2053 JS 10/1/98 Taylor confirms sighting of mystery ketch,
says double ended so won’t get flooded if it turns on its mooring. Says he has
a lot of experience with such boats.
https://drive.google.com/open?id=1sELASoI23UdfO1EsCm3Yrn-mZMkSZBJJ
(Format: Word Document)
12350 JS 10/1/98 Same day as Taylor’s JS 2053 and appears
to be the same statement.
https://drive.google.com/open?id=1LWBFqvrAL1oj7w9tIONqeXkwSKf0KzV4
(Format: Word Document)
14752 JS 10.1.98 This is the earliest communication from
Taylor 9.45 and it appears 2053JS is homicide police calling him back. Confirms
ketch sighting and that is the one he saw in the paper and calls it a “double
ender.” He thinks that it arrived at either 3 or 6, a similar time to Kiernan
and others who said the ketch arrived late in the day.
https://drive.google.com/open?id=1YQk2-AjkNcmEke3iMSEl_iQYJPzpqiPo
(Format: Word Document)
An undated questionnaire in which the questioner decides
that O’Malley may be confused with the Alliance but says that Taylor is adamant
it was a double-ended ketch. They both recognize a sketch shown to them as the ketch.
It could be suggested the questionnaire help police decide who to not call.
Clearly both witnesses were very strong in the identifications but somehow the witness
who “might” be susceptible to agreeing that he had mistaken the Alliance for
the ketch was called, while the man apparently ‘adamant’ about seeing the ketch
was not called, showing another way to disappear the ketch.
Sir Graham in his report to the Governor General believed
then Prosecutor Davison’s claim that only O Malley aboard the Yolland had seen
the Ketch. Now we know that the skipper Taylor also saw the ketch and the
questioner says that Taylor was adamant, he had seen the ketch, yet he was
never called. That fits were a very visible pattern in this case, hiding strong
ketch sightings and claiming that others were mistaken. It has been an unjust police
deception that has worked “satisfactorily” for 2 decades.
Hayden Morrissey,
Post-trial statement re deck material and yacht rails where
Hayden is very clear about a wooden and rope rails: Hayden Morrissey gave
evidence.
Crutchley Document:
Bruce McLachlan EIC (police chief search officer for boats
Endeavour Inlet and elsewhere.) Reveals details of the ‘Crutchley document.’
Confirms belated search for Chinese Junk immediately before trial as well as
inspecting file notes, statements etc re ketch sightings. Gave evidence.
NOE begins page 2929, 19/8/98:
View outlook message:
https://drive.google.com/open?id=10X_6ayG_NchHjVLT2Dna0FJttvYMOc9y ok
(Format: Word
Document)
The deleted ‘Crutchley report.’
(Accidental deletion here of Link 18/11/25. Should be in
other copies.)
According to job sheets this ‘revised’ material should have
included the Gerald Brown sighting of a ketch departing Furneaux Inlet and the
various other sightings of the mk. Instead, it appears to have ‘looked’ for
departing smaller boats only, although 18 months after the mk was dismissed as
not existing the June 98 revision seeks reports of a ‘junk style’ ketch from
residents within the Endeavour Inlet. Even today (March 2026) the file turns up
exculpatory material for Watson which was either ignored or deleted from the
‘Crutchley doc.’ (DELETED)
https://drive.google.com/open?id=1s_Rl9hpiNABSndE_MIRq4D12XicQRSSk FULL DELETION
(Format: Word Document)
The June 1999 job sheet #14338 of VE Gave evidence (name
suppressed) regarding boats leaving on the morning of the 1st of
January 1998 and considered by timeline to have been part of the ‘Crutchley
report.’ Notable is the departure time of a boat Eastgate does not identify in
comparison to the Reg McManaway video (part of the RPOM proper) recording
seeing the Blade preparing to break moorings around 7 to 7.30 the same
morning. If that is correct it adds to the concern of what material was
deleted in the ‘Crutchley report’ and the only assumption is, that like all
other deleted material in this case, it exculpated the applicant. While Sir
Graham accepted the neutrality of the prison witnesses’ evidence he mistakenly
overlooked the concern of VE credibility by both her actions and what she
claimed in her changing statements. It is likely she was pressured over her
involvement with cannabis smoking at what may have resulted to her career had
she been charged, accordingly that the embargo on her and her husband’s
evidence should have remained.
An author’s note here such men as Reg McManaway a charter
skipper had a job in which he had the safety of others in the same way a pilot
ship master. Like other skippers, those working on the wharves and even the
security staff had a dedication to public safety that is easily overlooked by
the fact there was a “Reg’s Corner” in the bar and other such things denoting
casualness when in fact like pilots they sailed with care, noted possible hazards,
judged the weather and other factors that an observer from afar may not
appreciate, a thirty to forty foot boat in a tight mooring space and on a
turning tide require skill and care, a reminder of that is Reg calling out to
SW that he’d seen his boat, just as he noted the MM in the bar that brought concern
to Peter and the much
younger Mathew Sommerville Smith both of who concerned about their charges did
not identify the man they watched clearly in the bar as Mr Watson. A person the
trusting Roz McNeilly, at the time, believed police despite not showing her his
photo, when she has asked to see it for certainty, that the MM was indeed Mr
Watson – and was lied to.
https://drive.google.com/open?id=1XLdsAtySAW73pp1DWcwrW7WeBrUhsJgk
(Format: Word Document)
14338 JS 8/6/99 Ms E (name suppressed) job sheet confirms a
yacht leaving at 7.30 (the time when McManaway calls out to Watson that he has
seen the Blade and won’t hit it, but she does not identify the yacht. It would
have been very easy for investigators to confirm that it was Watson’s yacht
which Ms C referred to and may have done such are the number of changes and
deletions; had it not later been necessary to make Watson’s departure time to
attempt to provide for the Cook Strait trip. The proximity to the trial
indicates this was a late change to the file during the period of the Crutchley
Report. The fact police could not confirm that it was another yacht that left
at the time is persuasive.
The June 1999 job sheet was compiled by B McLachlan D 6952
Ken Martin (skipper of Jane Maria) 14188JS, 26/5/99 (Part
of the deleted Crutchley report):
https://drive.google.com/open?id=10LPKEkcDdU_NdWYye95wtjnGpBWmLs3o
(Format: Word Document)
14188 JS 26/5/99 Another late JS which refers to Crutchley
doc no 14066. This job sheet just before the trial is entered here because it
names its purpose – the deleted (Crutchley report.) It was taken by Paul
Merrett Det C 692. As will be seen later Ken Martin inadvertently played a
significant role in demonstrating that the police displayed no real interest in
concentrating on finding the mystery man. Police were zeroed in only on Scott
Watson to the exclusion of all others from very early in the investigation.
The Jeremy Brown statement records a ketch leaving the
inlet and continues a pattern of misidentifications that follow events in the
Furneaux Lodge bar where Watson was incorrectly identified by some patrons as
owning a ketch and inviting people aboard his “ketch” to sail to Tonga the next
day. Or to have a beer on the boat that “cannot be missed” as it is the “only”
such vessel in the inlet. This manipulation of evidence provided details of
behaviour wrongly attributed to Scott Watson, falsely painted him as a
predator. There are several mentions of a stranger that was not Watson, despite
this, police did not complete new identikit pictures or search for the man or
those that may have known him and left the trail to go cold.
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