"Potential sightings of Ben Smart, 21, and Olivia Hope, 17, several days after they were thought to have died are among the more startling inclusions in the report."
Their findings
coalesced into a report that traces the route taken by the infamous
"mystery ketch" to Furneaux Lodge in the Marlborough Sounds for the New
Year's Eve party of 1997. This is the vessel to which police first
looked to answers over the question of the disappearance of Hope, 17,
and Smart, 21. In meticulous detail, Jenness' report describes
who was aboard. Scott Watson, convicted of murdering the young pair, is
not among the names.
Then, in a series of startling claims, he builds a theory
around the disappearance of Hope and Smart, which explains Watson's
absence. It diverges completely from the prosecution case which saw
Watson convicted of their murders and sent to prison for 19 years.........Mr Jenness is not the only one to claim to have identified the ketch. A new book by Ian Wishart is due for release tomorrow and
also claims to have found the yacht. It will be the fifth book written
on the Sounds murders. For many, the disappearance and presumed
murder of Hope and Smart is one of New Zealand's most captivating and
enduring mysteries. For others, there is no mystery. The killer,
police and others will say, was found guilty after an 11-week trial in
1999. Convicted, Watson remains in prison, denied parole and still
maintaining his innocence. "You're wrong," he told the jury 17 years ago. He has the same message today. The
yachting community had many vocal opponents of the case against Watson.
As the case unfolded in court, the prosecution's assertions on issues
with which yachties were familiar created a small but determined group
of naysayers. Key to it was Watson's yacht - a small,
single-masted vessel - and testimony Hope and Smart were last seen
boarding a 40-foot two-masted ketch. Yachtie Mike Kalaugher wrote a 2001
book on the case. He said there was no way to confuse Watson's boat
with a much larger ketch. "This is equivalent to confusing a truck with a
Mini." The hunt for the ketch was where Mr Jenness started,
along with Mr Kalaugher and Keith Hunter, author of Trial By Trickery,
which makes compelling arguments against Watson's conviction. Mr Jenness
told the Herald: "If we can prove that the ketch existed, and I think
we have, then Watson is not guilty."......... Mr Jenness, though, believes he has
proved the sighting was actually on January 3. And that night, he says,
the witness was sober. That evening, evidence shows, Watson was far away
on a cruising holiday with his sister Sandy. He claims another
sighting two days later - January 5 - which is the most astonishing
assertion in the report. By then, according to the report's chain of
events, Hope and Smart had been transferred to another yacht owned by
someone allegedly with convictions for serious violence. A
photograph, distant and grainy, shows a flash of blonde hair on a
runabout. It was taken by a woman named in the report who reported a
"girl with long blonde hair clearly blowing in the slipstream". There
was a young man also with her. "Both appeared to be sitting with their
hands behind their backs as if ... tied." The woman's husband called police - "it was three months before NZ Police followed up the information", the report claims. A day later there is another sighting of the boat. At that point, the authors conclude, Hope and Smart are no longer aboard.
The entire story can be found at:
The entire story can be found at:
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11580721
See Wikipedia account: "Scott Watson (born 28 June 1971) is a New Zealander who was convicted in May 1999 of the murders of Ben Smart and Olivia Hope on his boat Blade on 1 January 1998. The bodies of Smart and Hope have never been found. A sonar search of the entrance to Tory channel, an area of interest to the investigating police, found "there is no indication that the missing remains of Ben Smart and Olivia Hope are present or visible on the sea bed inside the search area".[1] Watson is serving a life sentence with a non-parole period of 17 years.[2] The New Zealand Court of Appeal rejected an appeal by Watson. In 2003 Watson's lawyers Mike Antunovic and Greg King applied to the Privy Council, it found no grounds for further appeal. Appeals and controversies: 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 prosecution and the defence, but decided there was no new evidence to recommend a second trial.[11] They disregarded the defence’s submission that the “two trip” theory had appeared “out of the blue” late in the trial.[11] 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 his 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.[12] A 2010 report by the Independent Police Conduct Authority cleared police of allegations by Keith Hunter and 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.[13] Watson has unsuccessfully applied for a royal pardon.[14] [15] 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.[16] Also in June 2015 the first hearing of the Parole Board took place. Watson was denied parole on the basis of two failed drug tests and an unfavourable psychological report that attested Watson "a very high risk'' of committing violent acts if he was released from prison."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scott_Watson
PUBLISHER'S NOTE:
Dear Reader. Keep your eye on the Charles Smith Blog. We are following this case.
