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For more than a quarter of a century, Scott Watson has maintained his innocence in a double murder case that has both “gripped” and “troubled” the nation. 

But today, the long-awaited decision in Watson’s latest and desperate bid to clear his name has been released, finding he has not suffered a miscarriage of justice and upholding his convictions for murdering Olivia Hope and Ben Smart. 

Kerry Cook, one of Watson’s lawyers, told ��һ�ǿ����� that Watson was disappointed in the decision. 

“He maintains he is innocent,” he said. 

Cook said Watson intended to make an application for leave to apply to the Supreme Court in another attempt to appeal the convictions. 

Watson’s father, Chris Watson, was still reading through the judgment when contacted by ��һ�ǿ�����. 

He said it was a “hatchet job” on his son, whom he spoke to briefly this morning about the decision. 

Scott Watson, right, has unsuccessfully claimed he is the victim of a significant miscarriage of justice over the disappearance of Ben Smart and Olivia Hope. Composite Photo / ��һ�ǿ����� 

“He’s obviously disappointed, but it’s just pretty much business as usual for him,” he said. 

Chris Watson confirmed that an application for leave to appeal to the Supreme Court had been discussed. 

“We’ll continue dripping on the rock,” he said. 

The disappearance 

Hope, 17, and Smart, 21, were last seen stepping off a water taxi in Endeavour Inlet, in the Marlborough Sounds, in the early hours of New Year’s Day 1998. 

The young friends attended a New Year’s Eve celebration at Furneaux Lodge the evening before leaving the water taxi with a lone man, who offered them a place to sleep on his yacht. They have not been seen, dead or alive, since. 

It has been accepted that Hope and Smart died at the hands of the lone man in circumstances which amounted to murder. 

Watson was eventually identified by the taxi driver and the lodge’s bartender, Guy Wallace, as the lone man. 

This picture Scott Watson, midway through a blink, was the only one of him originally shown to witnesses. 

Following a three-month trial in the High Court at Wellington in 1999, a jury found Watson guilty of the murders. 

Some 26 years later, he remains in prison, where he maintains his innocence and has made several unsuccessful appeals since 2000. 

In 2020, then Governor-General Dame Patsy Reddy referred the convictions to the Court of Appeal to determine whether a miscarriage of justice may have occurred. 

The latest appeal 

Following last year’s hearing, presided over by Justices Christine French, Patricia Courtney, and Susan Thomas, the appeal court has today released its decision. 

“It is a case that has gripped but troubled the nation,” the justices said at the start of their 291-page decision, which determined Watson’s trial was fair and the convictions must stand. 

“Ultimately, the Crown presented a compelling circumstantial case to show that only Mr Watson could have been the lone man.” 

Scott Watson's boat Blade in 2017. Photo / Mike Scott 

“The evidence was carefully presented, challenged, and subjected to submission and analysis. It was a fair trial.” 

The appeal hearing focused on evidence about Hope’s hairs that were said to have been located on Watson’s boat, and Wallace’s evidence that identified Watson as the lone man. 

The hairs examined 

Watson’s defence team, led by Nick Chisnall, KC, had raised questions about the strands of hair – one 15cm long and the other 25cm – purportedly found on a blanket taken from Watson’s boat. 

When ESR first examined a bag containing some 400 dark hairs off the blanket in January 1998, no blonde hairs were found. 

But when it was re-examined in March, two blonde hairs were discovered. A small cut was also found in the bag containing the reference hairs from Hope. 

Watson’s team submitted it would have been critical that Hope’s reference hairs were examined on the same day, at the same workbench, as the hairs taken from the blanket. 

They argued it couldn’t be ruled out that the hairs got on the blanket either through transference – Watson picked up the hairs at the party the night of the disappearance – or from contamination in the ESR laboratory. 

Ben Smart and Olivia Hope have not been seen or their bodies found since New Year’s Day 1998. 

