{"id":326856,"date":"2025-12-04T09:14:05","date_gmt":"2025-12-04T09:14:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/326856\/"},"modified":"2025-12-04T09:14:05","modified_gmt":"2025-12-04T09:14:05","slug":"ex-neighbours-damien-richardson-star-ordered-to-write-apology-letter-for-nazi-salute","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/326856\/","title":{"rendered":"Ex-Neighbours Damien Richardson star ordered to write apology letter for Nazi salute"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Loading<\/p>\n<p>The magistrate said the letter could be used as part of a six- to 12-month adjourned undertaking of good behaviour.<\/p>\n<p>Foster had queried whether Richardson understood the impact of his actions on the Jewish community.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThere is a massive failure of leadership in this country in relation to protecting the Jewish community,\u201d Foster said. \u201cI want a bit of understanding being shown by your client and to convey that to the Jewish community.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Defence lawyer Peter Monagle said it was not Richardson\u2019s intention to hurt the Jewish community and agreed to make calls as suggested by the magistrate.<\/p>\n<p>Richardson\u2019s speech was to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theage.com.au\/link\/follow-20170101-p5n8mq\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">a gathering of the National Workers Alliance<\/a>. A transcript of the event revealed they planned to discuss \u201cthe undermining of Western culture\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>Members of<a href=\"https:\/\/www.theage.com.au\/link\/follow-20170101-p5njfj\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"> neo-Nazi group the National Socialist Network<\/a> were in the crowd as Richardson spoke.<\/p>\n<p>Richardson discussed how there was a \u201cwar on men\u201d and \u201cwar on Western tradition, Western values\u201d in the speech, which was livestreamed to social media.<\/p>\n<p>He then complained about The Age likening him \u201cto Adolf Hitler\u201d before performing the Nazi gesture.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAm I allowed to do that?\u201d he told the group.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAm I going to be fined? Am I going to jail for five years? Oh, Richardson did the salute. I mean this is absurd. This is insane. It\u2019s crazy.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Mr Monagle had argued at a contested hearing the gesture was performed for genuine \u201cartistic or theatrical purposes\u201d because his client was a former actor.<\/p>\n<p>On Thursday, the defence lawyer said Richardson had \u201cno means of income\u201d because he had lost his NDIS accreditation because of the offending.<\/p>\n<p>He claimed Richardson had performed the salute in the context of being criticised by The Age for fascist idealism.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThere was no Nazi fascist underlying motive in what he did,\u201d Monagle said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHe believed he was exercising a right to answer back to The Age in a satirical way.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Foster replied: \u201cHe\u2019s chosen an incredibly poor way to do that.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The matter was adjourned to December 19 for the defence to gather further material.<\/p>\n<p>AAP<\/p>\n<p>Start the day with a summary of the day\u2019s most important and interesting stories, analysis and insights. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theage.com.au\/link\/follow-20170101-p57ogt\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Sign up for our Morning Edition newsletter<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Loading The magistrate said the letter could be used as part of a six- to 12-month adjourned undertaking&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":326857,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[64,63,134,427],"class_list":{"0":"post-326856","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tv","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-entertainment","11":"tag-tv"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/326856","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=326856"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/326856\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/326857"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=326856"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=326856"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=326856"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}