longweekend58 wrote on Oct 23^rd, 2010 at 11:47am:


It is my understanding that double jeopardy is only an issue if you are found innocent.....someone who is convicted of a charge can still be prosecuted in another jurisdiction if there is sufficient evidence to upgrade the charges.....ie manslaughter to murder!!!

Double jeopardy or not, 18 months gaol was definitely NOT sufficient for the calculated crime of murder committed by this man...

This guy has an evil streak - he was filmed using bolt cutters to remove flowers placed by her parents on her grave - after they had resorted to chaining them down because someone had been systematically removing them...

http://news.ninemsn.com.au/article.aspx?id=8111395

Quote:

The facts....

In her final moments, amid the terror and confusion, it isn't difficult to imagine the question that must have howled in Tina Watson's petrified mind.

Fifteen metres underwater and with her oxygen supply cut off, the dying novice scuba diver had looked to the person she trusted most - her husband of 11 days and an experienced diver and rescuer - to save her from the unthinkable.

Instead, he swam away.

Advertisement: Story continues below Why?

It's the same question many Australians and Americans, including Tina's family and friends, are now asking - demanding - from Queensland authorities after the man who admitted letting his new bride perish at the bottom of the Great Barrier Reef while on honeymoon five years ago was ordered to serve just 12 months behind bars.

With good behaviour, Gabe Watson, 32, will be back in the arms of his second wife in time for the next northern summer.

The 12-month sentence, delivered in the Brisbane Supreme Court on Friday, sent a ripple of shock across the Pacific that has quickly built to a tide of anger in Tina Watson's hometown of Alabama.

Her father Tommy Thomas said outside court there had been no justice for his 26-year-old daughter, and it seems many others agree.

Queensland Attorney-General Cameron Dick has asked to see Justice Peter Lyons' sentencing remarks with the view to appealing the punishment, while US authorities have also expressed their outrage over the leniency of the jail term.

Alabama's Attorney-General Troy King has also vowed to lead a mission to Queensland to lobby for an appeal.

If he isn't successful, he will push "America's legal boundaries to the limit" in an attempt to have Watson charged with murder for a second time when he is deported back to the US upon his release in 11 months' time.

When examined, no fault was found with Tina's breathing equipment.

How she lost air supply has never been proven, and in June last year at the conclusion of a coronial inquest into her death, Coroner David Glasgow said only two people knew what happened to her: Tina and Gabe Watson. Only one of them is still alive.

In his findings, Coroner Glasgow said a jury, if properly instructed, may have concluded Watson had turned off the air valve on his wife's air cylinder until she suffocated, switched the air back on, and let her sink to her death. He was charged with murder.

But unlike a jury, a coroner does not need to be satisfied beyond a reasonable doubt on the evidence.

If the Department of Public Prosecutions had pressed ahead with a murder charge and proceeded with a jury trial, it's possible Watson may have been acquitted and walked free.

How the DPP reached the decision to accept Watson's plea to the lesser offence of manslaughter was never discussed in open court.

What Crown prosecutor Brendan Campbell did say in the court room was that Watson's manslaughter plea was accepted on the basis that Watson failed in his duty of care for his wife as her dive buddy.

An experienced diver with a search and rescue dive qualification, Watson had performed a rescue years before when a fellow diver got into trouble underwater.
But on his honeymoon in October 2003, Watson said he panicked and thought it best to surface and seek help from a diving instructor.Mr Campbell said by doing so he had "virtually extinguished any chance of her survival."The Crown had pushed for a harsher sentence than the one Watson received. But not by much: five years to be suspended after 18 months. Instead, Watson was handed four and a half to serve 12 months, taking into account the 23 days he had already spent in custody awaiting Queensland justice.

Watson's barrister Steve Zillman successfully argued for leniency on the grounds that:

- Watson had made admissions to police which ultimately formed the foundation of the Crown case.

- He bore no responsibility for the delay of the matter through the court system.

- Although he was not charged with an offence until June last year, when he was charged with Tina's murder following a coronial inquest, Watson's case had had to endure "intense publicity in the media ... thousands of words have been written on the internet (and he) had been publicly accused of a crime he was not guilty of."

- He cooperated with Australian authorities by not protesting an extradition from the US and voluntarily returned to Australia before his charge was reduced from murder to manslaughter.

- He was not a citizen of Australia, so any time he served in an Australian jail "would be harder for him than it would be for an Australian citizen" since his family and friends live in the US.

"I believe probably the entire Australian nation as well as our nation back home shares in the shock that we've just seen," Tommy Thomas fumed outside court on Friday.

"It's total injustice, it's ludicrous what we have seen. This is in no way, shape or form even beginning to get justice for our daughter.

"It's an embarrassment to all Australians, it's an embarrassment to police here, the police in our country and to everyone who has been involved in this investigation.

"We believe that Gabe Watson murdered our daughter and we will continue to believe that."

