Murder of Ben Smart and Olivia Hope

In December 1997, friends Ben Smart (aged 21) and Olivia Hope (17) celebrated New Year's Eve at Furneaux Lodge in the Marlborough Sounds with 1,500 other partygoers. Hope had travelled to the lodge with a group on a chartered yacht, Tamarack, while Smart had arrived separately. At about 4.00 am, lodge bartender Guy Wallace drove Hope and Smart in his water taxi to Tamarack, where the pair intended to sleep.[5] When Hope and Smart found there were no vacant berths remaining aboard Tamarack, they re-boarded Wallace's water-taxi. At the time, Wallace had three other passengers on board: Hayden Morresey, Sarah Dyer, and a single man who would become crucial to the police investigation.[6] The single man offered the pair a place to sleep on what he said was his yacht. Wallace let Smart and Hope off with the single man at the yacht, and then dropped off the two other passengers at their bach. This was the last time Smart and Hope were seen alive.[7]

Police investigations began on 2 January 1998, after the parents reported their children were missing. The case was assigned the name Operation TAM (abbreviated from Tamarack). Police speculated that they had been murdered. Despite extensive searches in the months that followed, no bodies were found.

Guy Wallace was adamant he had dropped Smart and Hope off at a wooden ketch with two masts, a description which was supported by Hayden Morresey. Wallace also described the unknown man he dropped them off with as unshaven with wavy medium-length hair. [8] Detective Inspector Rob Pope took over the police investigation, and decided within two weeks that Picton resident Scott Watson was the unknown man, although Watson was clean shaven, had short hair, and owned a single-masted steel sloop, Blade.[7]

A few days after he arrived in Marlborough, with hundreds of witnesses still to interview, Pope stated: "We can be fairly certain that this (two-masted) ketch does not exist." He said Watson "had the right sort of agenda and pedigree", apparently referring to his criminal record. Watson had 48 criminal convictions at the time,[9][10] mainly from when he was a teenager, for burglary, theft, cannabis offences, two counts of possessing an offensive weapon, and one of assault when he was 16. He had been imprisoned for two short periods in 1989 and 1990, but had just one minor conviction in the eight years leading up to 1998.[11]

A number of witnesses who subsequently came forward with sightings of the ketch were either told their information was not wanted, or their statements were not followed up.[12] Former detective Mike Chappell, who worked on the case, later claimed officers had been told not to follow up sightings of the two-masted ketch.[13] The police were also accused of spreading rumours about Watson before they arrested him and using heavy handed tactics on witnesses. Guy Wallace was interviewed for three hours and was repeatedly accused of lying with suggestions by police that he was involved in the couple's disappearance.[14]

Watson was arrested for the murders on 15 June 1998, about five months later. The trial lasted three months and the Crown brought nearly 500 witnesses in front of the jury. Much of the evidence during the trial in 1999 focussed on the yacht Smart and Hope were alleged to have boarded. The Crown argued this was Watson's one-masted yacht, Blade, but other witnesses, including Guy Wallace, maintained Wallace had dropped the young pair off at a two-masted ketch.[15] Gerald Hope, who sat through the trial, feels much of the prosecution case was "pure theatre". There was a prolonged interrogation of his daughter, Amelia, until she burst into tears which Mr Hope described as emotional manipulation of the jury.[16]

Watson was convicted of the murders in May 1999 after an eleven-week trial[17] and sentenced to life imprisonment with a minimum non-parole period of seventeen years.[18]

The defence appealed Watson's conviction, and the case went to the Court of Appeal in April and May 2000. Three Appeal Court judges heard submissions from both the defence and the prosecution, but decided there was no new evidence to recommend a second trial.[19] They disregarded the defence's submission that the prosecution's so-called "two-trip theory"[lower-alpha 1] had appeared "out of the blue" late in the trial.[19]

Questions have been raised about the manner of the police investigation, notably by Mike Kalaugher, who in 2001 published a book which was critical of methods allegedly used by police to obtain Watson's conviction, and by Keith Hunter, in a 2003 television documentary and a 2006 book.

