The Christchurch mosque shooter claims he was effectively “forced” to plead guilty because harsh prison conditions drastically impacted his mental health.
“I was forced to,” convicted terrorist Brenton Harrison Tarrant told the Court of Appeal in Wellington, where he is today seeking leave to appeal his convictions and vacate his guilty plea.
“If I had another option, I would have taken it.”
He said his mental health deteriorated after he was imprisoned and awaiting trial, and he was essentially not fit to plead guilty when he did, which was shortly after New Zealand went into its first Covid-19 lockdown at the end of March 2020.
“I did not have the mind frame or mental health required to be making informed decisions at that time,” the gunman said.
“I think the issue is, did I really know what I wanted to do or what would be a good idea? No, I didn’t actually.”
“I was making choices, but they were not choices made voluntarily and they were not choices made rationally due to the conditions.”
Tarrant also said that any expression of remorse he felt about his offending was induced by the harsh prison conditions he was facing.
The gunman was jailed for life without parole in 2020 for murdering 51 Muslims at the Al Noor and Linwood mosques in Christchurch on March 15, 2019.
Despite pleading guilty to 51 counts of murder and 40 of attempted murder, as well as a terrorism charge, he then launched a bid to appeal both his conviction and sentence in late 2022.
He has also sought a judicial review of his prison conditions in 2023.
Today’s hearing is to seek leave from the Court of Appeal for the 2022 appeal bid, which was lodged out of time.
The crux of his argument before the Court of Appeal is that he was incapable of making rational decisions as a result of the conditions of his imprisonment, which he says were torturous and inhumane.
Today was the first time Tarrant has spoken at length in any forum, and he appeared via audiovisual link from prison.
Since his sentencing five years ago, he’s lost a considerable amount of weight and has shaved his head.
He was calm and polite throughout his evidence this morning as he answered questions from the Crown about his time in prison, and how it affected his mental health.
More than 60 survivors and family members of those killed by the terrorist are in court in Christchurch watching the proceedings, on an hour-long delay to the live hearing in Wellington.
In an affidavit to the court, he claimed he was psychotic and nearly insane while in custody, and that there would have been signs for Corrections officers to be able to see.
“Obviously, my mental health deteriorated over time from quite early on,” he said.
Crown prosecutor Barnaby Hawes said that a special panel was convened to monitor his wellbeing, and put it to Tarrant that surely his allegedly distressed mental state would have been reported by Corrections officers who were monitoring him 24/7.
“No, they wouldn’t want to incriminate themselves,” the gunman replied.
“They’re not fools.”
Tarrant’s lawyers, who met with or phoned him some 40 times while he was awaiting trial, said he didn’t exhibit any signs of serious mental illness.
He said that there was limited reading material made available to him in prison, and the process for requesting more books was not explained to him.
The gunman claimed that when he made verbal complaints to Corrections officers about this, they said they couldn’t understand him and said they were playing a “mental game” with him.
He said he went through roughly two books per week and would request articles and content about world events from his lawyers, some of them about himself and others about things like the Notre Dame Cathedral burning down.
Hawes said that Tarrant’s lawyers have maintained that he always intended to plead guilty, and they had no concerns about his ability to understand them or make rational decisions.
The gunman stressed it was their claims that he always intended to plead guilty, but that by August 2019, the prison conditions had made him change his mind.
“Meeting with my lawyers was probably the best time of the month for me,” he said.
He said that when he had something to occupy his mind, his mental health would improve, but for the most part, he was deliberately masking how he was doing.
“I was definitely doing everything possible to come across as confident, assured and mentally well ... to represent as well as possible.
“I always wanted to put on the best front possible.”
Tarrant claimed that he wasn’t always entirely truthful with psychologists assigned to assess him.
“I was more so at the time, trying to avoid being seen as uncertain or unsure about what decisions I was making,” he said.
The terrorist claimed that it was always his intention to be self-represented at trial, but he only hired lawyers because Corrections refused to provide him with news from the outside world, which he claimed was essential for him to prepare.
However, he kept that information to himself and didn’t share it with his lawyers.
Tarrant said in an affidavit that he timed his guilty plea with the Covid-19 pandemic to catch the “state and the media” off-guard and to essentially “fly under the radar”.
Hawes said that Tarrant’s “narrative” relied on the assertion that health assessors, lawyers and Corrections staff had all failed to identify an “obvious” decline in his mental health.
Tarrant responded that it wasn’t possible for someone in his position to be mentally well, and that some of the reports did indicate that he was anxious and struggled with identity.
Hawes said it was a contradiction that his condition should have been obvious, and that he was masking it so no one would notice.
“It might be difficult for a lawyer who sees me every two weeks, but the guards and staff, it’s impossible for them not to see,” he said.
“The idea that they somehow didn’t notice, it’s impossible. It’s absolutely impossible.”
In terms of why he waited so long to launch an appeal, Tarrant said his reasons were “multifaceted” but essentially he needed to wait until he was of “sound mental state” to proceed.
He is being represented by a new team of defence lawyers, whose names are all suppressed, who asked some clarifying questions of him at the end of this morning’s evidence.
The hearing continues.
Jeremy Wilkinson is an Open Justice reporter based in Manawatū, covering courts and justice issues with an interest in tribunals. He has been a journalist for nearly a decade and has worked for NZME since 2022.