Watson’s father vows to keep fighting
It’s one of New Zealand’s most murky and vexed murder cases – in the early hours of New Year’s Day 20 years ago in 1998, 21-yearold Ben Smart and Olivia Hope, 17, boarded a yacht and vanished following a New Year’s Eve party at Furneaux Lodge in the Marlborough Sounds.
Ben and Olivia’s bodies were never found.
Scott Watson – also at the party – was convicted of their murders in May 1999.
Watson still maintains his innocence, and his appeals continue while speculation in books, newspapers and documentaries goes on unabated – but where does this leave the families?
Smart’s mother Mary could not be contacted while Hope’s father Gerald politely declined to talk toStuff, saying he had nothing to add.
In November 2016 Hope finally met his daughter’s killer when he went to Rolleston Prison and sat down face-to-face with Watson.
Hope had campaigned for close to a decade to confront Watson about the events of New Year’s Day 1998 when his daughter disappeared.
‘‘He pitched to me that he was innocent, and I was not able to accept that he was, based on some of his omissions,’’ Hope said.
Scott Watson’s father Chris Watson – speaking on Friday – maintains the injustice done to his son rests at the feet of one man – Rob Pope, who lead the murder investigation.
Watson said his son was jailed ‘‘to appease an ambitious policeman’s craving for power.’’
Pope, a Christchurch detective rose through the ranks to become Deputy Police Commissioner – he retired in 2011 in the wake of a damning report into police culture.
Police had also led a campaign to smear Scott, including starting a rumour that he was sleeping with his sister and was linked to the disappearance of American woman Nancy Frey-Hershey on Great Bar- rier Island earlier in 1997, Watson said.
Now 70, he had been set to retire when the case broke but the legal bills keep coming and only last month did he stop working as a mussel farm maintenance fitter.
While they may have got a conviction Watson said neither the Hopes nor Smarts had received real justice.
‘‘We’ve all been caught up – Scott’s been denied justice – the Hopes and Smarts have been denied justice too.’’
In November this year, a new appeal was lodged on behalf of Watson with fresh evidence challenging the ‘two hair theory’ that helped seal his conviction.
Watson has always denied ever meeting the pair, let alone killing them.
The only physical evidence linking the couple to Watson were two blonde hairs – believed to be Hope’s – found on-board his homebuilt sloop following their disappearance.
The evidence has long been considered to be the smoking gun in the Crown’s largely circumstantial case.
The new appeal includes a report by forensic scientist Sean Doyle which calls into question whether the hairs were really Hope’s and criticises the way the evidence was handled.
Chris Watson is confident new justice minister Andrew Little will be more open-minded in considering the appeal for his son, who is now 45.
‘‘We intend to beat this before we all peg out ... I’d like it to be over so [Scott] can get his life back while he’s still young enough to carve himself a place.’’