In November 2000, after the Court of Appeal hearing, a witness who testified at Watson's trial contacted the Weekend Herald to say his evidence given under oath was "nothing more than an act". He said he was being threatened by gang members in prison; he was coming up for parole and was put under pressure by police to testify and, "I agreed on the basis that my life was getting threatened". The witness changed his story at least twice more, which led Watson's lawyers to conclude he was completely unreliable.[20]

In 2003, Watson's lawyers Mike Antunovic and Greg King applied to the Privy Council, which found no grounds for further appeal.[21] In 2009, Watson unsuccessfully applied for a Royal Pardon.[22][23]

A 2010 report by the Independent Police Conduct Authority cleared police of allegations by Hunter and Watson's father Chris Watson. It found the police investigation had fallen short of best practice in areas which "had no significant bearing on the outcome of the investigation". No evidence was found that would support Hunter's other claims.[24]

In June 2015 Watson successfully challenged at court the Corrections Department's refusal to allow him to be interviewed about his case by North and South journalist Mike White.[25] On 8 and 9 November 2016, the interview went ahead as planned.[26]

Also in June 2015, Watson was denied parole on the basis of two failed drug tests and an unfavourable psychological report that attested him "a very high risk" of committing violent acts if he was released from prison.[27][28] On 6 December 2016, Watson was denied parole a second time because departmental psychologists again said his risk of violent offending was still "very high". By law, Watson must be reconsidered for parole before 6 December 2020, but can apply for an earlier hearing if he believes there has been a significant change in his circumstances.[29]

In November 2017, a second application for a Royal Pardon was filed on Watson's behalf by an Auckland man and ex-convict who had taken an interest in the Watson case.[30] The application concerned the reliability of the evidence relating to two blonde hairs found on a blanket on Watson's boat. It included a report by forensic scientist Sean Doyle which questioned whether the hairs were really Hope's, and criticised the way these hair samples were handled at the time of the original trial. The blonde hairs, believed to be Hope's, were the only physical evidence linking the couple to Watson.[31]

In June 2020, it was reported that Watson's case would be referred back to the Court of Appeal.[3][4]

Watson married Coral Branch in Paremoremo Prison in 2004.[9] They separated in 2007.[32]

In 2007, Watson was found guilty by a magistrate of assaulting another inmate in Paparua Prison. In 2008, his appeal against that conviction failed.[33]

• List of murder convictions without a body
• List of solved missing persons cases

• Jayson Rhodes & Ian Wishart Ben and Olivia - What Really Happened? (Auckland: Howling At The Moon Publishing, 1999) ISBN 0-9582054-4-2
• John Goulter Silent Evidence (Auckland: Random House, 2000) ISBN 1-86941-386-5
• Mike Kalaugher The Marlborough Mystery (Auckland: Tandem Press, 2001) ISBN 1-877178-91-8
• Murder on the Blade? television documentary, 2003
• Keith Hunter Trial by Trickery: Scott Watson, the Sounds Murders and the Game of Law (Auckland: Hunter Productions, 2006) ISBN 0-473-11721-5
• "QC rubbishes Scott Watson case claims". The Sunday Star-Times. Stuff. 18 February 2009. Retrieved 25 November 2017.
• Hubbard, Anthony (31 January 2009). "Who killed Ben and Olivia?". stuff. Fairfax NZ Ltd. Retrieved 27 November 2017.
• Ian Wishart, Elementary: The Explosive File on Scott Watson and the Disappearance of Ben and Olivia (Auckland: Howling at the Moon Publishing, 2016) ISBN 9780994106469
• Ian Wishart, Elementary 2.0: The Unreleased Police Evidence on the Scott Watson Case (Auckland: Howling at the Moon Publishing, 2016) ISBN 9780994106476

• Trial by Trickery
• Crime.co.nz- Operation TAM - Olivia Hope and Ben Smart
• "Guilty of harassment - crime - national". Stuff.co.nz. 23 March 2012. Retrieved 7 October 2015.
• "Convicted double murderer Scott Watson plans fresh bid for freedom". Stuff.co.nz. Retrieved 7 October 2015.

• Article by Ian Wishart published in 2018