I have good reason to believe the Watson convictions are dead in the water. To some extent I can offer an insiders point of view as to why the convictions are unlikely to be able to be sustained. A year ago the foremost reason would have been the failure of the forensic procedures used to 'recover' the 2 hairs, and later to distinguish whether, as offered by the Crown, they even belong to the missing teenager Olivia Hope. The doubts are beyond reasonable that first of all the 2 hairs came off Watson's boat (they were never seen or photographed their in a thorough forensic examination by scientists), then secondly and more importantly, that they were even Olivia's hair. There were approved standards for the recovery and examination of questioned hair from crime scenes, and sample hairs from other sources - everyone was broken in this case and what followed was a now discredit hair analysis 'system' whereby a 'trained' scientist uses extraordinary (and hoax) comparisons of the questioned hair and sample hairs. Such methods resulted in a 98% failure rate of convictions in the USA which used similar systems. In short no one has that infallible ability to compare hair so finely that can be relied upon as evidence - it is subjective trickery, a tool of the devil.
There are other devils in this case a few of which are discussed here.
Propensity evidence: Loosely described as a defendant who has an alleged propensity to commit a certain type of crime. In Watson we had a number of people who claimed that Scott had spoken about killing women or indeed confessed to doing so. The problem with that evidence is that the witnesses didn't say such things at the outset but developed their opinions over a number of police interviews as other hard evidence couldn't be found. Scott now has one man who was offered his freedom if he would agree that he was a drinking buddy of Scott's and who heard Scott make such claims. We'll call this guy Rambo. Rambo was made angry by the suggestion and told the police officer what he thought of him, which wasn't much. Rambo kept notes of the conversation and we now know the reason why the statement written out for Rambo wasn't signed. So not a single witness who wasn't bribed, bullied or cajoled to tell lies about SW's so called hidden violent tendencies.
The 2-trip theory: The secret trip Scott is alleged to have taken back to shore after being delivered to his own boat alone. This evidence was dropped on the Jury after the close of evidence by now High Court Judge Paul Davison, the same man who prosecuted the innocent Teina Pora. A man who told the Jury that a positive sighting of a ketch by an excellent witness O Malley, a helicopter pilot, was not backed up by anyone else on the boat - when indeed the skipper of the boat had confirmed the sighting but was never called to give evidence. So that unconfirmed 2nd trip has been a topic of conversation for 2 decades. Now however, Scott has proof that police looked for evidence of the 2nd trip as early as January 98 and for the next 18 months to trial found none, in fact still have none now - the very reason Davison could call evidence to back up his claim.
Possibly the 3rd heading for now could be ketch sightings and the mystery man. Both of which police said never existed - everyone dreamed it up or were mistaken. This allowed the police to move from a two masted sailing ketch to a Watson's small sloop and indeed to a man who was on his boat alone and vulnerable to allegations by paid witnesses and those with torches held to their feet. The police aided this enterprise by deleting evidence, 100s of time. This is not conjecture but something that has been proved. Overall however, do not forget if there was no mystery ketch or no mystery man, the ketch and the man that scores of people saw should have been discounted from this inquiry 20 years ago. Remember that there is a list of over 60 people who more than likely saw the ketch, some even touched it, or rowed around it in appreciation of it's fine style.
As for those deletions it is now proven that they didn't only happen with statements and reports but also with the Photo File. Photos of the ketch are missing. The forensic file was tampered with, witness statements were tampered with and so was the Photo file. The proof is at hand, I and others have seen it - the majority of it is with this Government with more to come.
Corrupted file, corrupted witness statements and evidence, tampered with forensic evidence, photographic and video evidence negates the Watson convictions as does the fact that there is absolutely no proof, and never will be, that Scott did not go back to his boat alone, and the same absolute proof that the missing couple Ben and Olivia were never on the Blade, let alone aboard it in a raft up off three boats with nearly a dozen people aboard. That's the facts, or just a few them from a vast file defending Scott Watson. Watch this space.
