Watson allowed to challenge crucial eyewitness evidence

Scott Watson will be allowed to challenge crucial eyewitness evidence when he appeals his conviction for murdering Ben Smart and Olivia Hope in the Marlborough Sounds in 1998.

In a decision released on Wednesday, the Court of Appeal has ruled Watson can argue whether an identification of him as a mystery man last seen with Ben and Olivia, was properly obtained and should have been heard by the jury at his trial.

The identification was made by one of the last people to see Ben and Olivia, water taxi driver Guy Wallace, when he was shown a photo montage by police during their investigation.

The montage has always been controversial, as it included a photo of Watson caught during a blink, which matched other descriptions of the mystery man having hooded eyes.

Watson and his supporters have always argued the photo was unnatural and unfair, as none of the others in the montage were blinking, and was included by police in an effort to get Wallace to identify their prime suspect.

Guy Wallace told police the photo of Watson in the montage looked most like the mystery man but with some significant differences.

He subsequently denied Watson was the man he dropped off to a mystery yacht with Ben and Olivia.

Watson has always denied meeting Hope and Smart, having them on his yacht, or killing them, and his case remains one of the country’s most controversial.

Now 50, he has spent 24 years in prison, and remains there after being denied parole four times.

The case against Watson relied most strongly on two hairs found on a blanket on Watson’s yacht, Blade, which were matched to Olivia Hope.

However, continuing concern about the reliability of the forensic testing of these hairs resulted in Watson’s case being referred back to the Court of Appeal by the governor-general in August 2020.

But Watson’s legal team sought to have the photo montage identification evidence also included in the appeal grounds, as it had not been heard by the Court of Appeal previously.

This week, the Court of Appeal ruled it could be heard, saying its decision was necessitated by the interests of justice.

‘‘If there is one lesson from the history of miscarriage of justice in the context of criminal appeals, it is that no good is done by the procedural suppression of a tenable ground of appeal which has not yet seen the light of day in an appellate court, while other grounds of appeal are nonetheless allowed to proceed,’’ wrote former Court of Appeal president Stephen Kos.

‘‘As Lord Atkin once wisely observed, ‘finality is a good thing but justice is a better’.’’

Scott Watson’s father, Chris Watson, said he was pleased the court recognised it was important to hear all the crucial evidence.

‘‘I have always had the impression that they had rather it was the end and we go away. But I never really wanted to do that.

‘‘The hairs and the identification are the only really tangible things the police had – the rest really just boiled down to character assassination.’’

Watson’s appeal will be heard by the Court of Appeal on August 31.