The Queensland Attorney-General has 28 days to lodge an appeal.

http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/queensland/why-was-newlywed-left-to-

Life_goes_on wrote on Oct 23^rd, 2010 at 12:39pm:


Have you seen the 2-part Australian Story: -


http://www.abc.net.au/austory/specials/unfathomableone/default.htm

Quote:


http://www.abc.net.au/austory/specials/unfathomabletwo/default.htm

Quote:

And, after all, the conviction was for, basically, 'failing to render aid'....

The Court found that Watson 'should' have helped his wife to the surface when he realised she was in difficulty...

Which leaves open the question of DID he even notice she was in difficulty before she died???

THE facts of Tina's death, other than the question of murder, are not in dispute. About 10.30am on October 22, 2003, she and Gabe were above the historic shipwreck Yongala, which lies 90 kilometres south-east of Townsville.

At least 43 divers had entered the water since sun-up from three dive vessels, Adrenaline, Spoilsport and Jazz II and were at various locations and depths.

Suddenly, Gabe Watson broke the waters above the wreck and screamed: ''Tina's gone down. I need help.''

The photograph showing his wife either dead or near death, lying prostrate on the bottom in 27 metres of water, emerged later. It would be of little forensic value, but its impact on the public psyche was devastating. It served to harden views that Gabe Watson was a cold, calculating killer.

Hearing Gabe's cries, Wade Singleton, the safety and rescue diver for the morning, plunged into the water. Singleton later told the coroner: ''We came down to the top of the wreck, which is approximately 15 metres [deep] … I proceeded to drop down to approximately 25 metres. And that's when basically I saw Tina on the bottom.''

Singleton's legs and fins were captured by tourist diver Gary Stempler, who took the now-famous photograph. It also shows Dawn Asano posing for the camera, with Tina's body in the background. Neither Asano nor Stempler was aware that a diver had sunk to the ocean floor beneath them.

At this point, Tina was beyond help. Even if she was still breathing, which seems unlikely as no expired gases are visible from her regulator, Singleton had no way to bring her up alive. They were in deep water with a pressure approximately 2.7 times that at the surface. Unless there is venting, which occurs naturally under water with normal breathing, her lungs would expand to 2.7 times their natural volume during the ascent, and like a bursting balloon, be destroyed in the process. The autopsy recorded the grim results: ''Radiology: … florid evidence of air embolism.''

Townsville police issued a standard media report later in the day, advising that a tourist had drowned accidentally off a dive boat. They had no suspicions. Five days

later, with his mother, Glenda, now in Townsville, Gabe gave to a routine police investigation his account of what happened.

''[After entering the water and descending] we both realised this current's a lot stronger than what we feel comfortable diving in … I turned to look at her at about the same time as she was turning to me.''

Gabe said he took Tina's hand and she gave him a ''thumbs up'', signalling a return to the comparative safety of the anchor line. ''So I started swimming [with Tina in tow].'' Almost immediately, she started to sink. He signalled to her to inflate her buoyancy vest. ''I know she squeezed it,'' he said, ''but whether she squeezed it hard enough or didn't squeeze the right thing or it wasn't working I don't know … thoughts were going through my head … 'I'm gonna get her, get her back to the anchor rope and she can either pull herself up it or she can hold it until I can go get somebody'.

''[Then] … her hand hit my mask [and] it knocked my mask sideways.''

Gabe describes how he cleared his mask, a procedure that usually requires both hands. ''I had to let go,'' he says.

Mask clear, he turned to his wife, but she remained out of reach. Finally, he decided to surface for help. ''I thought, 'Well, you know, I'm halfway down, if I go all the way down I can't come back up quick just because of how deep it is,' so I thought 'Well I'll just turn, shoot back to the anchor rope'.''

He surfaced and his statement says: ''I remember getting to the top, ah yanking my mask off, you know spitting out my regulator or not even have it in. I don't know, um, and just yelling, you know, 'Tina's gone down … I need help.' ''

American Dr Stanley Stutz, who was on the dive, saw the couple in difficulty. He gave an account to the coroner via video link and made written statements to police. At the time of the dive he was working as a specialist in emergency medicine at Townsville General Hospital.

''I was about five metres under water, and something caught the corner of my eye and I looked over and I saw a woman in distress,'' he says. ''She was on her back, arms out to the side. She reminded me of Jesus on a cross.''

Stutz says he then saw another diver ''embrace'' Tina, for a short time - five or 10 seconds - and he thought this person would assist her to the surface. ''Then they split apart. I don't know why … [the other diver] went towards the surface. I assumed to find help. [Tina was] sinking looking straight up at me. It was terrible.''
Dr Stutz by his own estimate was six metres from the stricken couple. Could he have saved Tina?

He told the coroner: ''I pushed my way past the other divers in my group down to my dive instructor to tell him, but he said to calm down and insisted I stay down with the group.''

http://www.watoday.com.au/national/death-on-reef-mystery-20100716-10eb1.html

Equitist wrote on Oct 23^rd, 2010 at 1:20pm:





Even with all your "apparentlys, seemed to have acteds, and purportedlys", one thing is clear, you DEFINITELY want to see this bloke hang.