From the Sunday Star Times:
Killer cheats on wife behind bars
27 August 2006
By DONNA CHISHOLMConvicted double-killer Scott Watson has been cheating on his wife of two years from behind prison bars.
His wife Coral, who moved to Christchurch to be near him, said the couple would have marriage counselling after Watson admitted having a relationship with another woman - believed to be the former partner of a police officer.
Watson is serving a minimum of 17 years’ jail for the 1998 New Year murders of Blenheim friends Ben Smart and Olivia Hope, who disappeared after a party at Furneaux Lodge at Endeavour Inlet in the Marlborough Sounds.
Coral Watson has not visited her husband for more than a month after “busting him” but said she still loved him “to pieces”. She said he had told her repeatedly that he loved her and did not want a divorce. “As far as I’m concerned our marriage is not over,” she said.
Corrections’ southern acting regional manager Paul Rushton said that although he could not comment on individual prisoners, inmates could apply through a social worker for six taxpayer-funded marriage counselling sessions through Relationship Services.
Coral Watson said guards and other inmates had told her they had seen Watson and the woman kissing in the visiting area of Christchurch Prison. She said Watson, who is dressed in orange prison overalls during visits, had not had sex with the woman.
The woman is believed to have given Watson the cellphone he used to send explicit photos and flirtatious texts early last year.
Coral Watson called the woman a marriage wrecker and said she had telephoned her to warn her to stay away from her husband. “I never threatened her and suddenly she serves me with a trespass warrant,” she said.
“She’s made it very clear she doesn’t want him seeing me and he has made it very clear to me in the past couple of days that he doesn’t want our relationship over, that he can’t do without me.”
Though Watson wanted to see her, she was choosing not to see him yet. But they were speaking, she said.
Coral Watson said the woman had tried to get Scott to stop seeing her four teenaged children. The woman had set out to steal Watson from her but had just been used. “The only one Scott is lying to is her.”
The woman had met Watson when she had gone to the prison to visit another inmate, skinhead Leighton Wilding, convicted of the 1999 murder of homeless gay man James Bamborough in Westport.
When the Sunday Star-Times contacted the woman and asked if she and Watson were involved, she said: “I know you’ve got a job to do, but I’ve got nothing to say.”
Details of the illicit relationship had even been briefly posted on the website dontdatehimgirl. com but Coral Watson said she had no idea who had done it.
She said her 15-year-old daughter had written to Watson to “give him a lecture”.
He had replied saying: “Darling, if your mum and I had been living on the outside at home together everything would be OK. We would have been OK and we are happy but I’m stuck in here and being with your mum and worrying about her makes it really stressful.
“I love her but she makes me sad too, knowing that she’s struggling out there without me… My girlfriend comes and sees me but your mum is my wife and I still do really love her.”
National’s prisons spokesman Simon Power said although people presumed inmates would be denied some liberties, “it doesn’t appear as if that’s been the case” with Watson.
