Watson: what a Miscarriage of Justice looks like from the inside.

(Format is from another document hence the reproduction difficulties)

Chris Bishman #10055, 12/1/98 (Did not give evidence)

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1jSJtEzr_s_j2Ijak1nLkT1hS2YQNIBI2

(Format: Word Document)

10055 St 12/1/98 Bishman is one of the people Perkins describes as able to back up his story. His description differs from that of Perkins but does say the person has 2 days of growth and may have been wearing a denim shirt. He does not identify Watson. He refers to conversations about Tonga and Amanda Egden. Spoke to the person for some length of time but the person did not speak about yachts or trips overseas. Was shown both compusketch pictures and said neither looked like the person. This however does not lead to a fresh compusketch being made a clear demonstration that the trail of the potentially real offender is being ignored. Besides not identifying Scott Watson, Bishman said the conversation went to 4am which the reader will know coincides with the evidence of many others and includes the stranger in the Wallace Naiad around 4am, along with Ben, Oliva, Morressy and Dyer. Again we have exclusion of Watson as the offender by a witness not called to give evidence.

Bishman   job sheet #40958 29/4/98

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1b0Mp8Wkol8G_kQCpU6LNMQEf6Btryw_p

(Format: Word Document)

40958 JS 29/4/98 Bishman 4 months after failing to identify Scott Watson he identifies Watson from montage ‘B’ ‘blink photo.’ See Trial by Trickery pg. 114 to learn that not one witness identified Watson from montage ‘A’ and it was only after the ‘blink photo’ was utilised in montage ‘B’ that he was identified by anybody. Also, note the hair difference.

Tim Everist, 8/1/98 Statement 20022 at 11 am. (Did not give evidence)

20022 ST 8/1/98 (11am) Tim was part of a large group of teenagers who had headed to the Lodge to see in the new year. By the various accounts, they had been drinking before their arrival and continued once arriving. On page 2 he says he was talking to a man in the bar he says didn’t hear anything about a yacht when he was talking to him. He speaks about a “whole lot of 5^th formers” advancing on the man over comments he had made. On page 3 he repeats that he never heard anything about a ketch from “this guy.” He says he can’t recall what the man was wearing but that he may have had a checkered shirt.

1016 ST 8/1/98 (1.45am) Everist. Shown a photograph and identifies somebody.

 

11557 JS 19/2/98 Everist says “I never said he had a ketch. I have absolutely no idea what sort of boat he had.” He was referring to his first 2 statements on the same day. This was a phone call where Everist must have been told that he had said that the man had a ketch, he denies any knowledge of that. Everist would be an important witness in the event of a retrial – his experience clearly was that police wanted him to “repeat” something had previously said and he was clearly adamant that he would not.

 

11863 ST 19/3/98 Everist shows Montage B and identifies photograph 3 as the person he identifies in his statement.

 

13360 JS 14/9/98 Everist now refers to the person as Watson. Detective Fitzgerald completes JS

No mention of “ketch to Tonga’ in any of Everist’s statements.

The last recorded police interaction with Everist appears to be this job sheet where the name Watson is mentioned for the first time in any paperwork or job sheet attributed to contact with Tim Everist. The job sheet is signed by Detective Fitzgerald, who among other events in operation Tam, his dealings with the witness (suppressed) are recorded in the RPOM proper where Fitzgerald claimed that it was unlikely that Watson would have had much to do with (suppressed) or indeed trust him, over a period (including a deleted statement which the defence was, fortunately, able to refresh) (suppressed) somehow became a confidant of Mr. Watson. Furthermore, the video interview of Guy Wallace is also included in the second RPOM where it is recorded Fitzgerald repeatedly lying to Wallace to:

·       Make him believe that he was a suspect with evidence held against him, also

·       To make him deny having seen the mystery ketch or face the music of a murder charge.

As pointed out in the second RPOM Detective Fitzgerald failed to inform the Court that secret witness ‘B’ had confessed a crime to him but was never charged and went on to give evidence for the Crown at the Watson trial. Mr. Fitzgerald’s attempt to have Everist nominate Watson as the person who invited people aboard his “two-masted ketch” etc appears to have failed because Everist did not give evidence and never provided the support for Perkin’s claims identifications of Watson as the “sleazy and creepy” stranger.

Moreover, investigators did not pause from their determination to convict Watson at all costs by finding the mystery ketch and the stranger to exclude both from the inquiry. There were no public pleas to find the stranger after the fresh descriptions in January (see here the McNeilly affidavit including in the first RPOM) and indeed the search for a ketch was stopped as both the file and Mike Chappell (affidavit in the second RPOM) show.

People that rang in with reports were ignored despite the fact that Watson was not arrested for a further 5 months, the inquiry was shut down to a single focus that looked for ‘2 hairs’ many times until finding them. ‘2 hairs’ that now present as planted evidence without support, or indeed able to survive critical forensic analysis of both the scientific standards of the time and now.

There is a real possibility that Everist’s statement where he allegedly mentioned a yacht was either re-written or altered by police. Alterations to statements could extend to identifications or any other matter whatsoever as is reported in the second RPOM, or indeed be fully deleted. The material herein provides proof of incidences where witnesses say both such things happened. The second RPOM mentioned the high number of deletions, now several years later many can be put together, some coinciding with the “Crutchley report.”

