Scott Watson's appeal being heard in Supreme Court
Scott Watson's legal team is challenging his 1999 double-murder conviction in the Supreme Court, focusing on the reliability of a key witness identification. The defense argues that police pressured the witness to identify Watson using a tainted photo montage.
Why it matters
This case is a significant test of judicial integrity and the reliability of eyewitness testimony in long-standing criminal convictions.
Scott Watson's defence lawyers argue police pressured and "primed" a key witness to identify Watson as the man he saw boarding a yacht with Ben Smart and Olivia Hope in the early hours of New Years' Day.
The argument came as Watson's appeal of his double-murder conviction is being heard in the Supreme Court.
Watson was sentenced to life imprisonment for murdering Ben Smart and Olivia Hope in the Marlborough Sounds and has now been behind bars for 27 years.
The Blenheim friends, aged 21 and 17, were last seen stepping off a water taxi onto a stranger's yacht in Endeavour Inlet the early hours of 1 January, 1998, after a New Year's Eve party at Furneaux Lodge.
Watson was found guilty of the murders in 1999 after an 11-week jury trial involving about 500 witnesses.
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