Scott Watson has a Significant Second Win
Although not always the case, sometimes when wrongful convictions finally turn there are steady reversals of the Crown's case or initiatives to maintain the convictions. That has now happened for a second time in the Watson case with the Crown failing to repel new submissions regarding the "hair evidence." The NZ Court of Appeal ruled yesterday, 8/11/23, that further new evidence concerning the "2 hairs" alleged to have been found on Scott's boat the Blade but actually discovered in ESR's lab will be heard.
That causes one to wonder why the Crown so lacked confidence in its case on Appeal that it apparently feared any more new material. There is irony in the fact they would seek evidence to not be heard if they were confident in their own case. Apparently, they may not be so it is for the public and ultimately the Court to decide if they are panicking or not.
The complete irony is that while the Crown fiddles over the hair evidence there is significant further evidence not all of which will be heard before any retrial. The Crown's case is a shipwreck, its own agents have hidden and changed evidence to a remarkable extent and there is now proof of that in many new affidavits, comparisons of evidence then compared to now. Although there are many examples one significant one is that the police from early on were attempting to persuade witnesses that Scott had either stolen their dingies or been seen or heard using on the morning of the disappearance of Ben and Olivia.
Although the Crown won't pause to consider all the new evidence as it should rightly ask to do in the interests of Justice, and do that now they will continue to row their boat to the square corner of the earth they appear to feel exists and right off.
New Zealand has not learned to extract itself from blind fighting over false convictions and simply say to the other side "Well what have you got" to save both the Court time and to extract people from false imprisonment or convictions. In some ways that is meant to be the purpose of the much-lauded Criminal Convictions Review Commission. I incidentally sent a 300-page document on what had gone wrong in the Lundy and didn't receive a reply, an authority which after some 3 years appears not to have solved a single case. The Commissioners appear to be stacked along cultural lines rather than by private achievements such as people like Joe Karam, Keith Hunter, and others who've been at the coal face of wrongful convictions to the extent that it shows that Scott was wise not to continue to "wait" for the CCRC to be up and running. One might even say that he finally had some luck and chose a traditional method of having potential wrongful convictions reviewed and was successful, not once, but twice and still counting.
The idea of the Prosecution and Defence working together on false convictions is not new internationally and America is having much success in that area currently - so why not New Zealand why not Scott Watson now.
