Trial by Trickery - Scott Watson, the Sounds Murders and the Game of Law

Hunter Productions, 2006. Very slight damp damage to top pages (first 80 pages), otherwise good secondhand copy.

On New Year's Eve 1997, young holiday-makers Ben Smart and Olivia Hope disappeared from a party at a seaside resort, last seen boarding a mystery yacht with a mystery man. Five months later 26-year old Scott Watson was arrested and later convicted of their murders. He is now serving a life sentence. But is Watson guilty? Keith Hunter is one of many who think not and in 2003 he produced an award-winning documentary that showed why. Now he goes further, revealing how the jury's verdict was acquired. He lays bare the misinformation and manipulations of advocacy in the adversarial system of law, turning the tables on Scott Watson's accusers to make them and the system itself the accused. Hunter asks 'Is this justice, New Zealand style?'