Some of the missing material from Scott Watson's second RPOM

Here follows a small example of how police were not concentrating on finding a ketch but said they were. It also demonstrates their lack of interest in a lone sailor on a ketch that was not Scott Watson who owned a sloop. This and other material was critical for the reviewer of Scott's 2nd RPOM to consider, as it shows not only the nature of the inquiry but how potential evidence that couldn't be attributed to Scott was ignored at a point when the public still believed police were looking for a Ketch. Some electronic links and one name is removed from the following which is only the tip of the iceberg of strong evidence supporting Scott Watson that wasn't considered by Sir Graham Panckhurst. Once again Scott Watson didn't get a fair go and unless there is a miracle a heap of new evidence won't be considered by the Court of Appeal. 

RPOM Supplementary Material 6/1/18

Late Material

As noted earlier information helpful to Mr. Watson has emerged since the beginning of the New Year. This has made it necessary to draw a line at some point with material supporting the RPOM proper.

Today (6/1/18) more information arrived as per the below links, which is apparent as needing to be included. 

Withheld:

The ‘Waves.doc’ is a copy of a seizure warrant application by police on the 22^nd of January 1998 of a 2 masted ketch ‘Waves’ on that date moored in Nelson but which was at Endeavour Inlet on NYE 1997. It is unknown to the defence if any warrant was in fact issued, although it is known the owner, Withheld, was interviewed by police on the 27/98. He was a lone yachtsman who had not contacted police, he fitted the profile of interest to the inquiry team. After NYE he continued sailing the sounds alone, his ketch was never searched. The report on the interview was recorded:

          When spoken to he answered all questions in an open manner.  He showed no signs of being deceitful when answering questions.

 CRAIG states that he does not know either the victims or Scott WATSON and has not seen the yacht ‘Blade'.

Conclusion:

In the absence of any further information and the facts obtained to date,  I am of the opinion that David Brian CRAIG should be eliminated from this enquiry as a suspect.

A quick look at the Wallace statement #30380 above reveals that the 22^nd of January 98 was a Saturday, the same day when Ms. Vintiner’s search of the 2 bags holding the ‘blanket hairs’ revealed no blond hairs (as recorded in the Doyle report sequence of events and the RPOM proper). Essentially this was the point in time when the Petitioner should have been excluded from the inquiry. Nothing on the Blade and nothing from the blanket, no witnesses putting him with the couple, clear evidence that he had been dropped off to the Blade alone. A day earlier, #30380 tells us that Guy Wallace went to Nelson after a report of ketches there, one of which may have matched the mystery ketch he had drawn but, which he was being told vehemently, never existed. No doubt he was considering the potential ‘murder rap’ as being one of the alleged 3 Ws, would be resolved if indeed one of the ketches in Nelson was the one, he saw in Endeavour Inlet. He could shout out he’d found it and police could go to hell. His statement records he reported this to police by phone but was told, no, they were no longer looking for ketches.

The link here provides that Jan 21 and 22 1998 were Wednesday and Thursday respectively. This has not been verified independently.

Withheld:

The fact is the police, at least those who completed the warrant for ‘bodies and body parts, were still looking for a ketch. They were also looking for a ‘lone yachtsman.’ It is surprising Mr. Withheld could be excluded because of his open manner, shown by the ‘subjective’ impression of no ‘signs of deceit’ when answering questions. This despite that he didn’t contact the police and was a lone sailor on a 2 masted white ketch. It remains, however, that on the critical day when no blond hairs were found from the bag searches by Ms. Vintiner, a search was felt not deemed necessary of a yacht that fitted the description of the mystery ketch. The police were having it both ways. Tony Kiernan also the owner of a 2 masted ketch did not have his yacht the Nugget searched when 2 detectives came aboard in Picton to take the 2nd statement from him.

According to the record, there were 7,500 known discovered files in the Watson case. The prospective ability to have the defence comprehend the case, note all the fine detail of material in the discovered files was not the priority for police or the prosecution, despite that the prosecution were Officers of the Court. The fact is that material information that was deleted, altered, or hidden was known to them, and was never brought to the attention of the Court. It is well understood now the Crown benefited from this malfeasance and appears to have taken part in it. This should be able to be concluded, to determine if it was police and/or the Crown who broke the law, also if there was collusion between them to wrongly convict Mr. Watson with ‘doctored’ and ‘cleansed files’. Job sheets show the prosecution was asking police to speak to witnesses again whose stories would change, whose statements were altered. Potential witnesses with critical information for the Jury such as Beryl Karena and Rachel McKay had their statements neutered, and the help they would obviously be for the defence case was not discovered as required. 

It is apparent the defense has had obvious resource difficulties and, as in most cases of Miscarriages of Justice, underfunded and being unable to screen properly every document discovered to them.  Over the years there has been the need for the wrongly imprisoned to rely on individuals volunteering their time and money. On receipt of the Waves warrant the writer immediately contacted the 3 of the 4 major researchers of the case Mike Kalaugher, Keith Hunter, and Warwick Jenness. The warrant was news to them. Keith recalled the Wallace doc that corresponded with the warrant and sent it immediately. Mike recalled the vessel, its owner, and where it is now. Warwick had the statement on hand, along with photos of the Wave.

At this early time of appreciating this new information, certain points can be made as to the dates 21/1/98 and 22/1/98

# Progress was stalled, with no evidence found against Scott Watson, he was in the clear. Ms. Vintiner was calling it a ‘hard’ case, the type she didn’t ‘like’.

#A warrant was considered to search a 2 masted white ketch with blue running through the white. A ketch Guy Wallace later said he ultimately realized wasn’t the one he’d seen in Endeavour Inlet which the couple and a stranger had been dropped off onto. This presents again the blindness and tunnel vision of investigators to all possibilities and potential breadth of the investigation. Wallace was told bluntly on the phone that police were not looking for a ketch and impatiently asked if there was anything else the police could help him with, on that day he had not told the woman on the phone his name.

#The very existence of the seizure warrant, sworn or otherwise, is new evidence despite that it may have laid in discovered documents for 20 years. The defence could have made great purchase of this doc, in a case where police had said there was no mystery ketch but had prepared to pull a sloop from the water to look for bodies and body parts. As only one person had been on Waves, the defence could point out to the Jury how a 2 masted ketch was not searched because the owner was ‘decided’ not to be deceitful. The defence could argue about the pressure put on those who insisted they’d seen a ketch while police had said there wasn’t one at the same time as preparing to pull one from the water. They could have said that police had no clue what was going on but had stuck with the ‘hope’ of some miracle evidence after ‘searching again’ – like that taken from a bag with 1 ‘accidental’ cut when it should have had 4 cuts.

Of course, Defence would have had months to make something of this material, which could have been alerted to them as a priority point of interest in the discovered file, but police, in this case, didn’t do that, they hid and changed things instead, pressured witnesses into confusion, or to tell downright lies.

The ketch Waves were a vessel moored alone, it had the similarity to the mystery ketch that the Blade did not, it showed green on police map 8, had 2 masts instead of one, white primary colour with blue. It also had a lone person on board. It was displaced from the calculated position of the mystery ketch, in the same way, the Blade was, but unlike the Blade was not in a raft up with 2 other vessels with 11 people aboard. There is no suggestion that Withheld was the abductor of the couple despite that he and his ketch fitted the criteria identified by many witnesses, while SW and the Blade fitted only one, that he was alone – yet not a single witness put him with the couple or indeed with Amelia Hope, her partner, Wallace, Morrissey, and Dyer. Nor did HT1 who’d seen Watson leave the jetty and never come back.