Recent Postings: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 13 May 2010 15 April 2010 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: 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:: Deputy Commissioner of Police Rob Pope The Police Complaints Authority Crown Prosecutor Paul Davison QC Prosecutor / ex Deputy Solicitor General Nicola Crutchley Court of Appeal / Chief Justice 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: * 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;.
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). 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.
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 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.' ----------------------------------------------------------------------- 13 May 2010 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.. ) ------------------------ 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, 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:
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.
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:
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 ----------------------------- 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 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:
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:
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 :
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 ---------------------------------------- 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 Back to the top. ------------------------------------- Letter to the Minister of Justice, 26 May 09
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 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. 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” ----------------------------- Letter to the Minister of Local Goverment the Hon Rodney Hide, 26 May 09: Dear Minister 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 , ----------------------------- 6 April 09 The following letter was sent to the Minister of Justice on 1 April 1/04/09
Cc: Hon Rodney Hide, Dear Minister 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.
Yours Faithfully Keith Hunter APPENDIX 1. All of the eyewitnesses evidence exonerates Scott Watson: 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:
KH Back to the top The previous letter of 2 February 09 to Simon Power follows below ----------------------------------------- 4 February 09 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 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: * 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. The letters to Simon Power and Rodney Hide follow: ----------------------------- 04/02/.09 Hon Simon Power Cc: Hon Rodney Hide, Dear Simon 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: 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: -------------------------------- Hon Rodney Hide
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. Regards Keith Hunter For Rodney Hide's previous support: Back to the top ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 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) ----------------------------------- The formal complaint to the Independent Police Conduct Authority reads: 28 August 2007..... Dear Justice Goddard,
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. Background Narrative Of The Complaint 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. 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 --------------------- Response to the Police Report to Chris Watson. The January 2009 response to the police report on Chris Watson's complaint reads: 12 January 09 Justice Lowell Goddard, Re: Police inquiry re Ben Smart and Olivia Hope: 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.
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:
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 : 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.
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
Back to the August 07 formal complaint to the IPCA Back to the top ============= 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 Re: Complaint Dated 28 August 2007 …… 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 =============== … Mr Grinstead is right in his advice that his investigation report on your complaint was provided to me in November 2009. Yours Faithfully ====================== Re: Police inquiry re Ben Smart and Olivia Hope: 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 Back to the August 07 formal complaint to the IPCA Back to the top
----------------------------------------------------------------------- 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 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:
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:
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.
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,
Back To Top ------------------------ 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, Cc: Hon William Young, DCNZM, LLD, QC, President of the Court of Appeal 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!) . Yours Faithfully, Back to initial letter to Court Of Appeal. Back to top ----------------------------- 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: … Yours Faithfully Back to beginning of the correspondence regarding the Court Of Appeal. Back to the top --------------------- 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. 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 Back to beginning of Court of Appeal correspondence. Back to Top ----------------- 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 --------------- The following has been posted in response to the above letter: .2 January 2008 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: 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 18 March 2008 10 March….. Back to beginning of the correspondence regarding the Chief Justice and the Court Of Appeal. Back to the top ------------------------ 2 April 2008: The following reply to the above was sent to the Chief Justice on 30 March: 30 March 2008 Dame Sian Elias, Dear Chief Justice, 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:
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:
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 Back to the top 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 Yours Sincerely A further note has been sent to the Chief Justice. It reads: 26 April 2008.. Dear Chief Justice, 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. As with previous correspondence, this letter to you will be posted on the website trialbytrickery.com. Yours faithfully... Keith Hunter Back to the top. -------------------------- The following reply was received on 3 June 29 May 2008 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.. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 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 Dear Ms Brett, 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: 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, -------------------------- 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 Dear Editor, 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 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 --------------------------------------------- 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 Dear Editor 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. Keith Hunter To beginning of Brett correspondence: Back To Top ----------------------------------- Posting 15 February 2008: 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”.
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. 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?
To the beginning of the Brett correspondence: Back to the Top ------------------------------------ Posting 18 February 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 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 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 Dear Editor 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. Keith Hunter ADDENDUM Ex Defence Application for Appeal:
Back to Top 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 Dear Mr Davison 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: 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’ 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,
--------------------------------------------- Mr Davison replied to the above letter. His letter reads: 24 August 2007 Keith Hunter Herne Bay 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 Back to the top To the original letter to Davison QC --------------------------------------- September 10, 2007 Paul Davison QC Dear Mr Davison 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…” 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: 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.
This letter will be posted publically, as the previous correspondence has been, on the website trialbytrickery.com. Yours Faithfully, Keith Hunter To original letter to Davison To Davison's Reply to the original letter Back to top ------------------------------------------- Second Letter from Paul Davison QC:
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. ------------------------------------------ Reply to the above letter from Paul Davison QC:: 14 October 2007 Paul Davison QC 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. This letter will be posted publically, as the previous correspondence has been, on the website trialbytrickery.com. Yours Faithfully, To beginning of correspondence with Paul Davison QC ----------------------------- 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
Dear Mr Raftery 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. 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,
Back to Top 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 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 To beginning of Raftery correspondence. ---------------------------- 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. Yours Faithfully To Top. To beginning of Raftery correspondence. -------------------------------- The following letter on 16 November replied to Mr Moore: Simon Moore Dear Mr Moore 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. To Top. To beginning of Raftery correspondence --------------------------------------------------------------------- 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, 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. 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: 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 ------------------------------ 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 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, Dear Sir 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 ------------------------------------------------------ The following letter was sent to Deputy Commissioner Pope on 18 June 2007. His reply and subsequent correspondence is posted later. :18 June 2007 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 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; 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,
--------------------------
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 Cc National Manager: Professional Standards ---------------------------------------- National
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 Dear Simon 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. 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. Keith Hunter Mr Power did not reply to this letter Back to the top To the subsequent letters to Mr Power regarding Scott Watson's petition to the Governor General ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 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, 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 From Keith Hunter on 21/11/2007, at 4:01 PM,: From: Russell Fairbrother, November 22, 2007 8:50 AM
From: Keith Hunter, January 30, 2008 17:31:21 From: Russell Fairbrother, January 30, 2008 10:35 PM From: Keith Hunter, 19 February 2008 From: Keith Hunter, 5 March 2008 From: Keith Hunter, 28 March 2008 From: Keith Hunter, 6 May 2008 Back to the top ------------------------------------------------------------ Politics: ACT – Rodney Hide 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 am astonished given the claims that you make – backed up I must
say 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. * Rodney Hide had written previously, prior to the above letter. 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 Answer Text by Minister: Hon Dr Michael Cullen: 07791 Answer Text by Minister: Hon Dr Michael Cullen
07792 Answer Text from Minister Hon Mark Burton
Answer Text: Hon Annette King (Minister of Police)
replies:
Answer Text: Hon Annette King (Minister of Police)
replies: -----------------------------------
No answer to this question has been discovered
Answer Text: Hon Annette King (Minister of Police)
replies: Back to the top
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
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 1½ 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 ================================ Green's Justice SpokesmanNandor Tanczos was reported in the Waikato Times' lead front page story on Monday 14 May : Dozens wrongly jailed?
The Greens – Nandor
Tanczos ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 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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