Award-winning journalist Mike White has opened up to Paul Henry about his unique interview with Scott Watson, which is featured in the latest issue of North & South magazine.
White was granted three days with Watson inside Christchurch’s Rolleston Prison, after navigating a series of roadblocks from the Department of Corrections which culminated in a High Court appeal. White was granted seven hours with the convicted double murderer, who has always protested his innocence.
Despite Watson having served nearly two decades in prison for the murders of Ben Smart and Olivia Hope, White says Watson is not a broken man.
“After 18 years of getting knocked back and losing every appeal, you obviously become a bit realistic about your situation,” says White. “[But] he’s determined to keep pushing and tell his side of the story, and to keep looking for evidence and things that might help him … get out of jail.”
Watson describes himself in the North & South interview as a “little shit”, with 48 convictions to back that up, but White alleges he is no murderer.
“This whole thing of Watson’s backstory and his prior convictions is used as part of this caricature of him as a monster,” says White. “When you actually look at them, all but one of those convictions was between the age of 16 and 18, when he was a young guy who’d gone off the tracks.”
White spoke to Watson about sitting down with Olivia Hope’s father, Gerald, who has “expressed both his concerns about the investigation and the trial process and his willingness to meet with Scott.” However Watson is cautious about meeting with Hope, given his history of setbacks.
“Scott Watson doesn’t trust anyone anymore,” says White. “After all these years and all these things that have happened to him.”
Watson blames the police and the media for what he insists has been a miscarriage of justice. White was involved in the case early on, as a reporter for the Marlborough Express at the time Ben Smart and Olivia Hope went missing.
He says Watson pointed that out three minutes into their interview, saying: “You were part of the lynch mob, you were one of the ones holding the torches – how do you feel about that?”
In hindsight, White says he regrets not asking enough questions of the case and says he felt manipulated to an extent by the police. He doesn’t think the media acted as well as it could have at the time.
Read the full story in North & South on sale Monday, November 16.
