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.