A court in Wellington has heard that the Australian man convicted over the 2019 Christchurch mosque attacks was "pleased" when he heard he would be charged with terrorism because of his ideological beliefs.
The hearing into Brenton Tarrant's application to vacate his guilty pleas and appeal his conviction has this morning heard from his former lawyer, barrister Jonathan Hudson, who represented the gunman from March 2019 to July 2020.
Mr Hudson told the court his client did not react the way he would have expected when he was told the charges against him had been upgraded to include one count of engaging in a terrorist act.
"He was pleased," he said.
A member of Mr Tarrant's current legal team, referred to only as Counsel B, asked: "You agree that him being pleased was in keeping with his ideology at the time?"
Mr Hudson replied that it "would appear to be, yes".
"He wanted to be described as a terrorist," he said.
Shane Tait, a barrister who worked with Jonathan Hudson, also took the stand and was questioned about his client's mindset and ideology.
"Mr Tarrant never wanted to defend the terrorist charge, it was something that he wanted to be convicted of," he said.
The hearing is concerned with the 35-year-old Australian's claims that he was mentally unwell when, in March 2020, he entered guilty pleas to 51 charges of murder, 40 of attempted murder and one of engaging in an act of terrorism.
He has filed two applications, including one asking for leave to appeal his sentence and conviction, and another seeking to vacate the guilty pleas he entered and move the matter to a trial.
When the five-day hearing opened yesterday, president of the New Zealand Court of Appeal Justice Christine French said the primary issue to be considered was "whether at the time he entered those guilty pleas, he was unable to make a rational decision due to his prison conditions".
Appearing via video link from the high security prison where he is serving a sentence of life without parole, Tarrant told the court on day one of the hearing that conditions there had left him in a state of "nervous exhaustion".
Mr Hudson told the court that it was his position that Tarrant was not mentally unwell at the time he entered his guilty pleas.
He accepted under questioning from Tarrant's current lawyer that while he had often dealt with clients who were mentally unwell, he was not an expert and had no specific mental health training.
Mr Hudson agreed it was "an unusual case", but he said: "I did spend a lot of personal time with him in a face-to-face environment."
Prison within a prison
Tarrant is being held in what is known as a prison within a prison, the Prisoners of Extreme Risk Unit at Auckland jail.
It houses about a dozen inmates, but was set up specifically for him.
Conditions at the unit are at the centre of Tarrant's complaints, including that they were so bad he was in a state bordering on "insanity".
He told the court on Monday that he was in solitary confinement, with no access to television and insufficient reading material.
He said guards would play "mental games" with him, pretending not to understand him when he spoke, and the court heard he had made complaints about conditions.
Today, Jonathan Hudson said the inmate had expressed concerns about the number of cameras there and about "a lack of privacy" during his meetings with lawyers.
Mr Hudson told the court he had conveyed concerns raised by his client about the conditions at the prison to the Department of Corrections.
When asked by Counsel B if he agreed the response was "generally dismissive", Mr Hudson agreed.
Mr Hudson was also asked whether Tarrant and his legal team were subjected to "a different set of rules" than other prisoners.
"I considered that we were being treated differently," he said.
Mr Hudson said he was "not confident" his calls with his client were not being listened to, and that the prisoner was followed "everywhere in the prison" by guards taking notes.
"It was certainly unusual and I hadn't experienced it with any other client," Mr Hudson said.
In the afternoon session, the court heard from a senior corrections official about the monitoring of Tarrant in his cell.
One official confirmed notes were taken on Tarrant every five minutes.
"He's literally being watched 24/7?" Counsel A asked the witness, referred to only as D.
"Yes, correct," the witness said.
Witness D also confirmed that every 15 minutes a flap on Tarrant's cell door was opened so that a member of staff could check in on him.
"And if it was night-time a torch would be shone into the cell?" Counsel A asked.
Witness D agreed this was the case, but said that at night staff were instructed to shine the torch on the ceiling of the cell.
He rejected the suggestion that the 15-minute checks were necessarily disruptive to sleep.
He acknowledged that an ombudsman's report from December 2024 reported prisoners found the constant checks and noise of the cell hatches being opened disruptive, describing conditions as "deeply concerning".
Tarrant's 'flip-flop' on pleas
Mr Hudson told the court his former client had consistently told him he intended to plead guilty to the charges, but was "inconsistent" about when he would do that.
In August 2019, Tarrant's position on the matter appeared to change in a matter of days.
The court heard that after telling his lawyers he intended to plead guilty, he called them to say he had changed his mind and wanted them again to proceed towards a trial.
"Do you agree that flip-flop in position or that 180 on instructions was highly unusual?" Counsel B asked Mr Hudson in court today.
Mr Hudson agreed.
The Royal Commission into the Christchurch shootings concluded in its November 2020 report that Tarrant's actions were driven by "an extreme right-wing Islamophobic ideology".
In his remarks on sentencing the gunman in August 2020, Justice Cameron Mander said that his upbringing in a small NSW town was "unremarkable".
But while travelling in Europe, he had gone on to develop "deep-seated radical views regarding the migrant population of some Western countries and beliefs about the so-called 'cultural displacement' of Europeans in those countries".
Today, the court heard Tarrant spoke to his lawyers about those beliefs, with barrister Shane Tait saying the attacker accepted they were not a viable defence.
He confirmed he had advised his client to apply to move the trial from Christchurch, but that Tarrant had given instructions for the application to be withdrawn.
"His explanation was that he didn't want to be seen running away," Mr Tait said.
"His ideology seemed to be more important to him than any fair trial rights."
Mr Tait said Tarrant accepted from the outset that the evidence against him was "overwhelming".
"It started off with the Go Pro, there was a lengthy statement, there was the CCTV," Mr Tait said.
"There was text messages that he'd sent to his mother and sister prior to entering the mosque advising them of his behaviour, and I think there was a recorded voice message from his mother inviting him to not continue with that behaviour."
Tarrant, originally from Grafton, New South Wales, gave evidence for three hours on Monday.
As the hearing continues, he is watching a feed of proceedings, but he is no longer visible to those in court.
