Key identification of Scott Watson as mystery man unreliable - expert
Monday, 10 June 2024
Over two decades after Scott Watson was found guilty of murdering friends Olivia Hope and Ben Smart, an eyewitness account placing the trio together has been scrutinised.
Hope, 17, and Smart, 21, vanished from a 1998 New Year’s party at Furneaux Lodge, deep in the Marlborough Sounds. Nearly 26 years to the day after his arrest, Watson’s conviction for their murders has landed back in front of the Court of Appeal.
Watson has always insisted his innocence, saying he never met the pair. He is arguing his conviction is unsafe on two crucial grounds.
The first is that a witness account - of him being identified by water taxi driver Guy Wallace as the mystery man last seen with the pair before they disappeared - is unreliable.
Eyewitness identification expert Dr Gary Wells agrees.
He concluded that Wallace’s sighting of Watson as the man who invited the two friends on his boat before they were never seen again - relied on heavily at trial - had little to no probative value, the court heard on Monday. (Probative value is the likelihood evidence will be sufficiently useful to prove something in a trial.)
The only person Wallace properly remembered as the mystery man was someone with long, scraggly hair, Wells said.
“We know in fact what Watson’s hair looked like, we know it was nowhere near long.”
After giving a description of the mystery man, Wallace was shown a photo of Watson days later and rejected that it was him before changing his mind, further casting doubt that he could accurately identify him, Wells told the court.
Wallace pointed the finger at Watson only after he was exposed to his photograph in the media, Wells said.
This, paired with him confirming a composite drawing of a man with long, scraggly hair was close to what he described, meant that him identifying Watson could not be relied on, the expert told the court.
“He confidently rejected a single photo of Watson while his memory was fresh… It’s the totality that matters here”.
The Crown has questioned Wells’ report, suggesting it overstated the unreliability of Wallace’s sighting using only a snapshot of the evidence that was heard at trial.
It contended that parts of Wells’ report were misleading and left out statements that conflicted with its findings.
An example was the report’s heavy reliance on the eyewitness account of Hayden Morresey, Crown lawyer Stuart Baker said, who was on Wallace’s boat and also described the mystery man as having long hair.
Wells’ report did not refer to the fact that Morresey only saw the man from behind.
In cross examination by Baker, Wells was asked if he was advocating for Watson.
“I’m not advocating for Mr Watson. I don’t care about Mr Watson,” he replied.
“To justice, it’s important to get the eyewitness evidence right.”
Dr Adele Quigley-McBride, another eyewitness identification expert who co-wrote the report with Wells, gave evidence on Monday afternoon.
Baker suggested the findings she and Wells made about Wallace’s identification of Watson (that it was unreliable) were merely speculation.
“Only if you think science is speculation. That’s the conclusion we came to based on the science,” Quigley-McBride replied.
“His identification was not reliable based on the science.”
There are three possible outcomes for Watson’s appeal: The court could uphold Watson’s convictions and he will remain in jail; it could quash them, and order Watson stand trial again; or, as Watson’s lawyers are seeking, it could quash his convictions and not order a retrial, given so many witnesses, including Wallace, have died, and Watson has already served an extensive jail term.
Watson is not in court. His lawyers Nick Chisnall, KC, and Kerry Cook are representing him.
The appeal hearing, set down for a week in Wellington, continues.