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Witness Pressured
Key witness Guy Wallace, the Furneaux Lodge water-taxi driver who took Olivia Hope and Ben Smart and the mystery man to the yacht immediately before their disappearance in the early hours of New Years Day, said publicly on 6 January that he was feeling under pressure. (Mr Wallace had told police the yacht he had delivered the trio to was a two masted ketch. However, police, even then, were becoming more interested in a single-masted sloop and they were to seize such a vessel on 12 January and take it to Woodbourne airforce base for forensic examination).
The (then) officer in charge of the investigation, Inspector Steve Caldwell, through The Dominion, was moved to give an assurance Mr Wallace was a “star witness” and not a suspect. Media reports said Mr Wallace had finished at Furneaux Lodge and was working for his father. His father Noel told The Dominion his son had gone on holiday and that the last few days had been long for his son, who did not enjoy the public limelight.
On 8 January, Mr Wallace was reported as saying he was having difficulty coming to grips with his role in the disappearance. He said he’d had little sleep and the last week had been a torment. He had been propelled into the public’s eye and pursued by the media. He said he’d had to go into hiding and he wished people would leave him and his family alone.
On 4 February The Dominion reported that Mr Wallace was feeling he had been set up as a suspect. Police had earlier announced they thought Mr Wallace may have been mist
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| On 4 February The Dominion reported that Mr Wallace was feeling he had been set up as a suspect. |
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aken about the design of the craft Olivia and Ben and the mystery man had boarded just before they disappeared. But Mr Wallace remained adamant he delivered the trio to a (two-masted) ketch. He was reported as saying ‘he had been interrogated and called a liar,’ but that he had gone over his story dozens of times and remained convinced he saw a ketch.
He said the media had given him the impression that he had been lined up as a suspect, which he said made him very angry. However, The officer in charge of Operation Tam, Detective Inspector Rob Pope responded quickly, telling The Dominion police had never leveled a finger of suspicion at anyone and that any suggestion of an individual involved in the disappearance has been generated solely by the media.
For more information refer to any of the 20 topics isolated for you by CrimeCo. Sequentially, Hoax Call is recommended.
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The Furneaux Lodge water taxi-driver , Guy Wallace, feels pressured. |
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