It is a blight on NZ police and the Crown that these documents show that the file was being manipulated right up until the time of the trial and whilst it took place. The defence is now aware of the methodology of the Tam computer file, who entered material, who had the power to seek or make changes, that entries were saved each day and the system backed up once a week – but the integrity of the file has deliberately impinged as the paperwork shows.

 

                        More work in progress as the Watson case continues to fall apart.

The following are cited as a window to remind of the disastrous Tam police investigation and prosecution.

·       The original signed hand-written statements of Tony Kiernan in which he described the mystery ketch are gone, replaced by typed unsigned alleged statements which Tony Kiernan says in an affidavit have been edited of all information about a ketch. The job sheet which proves that veracity of his claims.

·       The statements and job sheets relating to the uncalled witness Beryl Karena altered to delete her information explaining the ‘scratches’ to the hatch cover on the Blade and her knowledge of Mr Watson’s plan to paint his boat.

·       The signed statement by Peter Firmin in which he reveals that police when interviewing him about a ketch sighting alleged that he was a drinking partner of Scott Watson and had heard Scott Watson talking about murdering woman. Information, which if Firman was willing to confirm in evidence, would mean that police would raise no objections to his release at his pending parole board hearing. There is a matter raised in Mr Firmin’s statement regarding the authenticity of job sheet/statement #11740. His name is misspelt, and his date of birth is incorrect, he disagrees with details included therein.

·       The unused Doubt documentary footage of Peter Kennedy which shows that those aboard the Sweet release on the 2^nd of January 1998 could never have seen the Alliance and therefore never mistaken it for the mystery ketch, nor indeed Mr Kennedy’s daughter for the missing Olivia Hope. Yvonne MacKay produced the Doubt documentary. She has said that the floor cuttings regarding Mr Kennedy are approx. 6 mins long and the producers felt that other footage well covered the points about ketch sightings to strike balance into the production. For Defence Counsel however the information destroys a evidence which held together the myth of no mk, but many mistaken people mixed up between an ocean going sailing ship and a flat bottomed scow.

·       Peter Kennedy has confirmed not only the interview, but his position that the Alliance had never travelled far enough on the 2^nd of January 1998 to have been sighted by those aboard ‘Sweet Release’ before turning back because of the weather – telling evidence for a jury, and total support for the Walsh’s claim.

·       The statement 20344 of Peter Kennedy in which he describes the mystery man in the Furneaux Lodge near the toilets on NYE 97 which was not Scott Watson. This evidence would be significant to a Jury and supports many other witnesses on this point.

·       The overall impact of Mr Kennedy’s statements confirms the probability that the naiad driver, Robert Mullens, was correct in his first statements that he had seen (and drawn) a mystery ketch that was not the Alliance. There is doubt that Mr Kennedy’s statements were entirely discovered to the defence.

·       The not fully disclosed material of HT1 indicating that HT1’s statement was altered and fictionalised. That HT1 only became aware of this in January 2018 when copies of original statements held on file where sent to HT1 for comment. The valuable and crucial evidence that HT1 never told the Watson Jury. Including speaking with Watson and seeing his departure from the Furneaux Lodge wharf only once. Also including noting the departure of Amelia Hope and 3 others from the wharf after Scott Watson had already gone.  

·       The full evidence and cross examination of the witness Donald Anderson by Michael Antunovic. To note the following:

“And on a two masted sailing boat …. Specifically on a two masted sailing boat if you are talking about the “Alliance” yes I did, I assume that is what I saw and my recollection.

Do you accept that the evidence that Mr Peter Kennedy gave to this court, many weeks ago now, when he gave evidence, he is the man who was on the “Alliance” and owns it, at that particular time, that they don’t have sails on … STOPPED

I DON’T THINK THAT WILL DO MR ANTUNOVIC, HE CAN’T POSSIBLY COMMENT ON WHAT A WITNESS HAS SAID EARLIER ON, HE WOULDN’T HAVE BEEN HERE I WOULD IMAGINE, HE WOULDN’T HAVE BEEN IN THE COURT, You WILL HAVE TO PUT IT DIFFERENTLY…..Well that is what the evidence was sir

WELL IT MIGHT HAVE BEEN BUT THAT IS NOT THE BASIS OF A QUESTION, A QUESTION MUST BE SOMETHING WITHIN THE KNOWLEDGE OF THIS WITNESS NOT SOMETHING ELSE, WHAT YOU ARE DOING, You ARE GETTING AT THE JURY BY ASKING QUESTIONS TO THE WITNESS, You ARE MAKING A SUBMISSION IN EFFECT.  I CAN SEE WHERE You ARE COMING FROM BUT IT IS NOT APPROPRAITE…..Can you sir….TO PUT IT TO A WITNESS….well I am not coming from there at all with the greatest of respect your honour I am trying to ask this witness whether he associated these ropes with a vessel that was the same boat and I am trying to suggest to him

YES I KNOW You ARE BUT You ARE DOING IT ON THE BASIS THAT SOME OTHER WITNESS HAS SAID SOMETHING, THIS WITNESS CAN’T POSSIBLY KNOPW THAT OR SHOULDN’T KNOW THAT OR UNLESS HE HAS READ ABOUT IT AND EVEN IF HE HAS IT IS NOT FOR HIM TO COMMENT, PUT IT DIFFERENTLY….well I thought the Crown had put some evidence of other wits to wits all the time

NEVER MIND ABOUT THAT JUST COME AT IT DIFFERENTLY I AM NOT GOING TO DEBATE IT WITH You INDEFINITELY.