Killer's wife denies rumours of a split

Coral Watson

Convicted double murderer Scott Watson wants to adopt the children of the woman he married while in prison.

Coral Watson says her four teenage children consider him their father even though they have only known him through prison visits, phone calls and letters.

"[The children] are very, very proud of who [Watson] is. They are all at the age that they can make their own minds up about what they want," she says.

Mrs Watson has shunned media attention since marrying Watson in a private chapel service at Auckland Prison at Paremoremo in May, 2004.

But in a rare interview this week, she told the Weekend Herald that Watson was playing a big part in the lives of her four children, who had all taken the Watson surname.

She has also strongly rejected rumours of a split from her husband and a new relationship with another notorious inmate.

Watson was sentenced to at least 17 years' jail for the murder of Blenheim friends Ben Smart and Olivia Hope, who vanished in the Marlborough Sounds on New Year's Day, 1998.

Mrs Watson said she was still devoted to her husband and she would wait as long as it took for him to be freed from prison. They were already looking into the adoption.

"I love my husband to pieces. He writes some beautiful letters to the children. He's always telling the kids that he loves them so very much," Mrs Watson said.

"I know the person he is. He's soft-spoken, he's very caring, very loving ... he's wanting to know everything the kids are up to.

"He has got such a good rapport with children."

Mrs Watson has also taken on a foster child, whom Watson also considered like one of his own, in addition to Robert, 16, Kirsty-Anne, 15, Scott, 13, and Odette, 11.

"The children do not look at him as a high-profile person. To them, it's their dad. Just because he's in jail doesn't mean ... he doesn't play an active part in these children's lives."

A family lawyer, Gray Cameron, told the Weekend Herald that murder convictions would be a significant impediment to someone seeking to adopt. However, a range of issues, such as children's views and the nature of the convictions would be considered in court.

Mrs Watson and her children had moved from the North Island to Canterbury because her husband wanted them to have a better life.

She has never wavered in her belief that Watson is innocent.

"I haven't faltered once, and I'm not going to falter now," she said. "It's like an old-fashioned type of love where there is no sex before marriage."

Rumours circulating around the South Island were that Scott and Coral Watson had split up and Mrs Watson had begun a relationship with Timothy Taylor, who was jailed for the murder of Timaru woman Lisa Blakie in 2000.

Mrs Watson said Taylor had made some leather goods in prison for her family, organised through Watson, but she had no relationship with him.

"Why would I want to be in a relationship with someone like [Taylor] when I have a husband and a seven-year relationship?"

Scott Watson was in the news last year when a woman complained of receiving indecent photographs and suggestive text messages sent from him in prison by cellphone. He also made headlines when he complained of being sexually assaulted by a prison guard. The complaint was investigated and found to be without substance.