Happy Watson took in evening family movie

By Eugene Bingham and Alison Horwood

A teenage girl said Scott Watson was in a happy mood when she watched television with him just hours after he allegedly murdered Olivia Hope and Ben Smart.

The 15-year-old, who has name suppression, and her little brother were staying with their father at Eerie Bay, Tory Channel, when Wat-son walked up the path of their cottage sometime after 5 pm on New Year's Day 1998. He had rowed ashore after anchoring his sloop, Blade, in the bay.

The girl, whose father had known Watson for about a year, said he appeared quite happy and wished the family a Happy New Year.

The group settled down to watch a movie on television before Watson returned to his boat for the night about 10.30. In the morning, he re-turned to have tea and toast with the family.

After breakfast, Watson asked the girl's father, who also has name suppression, whether he could bor-row some paint for his boat. He was given a tin of blue latex steel paint and, after moving to a sheltered part of the bay, began to paint. The Crown alleges Watson changed the appearance of Blade to deliberately cover his tracks.

But the father said yesterday that Watson had talked about paint-ing Blade when he visited with his sister, Sandy, on Boxing Day.

"He was going to paint the bot-tom blue, but I suggested the bot-tom should be white and the top blue," said the witness.

After painting his boat on Janu-ary 2, Watson had dinner with the family, watched another movie, and returned to his boat about 10.30 pm. He left the following morning.

The man also told the court that he talked to Watson about the party at Furneaux Lodge. "He said most people were in groups or pairs and he may have had a bit of an argu-ment that night. He said he had some rum on a boat with some people." When he arrived, Watson had five o'clock shadow and a sore on his nose, which might have bled af-ter he scratched it.

Earlier, the court heard from a Nelson man who saw Blade wallow-ing near the entrance to Tory Chan-nel just before 4.30 pm on New Year's Day.

William Denis Gay said he was on the 2.30 pm Interisland ferry sail-ing between Wellington and Picton when an announcement was made that it was slowing to let the Lynx ferry pass. Mr Gay and his son went on to the top decks to watch. It was then that Mr Gay noticed a single-masted yacht, with a white hull and browny-coloured cabin, about 200m away. It was not mov-ing, but did not seem anchored.

Asked by crown prosecutor Kie-ran Raftery to look at a photo of Blade, Mr Gay said: "That's it. It was sitting there, just wallowing."

He and his son watched it for about 15 minutes, to see "if the wake would hit it."

Under cross-examination, Mr Gay rejected a suggestion from de-fence counsel Bruce Davidson that he could not be sure the boat he saw was Blade. "I wouldn't be here wast-ing my time if I wasn't sure. That's the boat." Another witness, Murray Ashley White, left Picton on January 1 and spent most of the day in Tory Chan-nel. He knew Watson and normally kept a watch out for him on Blade, but did not see him that day.

Asked why he looked for him, Mr White said a friend had bought a boat from Watson, and shortly after the purchase the depth-sounder dis-appeared. The hole was filled with tape so the boat would not leak. "We had a theory that maybe Scott had something to do with it," he said. "Any time we were in the Sounds we always kept an eye out in case we saw him."

A former water taxi driver who knew Watson told the court that he saw the accused several times when he was working in the days follow-ing New Year's Eve.

Samuel Edwards said he saw Watson about 10.30 am on January 1 close to Kurakura Pt, at the mouth of Queen Charlotte Sound.

He waved and Watson waved back.

Mr Edwards saw Blade again at Eerie Bay between 5.30 pm and 6.30 pm. He saw it again on January 3 near Monkey Bay in Queen Char-lotte Sound at either 10 am or about 2 pm.