Mosque shooting: White supremacist Philip Neville Arps seeks leave to appeal sentence

Philip Arps was jailed in June after admitting two charges of distributing an objectionable publication after the March 15 massacres.

A white supremacist who spread footage of the Al Noor Mosque attack is seeking leave to bring a second appeal against his 21-month jail sentence.

Philip Neville Arps, who compares himself with Adolf Hitler's deputy Rudolf Hess and owns a white supremacist-themed Christchurch insulation company, was jailed in June after admitting two charges of distributing an objectionable publication after the March 15 massacres.

This latest legal bid comes after the High Court threw out his first appeal in August.

His lawyer Anselm Williams said today at the Court of Appeal that the sentence imposed was "manifestly excessive" and the end point should have been home detention.

The facts around the case were not disputed, he said. Arps distributed the footage to a group of 30 "friends or associates" and asked one person to make edits.

"What seems to have been lost is what happened next," Williams said.

Williams told the court that in the intervening time Jacinda Ardern indicated the material would be classed as objectionable. When Arps received back the modified footage, he made the decision to delete the clips immediately, acknowledging he had "crossed the line" in light of the Prime Minister's announcement.

The footage was modified to have crosshairs and a "kill count" added, which District Court Judge Stephen O'Driscoll said had "glorified" the killings.

It was, in effect, a hate crime against the Muslim community, the judge said.

When he was arrested and asked by police about the victims' deaths, he replied, "I could not give a f***, mate".

Williams said his client held a number of views which "aren't necessary popular and he's reasonably outspoken in relation to those views".

Because the mosque shooter's identity was not in the public domain "he was effectively the face of the events that were occurring in Christchurch at that time", Williams argued.

He said when it came to sentencing, the District Court Judge was heavily coloured by the views he considered Arps held.

In 2016, Arps was one of a group of men who filmed themselves doing Hitler salutes as they delivered boxes of pigs heads and offal to the Al Noor mosque in Christchurch.

"White power … Bring on the cull," Arps was seen saying in the video.

In that case, he was convicted of offensive behaviour and fined $800.

Crown lawyer Fergus Sinclair argued in today's hearing that the sentence for Arps' latest offending was not excessive and if anything might be regarded as "falling on the light side".

He said the comments of the sentencing judge did not imply he was being punished for having certain opinions.

There was a risk of reoffending and Arps' attitude meant more was needed to achieve objections denunciation and deterrents, he said.

If the sentence was served at home, any offending over the internet of a similar nature would be hard to detect, he said.

The decision is reserved.