Scott Watson appeal: Reliability of witnesses questioned as double murderer fights convictions

The latest appeal is the result of a royal prerogative of mercy, applied for in 2017 and granted in 2020. The grounds for the appeal are two-fold:

Crown lawyer Stuart Baker started today’s proceedings by cross-examining Dr Gary L. Wells, an American psychologist and expert in witness memory research. Wells and his colleague Dr Adele Quigley-McBride prepared a report for Watson assessing the identification of Watson by the water taxi driver, the late Guy Wallace, who died in 2021. The report concluded Wallace’s identification testimony had little or no probative value.

Dr Wells appeared at the hearing by video link, with much of his evidence centring on the reliability of witness accounts from that night.

Baker suggested to Wells that he had made factual findings without all the notes of evidence, including the 3000 pages of trial transcript.

Wells told the court he had read all the evidence provided to him, focusing on the statements and identification of the witnesses who were on the water taxi that night with Smart and Hope when they dropped them at the boat with the man.

Much of the time was spent on Wallace’s evidence. He originally gave the police a composite of the man on the water taxi that night.

The composite picture showed a man with long, straggly hair.

That differed from the photograph of Watson which Wallace was shown in January, which was black and white and taken in 1990 - eight years before the murders. Wallace rejected the photo, telling the police, ‘No bloody way that it was this guy’ Wells said.

Then in April, three months later, he was shown a montage and after “waivering” between two photos, he picked Watson from the montage.

“We think that montage was biased ... Wallace had seen the image multiple times, he was shown the image by the media,” Wells said.

Wells said he thought Wallace’s memory of the man was best captured by the composite picture he gave the police and it changed over time. “But memory doesn’t get better with time, so we believe memory contamination is the best explanation.”

‘He confidently rejected a single photo of Watson while his memory was fresh,” he said.

“All he was doing when making that identification that he didn’t actually recongise him from that night. That he’s trusting that law enforcement and investigators are leading him down the right path and then he began questioning that but then he ends up coming around at the time of the trial.”

Baker put it to Wells that he had been selective about the evidence, including that of water taxi passenger Hayden Morrissey, who didn’t pick Watson from a montage he was shown.

Wells said Morrissey had described the man in the water taxi with him as having long, scraggly hair. He also suggested he was a more reliable witness because, unlike Wallace, he hadn’t been shown a photograph of Watson.

But Baker suggested a reason Morrissey didn’t pick Watson out from the montage was that he saw the man only from behind and therefore was unable to pick him from a photo. Yet Wells had failed to include this in his report.

Hope’s sister Amelia’s description of Watson was also challenged by Wells, who said she didn’t mention Watson’s short hair and receding hairline until after Watson’s image was plastered all over the media.

“Once you see the person plastered across TV or are shown a picture by law enforcement, if you are adding to your description, it’s post-event information - not coming from memory of the critical event but from other sources.” he said.

But Wells did agree people can describe the same person in different ways.

He concluded his evidence by saying he wasn’t advocating for Watson.

“We don’t say that we believe Watson to be innocent, we’re just saying that eyewitness evidence does not have positive propensity value on that point,” he said.

This afternoon Quigley-McBride defended the use of Morrissey’s evidence saying it was a different process to identify someone from a line-up than to describe them to someone.

She denied the report was misleading because it omitted that Morrissey had only seen the man from behind. And she said both Wallace and Morrissey had given similar descriptions of the man on the boat that night, which differed from photos of Watson from that night.

Baker questioned Quigley-McBride about why the report relied on people’s descriptions and computer sketches without including a caveat that these aren’t always accurate.

Watson was convicted of double murder in September 1999 and sentenced to life imprisonment, with a minimum period of 17 years in jail. He has now spent 26 years behind bars, protesting his innocence.

He isn’t attending the Court of Appeal hearing, but is represented by his lawyers, Nick Chisnall KC and Kerry Cook.

The Crown is represented by Madeleine Laracy and Stuart Baker.

Tomorrow the court will hear from Dr Sean Doyle, who will challenge the ESR evidence of the two hairs found on the blanket from Watson’s boat Blade.

Watson’s case before Justices French, Courtney and Thomas is set down for a week.

Catherine Hutton is an Open Justice reporter based in Wellington. She has worked as a journalist for 20 years, including at the Waikato Times and RNZ. Most recently she was working as a media adviser at the Ministry of Justice.