Justice Now .......... Not in Heaven

C.J.& B.E. Watson

PO Box 336

Picton

24/ 6/ 01

Rob Robinson

Commissioner of Police

PO Box 3017

Wellington

Dear Commissioner

My congratulations to your department on their media coupe. It gained the headlines while having no content. 'Brilliant'.

I would now like to request under the official information act, a copy of the request for the correspondence relating to the Cook Strait search. I believe this came from the 'Evening Post' (I am unsure of this).

I would also expect that being as, in your own words, "this case is still open", your department will make every endeavor to obtain the results of the 'private' search that was undertaken using information provided by police. I would expect that this information would be added to the Operation Tam file and in due course be disclosed to the defence. The importance of this is that every search with a negative result tends to exclude Scott Watson, as has every search undertaken by the police so far. One would hate for this information to be lost due to the fact that it was gleaned by means of a 'private' search rather than an ‘official' one. A request for this information will be forthcoming after allowing your department time to assemble the necessary reports, statements etc.

It does surprise me that your department seems to condone this 'open slather' approach to what Inspector Pope obviously considers to be a crime scene. This seems to be a major departure from, what I would assume to be, police procedure.

Yours Sincerely

C.J. Watson