“It was the kindness of strangers that stopped you that day,” Justice Rebecca Edwards said when sentencing him at the High Court in Auckland on March 8 to two years and three months’ jail.
Her written decision today granting the man permanent name suppression reveals he has foetal alcohol spectrum disorder (FASD), mild intellectual disability and a below-average IQ.
A court-ordered report by FASD expert Dr Valerie McGinn shows his IQ was at a level eligible for disability support services.
He also has impaired executive function, which affects his ability to reason and make sound decisions, and is easily led and influenced by others.
McGinn said he was more likely to yield to suggestion than 98 per cent of the normal population, while forensic psychologist Professor Clare Allely said this made him vulnerable to extremist groups who could contact him for “nefarious purposes”.
In her ruling, Justice Edwards said naming the young man would expose him to the “toxicity of social media” and further alienate him from society.
Public vitriol could heighten his existing risk of self-harm and push him to reoffend, she said.
His pre-sentence report showed he had sought media and internet headlines with an attack. “I would have been excited about the attention. I would have loved the attention. Everyone would know me,” he was quoted telling a probation officer.
He now wished to keep his name secret, but it would “nevertheless be perverse for publication to fulfil one of the motivating forces for the offending,” Justice Edwards said.
The reports pointed to the young man’s mental health diagnoses and history of “severe deprivation, abuse and social alienation” - all of which contributed to his offending.
His growing years were marked by drugs, negative associates and abuse by a relative.
A parent was jailed. He was bullied and struggled in school, dropping out at age 14.
He was 16 when he first took an interest in Isis (Islamic State). Police tried but failed to change his course before an undercover officer contacted him posing as an Isis sympathiser.
He had found a sense of belonging with other members of Isis, who felt like “a brotherhood of like-minded outcasts”, he said.
Shortly after the LynnMall terror attack, he told the officer he was inspired and ready to act.
He was arrested in September 2021.
Police found hundreds of Isis videos on his computer and a few he made of himself swearing allegiance to the militant Islamic group and claiming retribution against New Zealand and the West.
A court summary said he was “ready for martyrdom and will commit a terror attack after he has done more research”.
He was sentenced to jail in March after pleading guilty to nine charges - one of threatening to kill and the rest of distributing and possessing objectionable publications.
At the sentencing hearing, Justice Edwards described his troubled upbringing and how he found comfort on the internet amid his “extreme self-loathing” in isolation.
“This gave birth to a deep-seated anger at the world,” she said, “You sought belonging and also revenge.”
