KEY POINTS:
The end of the month will mark 10 years since Ben Smart and Olivia Hope were last seen alive at Endeavour Inlet in the Marlborough Sounds. On the safe assumption that they are dead, it is to be hoped that they rest in peace.
Their ease, and the peace of mind of those bereaved by their loss, was always going to depend on the successful apprehension and prosecution of the person or persons responsible. But 10 years on, the double-murder conviction of Scott Watson is looking far from safe. Persistent questions swirl around the conduct of the police investigation and the subsequent prosecution. The chorus of disapproval is increasing in size and gaining in volume.
Watson's predictable protestations of innocence have been supplemented by a growing groundswell of unease about the conviction. The number of New Zealanders convinced of Watson's guilt has dropped from almost 60 per cent in 2002 to barely 40 per cent now. That doesn't mean he's not guilty; public opinion does not and should not decide such matters. But neither should public disquiet be ignored.
Yet that, apparently, is what is happening. Filmmaker and writer Keith Hunter's extremely disturbing book Trial by Trickery is a patient and exhaustive analysis that forces any reader to wonder how a clean-shaven, short-haired rum-drinker sailing a small steel sloop (a one-masted boat) could be convicted of a crime for which the likely suspect - according to many eyewitnesses - was an unshaven bourbon-drinking man with wavy, medium-length hair who sailed a large wooden ketch (two masts).
Hunter has undertaken the most thorough critique of the Watson case, but he is far from a lone voice. In this month's issue of North and South magazine, a journalist who covered the investigation and trial for the Marlborough Express newspaper, outlines Hunter's thesis and expresses misgivings of his own. Other journalists covering the trial were sceptical that Watson would be convicted and astonished when he was. Gerald Hope, Olivia's father, remains uncertain.
Reporter Jared Savage's revelations in this newspaper over the past three weeks, and again today, only deepen doubt. Michael Chappell, a police officer involved in the investigation says he and colleagues were directed to ignore evidence that pointed to the "mystery" ketch and away from Watson.
All this, it seems, is water off the proverbial duck's back to Rob Pope, now Deputy Commissioner of Police, but then, as Detective Inspector, the man who led the case. He says that "there's nothing new" in a book that he is reported to have returned unopened to the author and adds, amazingly, that "no one's given me any great detail".
Whatever else may be said about Hunter's book, it is not short on detail. And it is far from satisfactory that Pope implicitly maligns Chappell's integrity while ignoring his claims.
In terms of their public image, the police have had a bad few years - and the top brass, Pope included, have much to answer for. Last week we heard that assistant commissioner Clint Rickards would be allowed to resign, thus escaping being called to account for behaviour which, his acquittal on rape charges notwithstanding, was plainly unacceptable. Pope's dismissal of the allegations about the Sounds case smacks of the same high-handed indifference to public opinion and the importance of public accountability.
Last year, former High Court judge Sir Thomas Thorp, calling for an independent body to review miscarriages of justice, said that as many as 20 New Zealanders might be wrongly imprisoned. David Bain, yet to be retried for the murder of his family, was wrongly convicted, the Privy Council said. The case of Peter Ellis remains an ugly stain on the pages of our judicial history.
It is not enough for Pope to dismiss accusations that he has not taken the trouble to read. A police force's effectiveness is in direct proportion to the esteem in which it is held and that esteem diminishes in direct proportion to its willingness to be accountable and open to review.
It has been observed elsewhere that Ben and Olivia's families are entitled to go to bed at night satisfied that the right person has been locked up for their murders. The rest of us are, too.
