Security men ask 'surly' passenger to move on

By Eugene Bingham and Alison Horwood

WELLINGTON - Security staff had to be called in to ask a man resembling Scott Watson to get off a Furneaux Lodge water taxi between 4 am and 5 am on New Year's Day 1998.

The surly passenger was then transferred to another water taxi driven by Guy Wallace, the High Court at Wellington heard yesterday.

Prosecution and defence lawyers in the Watson double-murder trial quizzed Neil Wayne Watts about his memory of the man's appearance.

Mr Watts said he was among a group of Christchurch Taekwando Club members hired as security staff for the celebrations at the lodge.

He was down on the jetty early in the evening when a man trying to bring a bottle of rum ashore was told he could not bring glass on to the premises.

Other witnesses yesterday identified Watson from a police montage of photographs as that man.

Mr Watts said he was back down on the jetty between 4 am and 5 am when another security guard asked him to remove a man from one of the Naiad water taxis.

"I asked him to leave. He became impertinent, very much like a teenager who knows his rights and feels like he has been hard done by."

Eventually, the man was convinced to leave, and soon joined two young couples on another water taxi, driven by Mr Wallace.

The Crown says Olivia Hope and Ben Smart joined a water taxi driven by Mr Wallace with Watson some time after 4 am. It is alleged the couple boarded his yacht after he offered them a berth during that journey.

Defence counsel Mike Antunovic put it to Mr Watts that the man with the rum bottle was not the same person who had to be asked to leave the water taxi and then left with Mr Wallace.

"I will say there was a very close similarity between the two people. I can't say for definite because I'm not sure if the man who had the bottle of rum had the same features as the man I took out of the Naiad," said Mr Watts.

He agreed with Mr Antunovic he had told police on January 9 last year that he had seen the man from the water taxi again on January 7 in the Complete Angler shop in Christchurch.

The clothes worn by the man in the shop were the same as he wore at New Year's - a green checked shirt and dark pants.

Crown prosecutor Kieran Raftery re-examined Mr Watts, asking him to refer to a police statement taken when he was shown a photo-montage of eight men.

Mr Watts said he had picked out number six - a photograph of Watson - as a man the same in appearance to the man he had taken out of the water taxi.

Proceedings were then adjourned while counsel saw Justice Heron in chambers after Mr Antunovic said a further matter should be put to the witness in fairness.

Afterwards, Mr Raftery asked Mr Watts to read from a statement in which he said the angle of the man's face in photo six made it difficult for Mr Watts to compare him.

The statement also read: "He is definitely the closest of all the persons shown in the montage."

Later, the bar manager at the lodge, Rozlyn Kathleen McNeilly, said she noticed a scruffy, unkempt man drinking bourbon and Cokes at the main bar for about an hour and a half from about 12.30 am.

For some of that time, a blond woman was leaning on the man, giggling. They did not appear to be together as a couple. The woman was aged about 20, without glasses and with her hair tied up.

Mrs McNeilly identified the man as Watson from the police montage.

Under cross-examination, Mrs McNeilly said she and another bar staff member, Chey Konrad Phipps, had helped police to draw a computer sketch of the man.

She agreed she had signed it as a fair representation of the man she had served.

But after questions from crown counsel Paul Davison, QC, Mrs McNeilly said they had experienced some trouble constructing the sketch.

Asked if it was an accurate representation, she said: "As exact as I could get it."

Mr Phipps also told the court he was "not happy" with the likeness of the sketch, especially with the eyes and hair.

He spent more than two hours with Mrs McNeilly and police trying to get the picture right, and finally signed it because it was a "general likeness."

Justice Heron questioned Mr Phipps about his description of the man's shoulder-length hair. He asked him whether it was shoulder-length at the back, or also at the sides and front.

Mr Phipps said it was longer at the back, but shorter at the top and sides.