Flowers were laid at the Al Noor Mosque in Christchurch following Brenton Tarrant's 2019 attack. Photo: RNZ / Isra'a Emhail
Mass murderer Brenton Tarrant’s bid to appeal against his convictions for the 2019 mosque shootings has been declared “utterly devoid of merit”.
“The facts concerning Mr Tarrant’s offending are beyond dispute. He has not identified any arguable defence, or indeed any defence known to the law,” the Court of Appeal said today.
The decision was greeted with “huge relief” by lawyers representing victims’ families, who said it would spare them the trauma of a new trial.
In 2020, Tarrant pleaded guilty to 51 charges of murder, 40 charges of attempted murder and one of engaging in a terrorist act for his armed rampage against two mosques in Christchurch on March 15, 2019.
He was driving to carry out another attack on a mosque in Ashburton when police officers rammed him off the road and arrested him.
In 2022, Tarrant tried to appeal against his convictions and his sentence of life in prison with no prospect for parole.
To support his appeal bid, he claimed that in the weeks leading up to his guilty pleas he was in a “state of mental breakdown” and that he had been driven into a state of “near insanity” by his treatment in Auckland Prison.
The Court of Appeal, however, said today it rejected his claims about having an irrational state of mind induced by his prison conditions.
“Mr Tarrant’s proposed appeal is utterly devoid of merit,” the decision stated.
The case was heard in February by Court of Appeal president Justice Christine French and Justices Susan Thomas and David Collins.
The decision effectively dealt with Tarrant’s application for leave to appeal, which was filed 505 working days late, and his appeal against his convictions. His appeal against sentence had been abandoned.
After the hearing, Tarrant dismissed his four lawyers and filed a notice advising the court that he wanted to abandon his case.
The court refused to allow this, saying there were “wider public interest considerations” in having the matter finally determined.
Procedurally, it then declined his application to appeal out of time but in doing so, assessed the merits of his appeal had it been allowed to go ahead.
It examined Tarrant’s state of mind at the time he pleaded guilty, and whether his guilty pleas were voluntary.
The appeal court justices said they did not accept Tarrant’s evidence about his mental state before he pleaded guilty.
His evidence about this was inconsistent and at odds with the detailed observations of prison authorities, his trial counsel and most mental health professionals who had dealt with him.
“He was not suffering from a mental impairment or any other form of mental incapacity which rendered him unable to voluntarily change his pleas to guilty,” the decision said.
“He endeavoured to mislead us about his state of mind in a weak attempt to advance an appeal in circumstances where all other evidence demonstrated that he made an informed and totally rational decision to plead guilty.”
The court also found that Tarrant was not coerced or pressured in any way to plead guilty.
In bringing his case to the court, Tarrant claimed that he had been constantly taunted by prison officers.
He said that he was subjected to “cruel and unnecessary” isolation.
Tarrant complained about guards deliberately coughing, sniffing and rattling keys, which caused him sleep deprivation, as did constant exposure to light, including torchlight checks of his cell every 15 minutes at night.
He said prison staff made derogatory comments about him, particularly when he was being observed via CCTV, and he was made to endure strip searches and rub-down searches.
However, the appeal justices said that Tarrant’s trial lawyers wrote to the Department of Corrections about his treatment and “Corrections responded appropriately to any issues they raised on behalf of Mr Tarrant”.
Lawyers representing the victims’ families said it was a relief that the “law has now done its job” in disallowing the appeal.
It meant the families would be spared the trauma of reliving March 15, 2019, all over again.
“It is a huge relief that the difficult and often unsupported journey families are on will not now be added to by the great burden of a new trial. It would have been unimaginably traumatic,” barrister Aarif Rasheed said.
Rashid Omar, whose son Tariq Omar, 24, was killed by Tarrant, said he was happy with today’s decision, although having the hearing was unfair, given how out of time the shooter was in filing it.
“It’s draining our mind, our energy thinking about it. Why should he get a say, given what he’s done?” he said.
“He’s very lucky that there’s no death sentence in New Zealand.”
Asked if he had any message for Tarrant, Omar replied: “I don’t want to be rude, but rot in hell.”
Ric Stevens spent many years working for the former New Zealand Press Association news agency, including as a political reporter at Parliament, before holding senior positions at various daily newspapers. He joined NZME’s Open Justice team in 2022 and is based in Hawke’s Bay. His writing in the crime and justice sphere is informed by four years of frontline experience as a probation officer.
Catherine Hutton is an Open Justice reporter, based in Wellington. She has worked as a journalist at the Waikato Times and RNZ. Most recently she was working as a media adviser at the Ministry of Justice.