Ben Smart and Olivia Hope were young New Zealanders who disappeared in the early hours of the morning on New Year's Day, 1January 1998. The two friends had been celebrating New Year's Eve at Furneaux Lodge in the Marlborough Sounds with other partygoers. The pair accepted an offer from a stranger to stay aboard his yacht in the early hours of the morning, and it was the last time they were seen alive. The disappearance of the duo sparked one of the most publicised and controversial investigations in New Zealand's history.
After a five-month investigation, the police arrested Scott Watson, a resident of Picton. The police were subsequently accused of manipulating the media to make Watson look guilty before they arrested him. Guy Wallace, who was a key witness, was presented with a photo montage that may have led to misidentification of Watson as a possible perpetrator. Scientific controversy, including the possibility of contamination, surrounded the analysis of two hairs found on Watson's boat.
The Crown called over 400 people to testify at the trial. Two prisoners testified that once Watson was on remand, he admitted to murdering Smart and Hope. Years later, one of them admitted he lied. The other was granted the use of a car and cellphone for his testimony by the police. The jury was unaware of this and Watson was found guilty of murder and sentenced to life imprisonment with a minimum non-parole period of seventeen years. Olivia Hope's father, Gerald Hope subsequently expressed concerns about the investigation and the trial, disclosing to investigative journalist, Mike White, that he felt "very uncomfortable about the way the Crown ran the case."
The police investigation and subsequent trial generated considerable media attention and public debate. Watson has maintained he is innocent and has filed several unsuccessful appeals. In June2024, the Court of Appeal held a hearing at which additional evidence about the hairs and the photo montage was considered. In September 2025, the Court released its decision in which it declined to overturn Watson's conviction.
The case remains the subject of on-going speculationExplainer: the controversial case of Scott Watson, Stuff, 18 November 2015 in New Zealand as a possible wrongful convictionScott Watson says he'll never get justice, Stuff, 1 August 2020 and has been the subject of several books and documentaries.The Marlborough Mystery, Mike Kalaugher.
Disappearance of Smart and Hope In December1997, friends Ben Smart (aged 21) and Olivia Hope (17) celebrated New Year's Eve at Furneaux Lodge, located in the Endeavour Inlet of the Marlborough Sounds, with 1500–2000 other partygoers. Hope had travelled to the lodge with a group on a chartered yacht, Tamarack, while Smart had arrived separately. At around 4a.m, as the celebrations wound down, the duo returned to the Tamarack, where they intended to sleep. When Hope and Smart found others had taken their booked place on the boat berths, they boarded a passing water-taxi driven by bartender Guy Wallace. At the time, Wallace had three other passengers on board: Hayden Morresey, Sarah Dyer, and an unidentified man who would become crucial to the police investigation. The unidentified man offered the pair a place to sleep on what he said was his yacht. Wallace let Smart and Hope off with this man at the yacht, and then dropped off the two other passengers at their bach. This was the last time Smart and Hope were seen alive.
Police investigation Ben Smart and Olivia Hope were reported missing on 2 January 1998. Initially the Blenheim police treated the investigation as a missing-persons case, but it soon became apparent that the disappearance was suspicious and out of character for the duo. Detective Inspector Rob Pope was appointed to take charge of the investigation on the 5th January and a mix of police staff from across the country joined the investigation, which became a homicide case code-named "Operation Tam" (short for Tamarack).
The investigation featured requests for information from the public, significant numbers of interviews across the country and months of extensive searches of the waters surrounding the Endeavour Inlet. Despite this, no bodies were ever found.
The focus on Guy Wallace
In his police statements on the third and fifth of January, Guy Wallace (the driver of the water taxi) described the unknown man with whom Hope and Smart left his water-taxi as having two days growth on his face, possibly arm tattoos, wiry build, 5'9", short dark wavy hair, being scruffy in appearance and wearing a Levi shirt with jeans. Wallace maintained that the man on his taxi was the same man he and other staff had served in the lounge bar earlier in the evening.
Wallace was subsequently shown two photographs of Watson in montages when he was interviewed by police on 9 January 1998 but he said he did not recognise anyone in the photographs. Police then changed the photo of Watson in the montage using a different one in which he had his eyes half closed. This became known as the 'blink photo'. On 20 April 1998, Wallace was shown a new montage, known as montage B, containing the blink photo. Not realising this was Watson, Wallace said this could be the 'mystery' man on the boat - but said that while "the eyes were the same as the man he had seen on the night, the hair of the man in photograph 3 was too short and his appearance was generally too 'tidy'."
After the trial, Wallace was adamant the police misled him over the photo and said he believed Watson was innocent and he had inadvertently contributed to the incarceration of an innocent man. He maintained this position in multiple interviews and in an affidavit until his death in March 2021. Roslyn (Roz) McNeilly, who was bar manager at Furneaux Lodge on New Year's Eve, also identified Watson from the blink photo in montage B. Once she saw a picture of Watson taken that night showing him to be clean shaven, she also recanted, and signed an affidavit stating she had made a mistake identifying him.Watson: Case 'dissolved', NZ Herald, 2 November 2008.
