Information and thoughts about Scott Watson, The Inquiry and Trial of an innocent Man

Welcome graphic

I'm Lindsay Kennard, a retired network administrator. I have created this to show a little of what I have learned of the witness identification used in the case and the research done into the validity of the method used. I believe even in this alone the case against is fatally flawed.

This is my way of showing my support for and belief in the innocence of Scott Watson of any part in the disappearance of Ben Smart and Olivia Hope early in the morning of 1 January 1998.

This belief is based on my knowledge of water craft and the relative ease if recognising different classes and sizes of vessel at night even on moonless nights. Vessels 'feel' different wood to steel. Length is easy enough to gauge by comparing to the vessel you are in and height by whether you reach up or down.

Direction of travel at night is relatively straight forward in confined waters and speed by knowing the craft you are in, but distance is a different matter as in the dark we as humans cannot judge distance as our vision is not good enough to see enough to make comparisons and so make judgements. Guy

Wallace had this problem and also he was being directed as to were to travel so was not concertrating on time to measure distance.

For thousands of years men have traveled vast distances at sea and arrived where they wanted by dead reckoning navigation, knowing speed, direction, and time. But it takes a team to do it accurately, and sailors developed ways to do all three comparitively accurately. Unknowingly on the Naiad that morning was a team keeping a record of those three things but no one until Mike Kalaugher in 2001 done the maths and worked out where Guy Wallace's three passengers boarded the ketch police insist did not exist because they choose not to look in the right place. They did not know what they were dealing with and, it seems did not bother to enquire.

Police Investigative Team Leader Detective Inspector Rob Pope appeared to have caught a particularly vicious infection called Noble Cause Corruption or more simply tunnel vision and selected a person Scott Watson as being guilty of the crime of double murder and from January 8 1998 antil the arrest of Scott Watson in Rangiora on 15 June 1998 publicly denying having a suspect and denying Scott Watson was a suspect while at the same time tellling his team and a select grouping of media representatives (I deliberately don't call them journalists as they did not do any journalism) that Scott Watson was the only suspect. This allowed the media the freedom to print within the bounds of defamation anything they were feed by police "off the record" much of which was false and in some cases although not published was repeated. Some was quite malicious and grossly deframatory to Scott and his family. Scott's sister was one who suffered a gross abuse of her character and was unable to respond to the offensive suggestion made by police although they denied it some members of the missing pair's familys were clear the police told them the story. Conduct of many of the investigating police officers was disgraceful and in many cases, on the face of it, illegal. Method's used for identification made the Keystone Cops look like the elite of New Scotland Yard on a very good day. Professor Gary Wells would have a field day with the photo spreads and witness identification and selection of fillers, not even the suspect looked like the descriptions.

There's none as blind as those who won't see

Lord Denning [1962] A.C. at page 337.

"If the right to be heard is to be a real right which is worth anything, it must carry with it a right in the accused man to know the case which is made against him. He must know what evidence has been given and what statements have been made affecting him and then he must be given a fair opportunity to correct or contradict them..... It follows, of course that the judge or whoever has to adjudicate must not hear evidence or receive representations from one side behind the back of others.The court will not require whether the evidence or representations did work to his prejudice. Sufficent that they might do so. The court will not go into the likelihood of prejudice. The risk of it is enough."

I have over the years been interested in and concerned about the New Zealand's Legal System and its total inability to correct its errors. There appears to be a reluctance to look at the work of judges for errors in rulings and real or parceived bias. Because New Zealand has a small population (4.5 million) there is also a very small pool of legal talent to draw judges from and it some times appears that it is not always the most able who are selected to be elevated to the Bench. New Zealand has five levels of courts and tribunals,   The highest being the Supreme Court which in 2002 relaced the Privy Council in London as our final appeal level. Beneath that is the Court of Appeal, then the High Court, District Courts and the various specialist courts and tribunals. Because of the limited number of High Court Judges it is theoretically possible for a judge to hear a case in the High Court, then sit on appeals against his own decisions in the Court of Appeal and the Supreme Court.