Terrorist is ‘taunting’ families by challenging guilty pleas

Monday, 9 February 2026

The man convicted of killing 51 worshippers in the Christchurch terror attacks said prison conditions meant he was not thinking rationally when he pleaded guilty.

The five-day Court of Appeal hearing for Brenton Harrison Tarrant started in Wellington on Monday. He is seeking leave to appeal his guilty pleas for the massacres at Al Noor Mosque and Linwood Islamic Centre.

Tarrant killed 51 worshippers and injured 40 others on March 15, 2019. He pleaded guilty and was sentenced to life without the possibility of parole.

Justices Christine French, Susan Thomas and David Collins will consider the terrorist’s claim that prison conditions rendered him incapable of making reasoned decisions at the time he pleaded guilty.

The first witness on Monday was the terrorist, appearing by video-link from Auckland Prison.

With a shaved head, wearing a white shirt and square rimmed glasses, the 35-year-old Australian leaned forward to answer questions from Crown lawyer Barnaby Hawes, whose cross-examination took up the morning.

The terrorist claimed that in March 2020, when he made his guilty plea, he was “irrational”: his mental health had deteriorated due to prison conditions, including isolation.

Hawes pointed out this was not backed up in any reports from psychologists, his lawyers or Corrections staff.

The terrorist said he had complained to Corrections staff, who had “played games”, pretending they couldn’t understand him.

Hawes said Tarrant had access to advice from his lawyers, understood what was happening at all times, and was “making choices”.

“I was making choices, but they were not choices made rationally due to the conditions,” the terrorist said. “I wasn’t fit to plead at that point.”

This extended to an expression of remorse in a 2020 psychological report, he said. “When I expressed remorse it was real but it was induced by prison conditions inducing irrationality.”

Hawes outlined how the terrorist had changed his mind several times about his guilty plea before settling on that course of action in March 2020, partly prompted by the Covid-19 lockdowns.

The terrorist affirmed this, saying he thought he could catch “the state and the media off guard”. He also said he felt “forced”.

“You weren’t forced,” Hawes said, adding that Tarrant could have taken his own lawyers’ advice and sought an adjournment.

“In hindsight that would have been the correct option,” the terrorist said.

‘There’s definitely no remorse’

At least 60 victims and family members watched the terrorist’s evidence on a delayed broadcast at the Christchurch Justice Precinct. An overflow room was required to accommodate everyone.

Many had already spoken with disdain about the terrorist’s application ‒ that he was trying to be heard at all. Still, once he was, they felt it important to hear what was said. Many embraced as they greeted each other outside court.

The terrorist gave evidence for nearly four hours. It was an odd setting: the person at the centre of the hearing physically removed from it, testifying from a featureless room. When it was over, no-one’s opinion of him seemed to have changed.

“He’s trying to play with all of us,” said Rashid Omar, whose son Tariq was killed in the attack at Al Noor. “It's just a waste of our time and a waste of taxpayers' money.

“There's definitely no remorse at all… He just wants to taunt us. But it's not going to affect us… We're not gonna be bullied by him.”

Aya Al-Umari lost her brother Hussein in the attacks. Like most people, she had never heard the terrorist speak, save for maybe a half-hearted “yes” from the dock. On Monday morning, he appeared innocuously on a big screen, was sworn in and began answering questions.

“You almost had to brace yourself for what you were going to see at the start,” Al-Umari said. “It’s just really an image of a person is how I'd like to think of it. He means absolutely nothing to me.”

Afterwards, she felt a strange comfort. She had heard the terrorist’s appeal and found it wanting. “As [he] went on, it became crystallised that there was not much substance to what he was attempting to say.”

“The process is there for a reason for those that have faced injustices. But I mean it can be exploited by people such as this, so it's the price you pay for democracy, I suppose.”

Isolation ‘impacted’ terrorist’s state of mind

Later, a clinical psychologist told the court the terrorist’s judgement was affected by prison conditions, but stopped short of saying he was not fit to enter a plea.

The psychologist, who has name suppression and is known only as Witness B,

told the court he focused on trying to understand why the terrorist had changed his plea from not guilty to guilty and back again.

Hawes asked why Witness B had taken the terrorist and his complaints about prison conditions “at face value”, given that the terrorist had told Witness B he had “deceived his health assessors” by masking his poor mental health.

Witness B said he’d preferred that approach. His findings were also based on the deterioration in the terrorist’s mental state, outlined in reports in August 2020.

“The psychiatric and psychological reports comment on how he’s changed, which is consistent with [the terrorist’s] self-report.”

This deterioration could be explained by the terrorist’s time in isolation, Witness B said.

“I say in my report that I believe [the terrorist’s] judgement and ability to make informed choices was impacted, that’s the crux of it.

“I’ve never said he wasn’t fit to plead at all. I’m trying to explain how he went from [pleading] not guilty, to guilty, then back to guilty.”

The hearing runs until Friday.