The End Game: Scott Watson v The Crown
No Miscarriage of Justice is static, particularly where it holds public interest and inquiry. That is most certainly the situation with the Watson case. For anyone with a passing interest in cases like Scott's, there is likely to be some aspect of interest they feel to be very telling either pointing toward the person's guilt or innocence.
For many years that has likely been the alleged sightings of the suspect ketch in this particular case. That is something there has always been debate around - early on in particular between investigators and the public. To some degree, that debate has been relatively malign with the word "mistaken" often used by police and prosecutors in the early days at least. They essentially said of the people who had possibly sighted the suspect ketch that they were good people who were mistaken. Of course few of those "good people" agreed with that view, in fact, some were downright angry - with good cause. As the majority of them were boaties, some lifelong and experienced.
Additionally few people were satisfied with the "hair evidence" said to be that which held the case together. Then there was other weak evidence, scratches on boat hatch cover right to its edges which could not have been made had the hatched been closed on the couple. The boat was fully wiped down for fingerprints when even the officer who gave evidence as to that said it was not the case. An allegation that the "clean up" had happened after New Year, which according to many new witnesses, had happened the previous month after sailing through a storm in Cook Strait. It is claimed that Scott had offered to kill women for a woman friend who never mentioned that to the police or why she had remained friends with Scott after such an offer would be made, let alone still socialise with him and have him on board on New Year's Eve. Later it was evident that the woman held a business position that could have been compromised by the fact she was a recreational dope smoker. There's little doubt that police pointed that out to her or that she didn't know that herself.
We had the Eerie Bay "caretaker" who in his first statements could not recall when Scott had arrived on New Years morning aboard his boat the Blade, finally recalling the exact time at a point after he'd been busted with a commercial marijuana crop for which he was never sent to prison. The owner of the land who made several accusations against Scott never had his land confiscated and was never prosecuted for the cannabis plantation found "as part" of the homicide inquiry. The caretaker's children who had been very confident of the time Scott arrived lost their memories as their father had previously done until his memory was somehow restored.
So what has changed in 17 years despite most of what is above being already generally known? A number of things: the suspect ketch has been traced and confirmed by reliable witnesses some of who are able to confirm that their statements had been changed by police and without their knowledge until very recently. That tracing is very defined to relative important times to avoid in particular police diluting it as has happened previously. The ketch that wasn't there is suddenly there again and it is clear the police made every effort to hide it as the lost or altered statements show. Evidence is abundant that Scott was not the mystery man and that the info for that was always on the file but never put in the Defence's hands along with the reason why Scott was not the mystery man.
So there is evidence showing that there was deliberate malfeasance in hiding and misreporting ketch sightings along with written evidence indicating that from 1998. It has emerged that there was deliberate malfeasance in that the understanding of microscopic hair evidence has changed dramatically to the point where the ESR Scientist who said at the trial "contamination" had to be considered would now need to say that there definitely was "hair contamination" and that she at the time was not the expert she set herself out to be.
In all for followers of this case, it is somewhat difficult to comprehend the much smaller picture that points to Scott's innocence. There is little doubt that the number of witnesses called, how long a trial can take is used by the Crown to impress the Jury with the thoroughness of the investigation. In the Watson case, it was misused to hide the truth, that Scott Watson was framed for crimes he didn't commit, and that both senior police and Crown officials also knew that because of a deliberate "clean up" of the file that was unsatisfactorily done until finally being fully discovered.
There is no escape for senior police and Crown officials in this case - they deliberately framed an innocent man and their records show it because they were arrogant and careless in covering it up. The one thing Scott Watson can be grateful to them for.