Wallace said he felt tremendous pressure from police and the media during the investigation. He was interrogated by the detectives from Christchurch CIB who initially suggested he was somehow responsible for the disappearance of the teenagers. As a result of accusations against him by the police, some locals began treating him with suspicion. People he knew began to think he was guilty and shunned him. He said that in the initial stages of the investigation, the police were desperate to arrest someone, and it could easily have been him: "I know in my heart of hearts, if he [Scott] wasn't in there, I'd be doing time. It's just that simple."
The mystery ketch Wallace told police and the media that he had dropped Smart and Hope off at a wooden ketch (a boat with two masts). On 3 January 1998, Wallace drew a sketch for police of what he thought the boat he dropped the duo onto looked like. He drew a yacht with two masts and wrote "38-40 foot ketch?" on the drawing, underlining the word "ketch?" twice. He described the ketch as well-maintained, built of timber, with a thick blue stripe on the hull, and several round portholes with brass surrounds. He also said it was rafted in a group of between three and five other vessels.
Police seized Watson's sloop, Blade, on 12 January to the surprise of many following the case. Compared to descriptions of the mystery ketch, Blade was small, had a steel (not timber) hull, no portholes, no blue strip, and had only one mast.Amateur investigator highlights flaw in the Scott Watson case, stuff 23 September 2017 Police analysed thousands of photos taken on New Year's Eve and interviewed all of the boat skippers, but were unable to corroborate Wallace's reports of a ketch in the Endeavour Inlet that night, or find any of the "three to five" vessels it was rafted to. The prosecution at Watson's trial would later argue that Wallace had simply been mistaken about the second mast; Blade had been moored next to other boats, and the prosecution suggested that, from certain angles in the dark, the mast on one of these boats could have appeared to Wallace to be a second mast.
However, in the following weeks there were a number of sightings of a two-masted ketch in the Marlborough Sounds area reported to the police, including one account from a former police officer with 40 years' experience.Sounds murders mystery ketch sighting 'ignored', NZ Herald, 24 Feb 2008 A number of witnesses who came forward with sightings of a ketch were either told their information was not wanted, or their statements were not followed up. Former detective Mike Chappell, who worked on the case, later claimed officers were told not to follow up sightings of two-masted ketches.
The focus on Scott Watson
Later in the investigation, lead investigator Rob Pope would say that Watson "stood out like dog's balls" and "had the right sort of agenda and pedigree", apparently referring to his criminal record. Watson had 48 criminal convictions at the time, mainly from when he was a teenager for burglary, theft, cannabis offences, two counts of possessing an offensive weapon and one for assault when he was 16. Watson had been imprisoned for two short periods in 1989 and 1990, but had seemingly cleaned up his act in his 20's, having just one conviction in the eight years leading up to 1998.
Watson was being interviewed by Detective Tom Fitzgerald on 12 January when Police seized Blade and executed search warrants on the homes of his parents and sister. During the interview, one week into the investigation, Fitzgerald made it clear that police considered Watson their main suspect.
Rumours about the Watson family began to swirl in the small town of Picton, as well as in national media. Later, Watson would accuse police of influencing media coverage of the case, suggesting they leaked rumours to reporters that his family were criminals, that he was a guilty man and that he had an incestuous relationship with his sister. Gerald Hope, Olivia's father, also asserted that the police deliberately leaked details of Watson's criminal history and were responsible for the unsubstantiated suggestions of incest.
Watson also alleged that the police followed and intimidated members of his family. Police obtained warrants to tap the phone lines of Watson and his family from February until his arrest, in an investigation known as "Operation Celt". Police recorded 70-plus hours of conversations and during that time they regularly fed Watson's former girlfriend questions to ask hoping he would incriminate himself. Watson was described by a police representative as "smug" during these conversations, but never said anything to indicate he was involved.Brotherston, Andi (4 January 2018). "The Case Against Scott Watson". Stuff.
Publicity during the investigation Prior to his arrest, the media were free to report police comments and actions which demonstrated that Watson was the prime suspect without fear of jeopardising a fair trial. Watson was arrested on 15 June 1998, six months after his yacht had been pulled from the water in full view of bystanders and media. According to journalist Mike White, during this six-month period, police allowed unsubstantiated gossip about Watson's family to circulate, including rumours that Watson was sleeping with his sister. In an interview with Paul Henry, Mike White agreed that the media were manipulated and said: "I don't think the media asked enough questions. We were thinking that we had to support the police and we were doing the right thing by doing that."Mike White interview with Paul Henry, 3News, 15 November 2015