Footage of filmmakers crafting a false statement designed to support the latest freedom bid of convicted killer Susan Neill-Fraser has been played in Hobart Supreme Court.
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Neill-Fraser, 64, is serving 23 years' jail for killing partner Bob Chappell, who went missing from the couple's yacht moored at Sandy Bay on the night of Australia Day in 2009.
His body has never been found.
Neill-Fraser has always maintained her innocence and is trying to convince a judge there is now "fresh and compelling" evidence to warrant a re-trial.
Her legal team has tried to place then-homeless teenager Meaghan Vass on the Four Winds yacht the night Mr Chappell, 65, went missing.
Ms Vass had signed an statutory declaration saying she was on the boat but changed her mind in the lead-up to the appeal bid, saying it was false and she signed it under duress.
A courtroom packed with Neill-Fraser supporters was on Wednesday shown a video of Eve Ash and Colin McLaren, a former policeman, writing the statement that was later signed by Ms Vass.
It was part of 500 hours of footage seized by Tasmania police in October from NSW TV production company CJZ Productions.
"We're making a statement that isn't a statement. This is a strategy," Mr McLaren said in the footage.
"I was there with people I won't name. I do not want to give any details except that I was on the yacht," he dictated to Ms Ash.
"The lady Susan Neill-Fraser was not on the yacht. I have never met her. I do not know her. I just know she's in prison. I do not want to say why I was on the yacht and I do not want to say any more."
A man known to Vass was planned to be sitting in the back of court during the appeal to make sure Ms Vass didn't say the wrong thing, the court heard.
Ms Vass' DNA was found on the Four Winds, something the prosecution at the time explained as likely contamination.
Neill-Fraser's legal team has argued the only way it could have gotten there was through direct transfer.
Neill-Fraser had an appeal against her 2010 murder conviction rejected in 2012.
Three people have been charged with perverting the course of justice in relation to her latest appeal.
Final submissions in the drawn-out hearing that began in November will take place from Thursday.
The appeal has previously heard from winching experts that Neill-Fraser would not have been able to winch Mr Chappell's body from the boat's cabin to the deck before dumping it into the River Derwent.
"We're confident that the judge will see the merits of the case," Neill-Fraser's daughter Sarah Bowles said outside court.
"Hopefully that takes us through to the next stage where we can really flesh out the inadequacies of the conviction."
Australian Associated Press