Defence also argued that the DNA evidence used to link the two hairs found on the blanket with Hope was overstated at trial, partly because there was no New Zealand database at the time. 

But the Crown’s team, led by the deputy solicitor general Madeleine Laracy, submitted that the issues of transference and contamination were well traversed at the trial, where Watson had four experts at his disposal. 

It also rejected attempts by Watson’s team to paint the ESR in 1998 as some sort of chaotic, substandard laboratory. 

The Crown submitted the DNA evidence linking the two hairs on the blanket to Hope had become stronger since the trial, as DNA databases had grown over the past 20 years. 

The issue of identification 

On the issue of identification, Chisnall had argued the police exerted significant “interrogative and moral pressure” to get Wallace to change his story. 

Wallace originally described the lone man as having long, scraggly hair, in direct contrast to the photos of Watson from that night showing he had short hair. 

Watson’s team submitted the police pressured Wallace to identify Watson as the lone man, showing Wallace a photo of Watson early in the investigation and then pressuring him during a subsequent police interview. 

Defence also argued the media reinforced this by showing Wallace an image of Watson. More than three months later, Wallace identified Watson in a police montage, referred to as montage B, as the lone man. A claim he repeated at the trial. 

However, the Crown submitted that the witness identification from the montage didn’t rest on Wallace’s evidence, pointing out half of the 53 people shown the montage identified Watson from it. 

The impact of showing Wallace a photo of Watson in the initial stages of the investigation could only be speculative and didn’t mean the identification from montage was unreliable, it was argued. 

The Crown also submitted that of the 1500 people at Furneaux Lodge on that New Year’s Eve, only Watson had the motive, opportunity and time to kill the pair and dispose of the pair’s bodies. 

It outlined the characteristics of the killer - a male, who was alone, didn’t know his victims and had an intent to kill. 

The Court of Appeal’s decision 

On both points, the Court of Appeal found there was no miscarriage of justice. 

The decision stated that the only real issue at trial was whether Watson was the lone man on the boat. 

“Mr Wallace’s identification of Mr Watson from Montage B was described by the defence as so ‘pitifully weak’ as to be no identification at all — in fact, it was said to exclude Mr Watson," it stated. 

“Importantly, however, the Crown identification evidence was expressly not based on the evidence of any single witness. 

“The Crown was aware from depositions that there were significant challenges with Mr Wallace as a witness and those challenges, including those that undermined Mr Wallace’s identification of Mr Watson from Montage B, were well ventilated before the jury.” 

Chris Watson leaving the Court of Appeal in Wellington where his son Scott sought to overturn his convictions. Photo / Mark Mitchell 

The court also determined that the Crown had not rested its case on the hairs found on the boat, but that evidence was important. 

The DNA of one of the hairs showed “very strong support” it came from Hope, and the other that it came from someone related to her. 

The possibility of lab contamination or secondary transfer was explored at trial but remained speculative. 

The decision concluded that all of the strands of circumstantial evidence traversed at the appeal were extensively addressed during witness questioning and in the closing addresses at trial. 

“The prosecution sought to emphasise the incriminating effect of each of the strands. In contrast, the defence sought to offer explanations for the strands consistent with Mr Watson’s innocence. 

“The extent to which each of the strands had residual value as inculpatory evidence, despite the defence’s challenges, was ultimately a matter for the jury,” the decision concluded. 

“In our view, the incriminating value of some of the strands remained very much intact, whereas the incriminating value of other strands was shown to be relatively minimal. 

“However, taken cumulatively, there is no doubt the jury was entitled to treat the strands of circumstantial evidence we have outlined as consistent with, and indeed pointing strongly towards, Mr Watson’s guilt.” 

Tara Shaskey joined ��һ�ǿ����� in 2022 and is currently an assistant editor and reporter for the Open Justice team. She has been a reporter since 2014 and previously worked at Stuff covering crime and justice, arts and entertainment, and Māori issues.