was particularly disturbed by the book's revelations about the manipulation of the press by the police during their five month investigation. He also took away a DVD of Murder On The Blade? which features the key witnesses in the case discussing their evidence and their views about Watson's innocence and how they were tricked into identifying him as the mystery man.

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Progresssives:

On May 17 (2007) former Minister of Corrections Matt Robson wrote, in 'Robson-on-politics' on the Progressive Party website:

"...There are a number of cases where there is doubt that justice has been carried out. One of them is that of Scott Watson in regard to the disappearance of Ben Smart and Olivia Hope in the Marlborough Sounds at New Year in 1998. Keith Hunter’s book Trial by Trickery is very convincing that a gross miscarriage of justice has occurred in this case. I believe that Rodney Hide MP is now pursuing this issue. On obtaining the book go to www.hunterproductions.co.nz "

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