KEY POINTS:
The father of murdered teenager Olivia Hope has growing doubts whether the man convicted of killing his daughter and her friend is guilty - and would help fight to free Scott Watson if he was convinced of his innocence.
Nearly 10 years after Ben Smart and Olivia Hope went missing, Gerald Hope has told North & South magazine that he is now unsure if police got the right man.
"What we got was a conviction but we never got the truth. And that's the part that still really rips me up," Hope said. "Nothing ever was confirmed, it was all circumstantial, there was no hard evidence. And that's where my greatest doubts lie.
"I'm not saying [Scott Watson] is not guilty. What I'm saying is let's clear up the doubt."
Yesterday, Hope told the Herald on Sunday that he had invited Watson to speak to him and express his innocence - but he has not heard back.
"I'm not convinced that he's innocent. His silence in itself confirms there is something to hide. Convince me that you're innocent, Scott, [and] maybe my view would change."
When Watson was found guilty in 1999, Hope believed police had the right man. But his confidence had been shaken in the years since, as he reflected on the police case and trial.
Hope said questions remained over what happened to his daughter.
He said the Crown case was based on circumstantial "emotional" evidence which tugged on the heart strings of the jury and his family.
"We were so emotionally tied up as it unravelled that we were blinded. But it was pure theatre. And parts of that story are shallow - incredibly shallow," he said yesterday.
And he told North & South: "If you weave the whole story together and accept one version of it, you have to go along with a rightful and justified conviction. But there are parts of it that just don't gel."
Hope was equally amazed that nobody - especially politicians - had responded to allegations made in Trial by Trickery, a book by Auckland journalist Keith Hunter, in which he makes a stinging attack on those who put Watson away.
"It's a provoking read. He's presented some searching evidence and raised a lot of powerful questions. And it's been done systematically, coherently and objectively," Hope told the magazine.
Attempts to reach Ben Smart's parents John and Mary for comment were unsuccessful.
Detective Inspector Rob Pope, now Deputy Police Commissioner, headed the double homicide inquiry under intense media and public pressure. He told North & South that nothing raised in Hunter's book was new - despite not reading it - and he would not shy away from any inquiry into the case. "But a new inquiry on what? There's nothing to hide about this investigation. If anything, it's probably one of the most publicly trawled inquiries in recent times. At what point do you say stop?"
Yesterday Pope refused a Herald on Sunday request to be interviewed.
However, two other crucial witnesses in the Marlborough Sounds on New Year's Eve 1997 told North & South that Watson was innocent.
Water taxi driver Guy Wallace was one of the last to see Ben and Olivia alive. He is bitter about how he felt pressured by the police. Three times Wallace had said Watson wasn't the mystery man he dropped Ben and Olivia off with. Then police showed him a montage of eight photos of Watson. One pictured him half-way through a blink, and Wallace feels guilty he said that photo looked like the mystery man who he had described as having "hooded eyes".
Wallace had said that man had facial growth with wavy medium-length hair, whereas Watson was clean shaven with short hair.
"I feel like I've been shafted by the cops. As far as I'm concerned Scott's innocent, always has been," Wallace told the magazine.
Another crucial witness, Furneaux Lodge manager Roz McNeilly, also identified Watson from the same montage as the person most likely she had seen drinking bourbon at the bar because of the way his eyes looked.
But she insisted the man had longer hair and stubble - police told her that Watson could have had a haircut and shave later.
In a sworn affidavit, McNeilly now says she was never shown a photo of Watson taken on a yacht just before he went ashore to the Furneaux - already short-haired and shaven.
"I thought I was helping catch a murderer. Now I feel like I've put an innocent man in jail," she told North & South.
The 12-page article, to be published this week, details the investigative methods used in the case, and key evidence - including the repainting and extensive cleaning of Watson's yacht; the secret evidence of witnesses; the discovery of Olivia's hairs on Watson's boat; the identification of Watson and the supposed dumping of Ben and Olivia in Cook Strait.
Watson's parents Chris and Bev said yesterday their son was convicted by "smoke and mirrors" and called on politicians to intervene.
Chris Watson said his door was always open to speak with Gerald Hope but he had never approached him for fear of being seen to harass him. "I also understand their position - they are parents too."
The Marlborough Sounds murders
January 1, 1998: Ben Smart, 21, and Olivia Hope, 17, go missing after New Year's Eve celebrations at Furneaux Lodge in the Marlborough Sounds.
January 2: Olivia's parents report her missing after she failed to return to Tamarack, the yacht she was supposed to stay on.
January 3: Police mount searches and the airforce and navy are asked to look for a mystery blue and white, two-masted ketch with round portholes, which Olivia and Ben were believed to have boarded shortly before they disappeared.
January 12: Police lift Scott Watson's single-masted sloop from Shakespeare Bay, Picton and take it to an airforce base hanger for forensic examination. June 15, 1998: Watson, 27, is arrested and charged with the murders of Olivia Hope and Ben Smart.
September 11, 1999: Watson is found guilty of double murder after a 13-week trial and given life. His reaction: "You're wrong".
May, 2000: Watson seeks to overturn his murder convictions in the Court of Appeal on the basis of Guy Wallace's identification. The bid is unsuccessful.
November, 2003: Lawyers for Watson asked the Privy Council in London to overturn the Court of Appeal's decision. The application is rejected.
May, 2004: Watson marries Coral Branch in a wedding chapel in Auckland Prison in Paremoremo.
April, 2005: Watson uses a mobile phone to send explicit photos of himself and flirtatious text messages to strangers from his prison cell.
August, 2006: Watson is caught cheating on wife Coral from prison.
August, 2007: Scott and Coral Watson separate.
