39m agoWed 13 Aug 2025 at 7:46am<\/p>\n
A recap of today’s evidence<\/p>\n
Jurors in the criminal trial of Matt Wright have just wrapped up another day of hearing evidence from\u00a0Sebastian Robinson.<\/p>\n
Mr Robinson was piloting the chopper in the fatal 2022 crash and was left with serious injuries, rendering him a paraplegic.<\/p>\n
During the prosecution’s questioning of Mr Robinson, the jury heard:<\/p>\n
Mr Wright was an “anti-vaxxer” who was not on the fatal crocodile egg collecting mission as he was banned from entering remote Arnhem Land due to his Covid vaccination statusMr Wright visited Mr Robinson in a Brisbane hospital in the weeks after the crash, where he allegedly asked the pilot to “manipulate” flight hoursMr Robinson said during the visit Mr Wright went through the pilot’s phone “deleting things”<\/p>\n
Defence barrister David Edwardson KC then cross-examined Mr Robinson in the afternoon, where the jury heard:<\/p>\n
Mr Wright helped finance Mr Robinson’s first helicopterMr Robinson was questioned about bringing alcohol into Aboriginal communitiesMr Robinson\u00a0admitted lying to investigators in the days after the crash about the helicopter’s maintenance record, saying he “panicked” and was “in a bad way”<\/p>\n
The defence will continue questioning Mr Robinson tomorrow from 10am ACST.<\/p>\n
We’ll be back with you then.<\/p>\n
1h agoWed 13 Aug 2025 at 7:17am<\/p>\n
Court adjourns for the day<\/p>\n
That’s all the evidence for today.<\/p>\n
We’ll be back with you for more of defence barrister\u00a0David Edwardson KC’s cross-examination of pilot\u00a0Sebastian Robinson from 10am ACST tomorrow.<\/p>\n
Thanks for being with us.<\/p>\n
1h agoWed 13 Aug 2025 at 7:12amHelicopter pilot lied to investigators after crash<\/p>\n
Helicopter pilot Sebastian Robinson has admitted to lying to investigators in the days following a fatal crash that left him a paraplegic.<\/p>\n
Under cross-examination by defence barrister David Edwardson KC, Mr Robinson agreed he had lied to the ATSB\u00a0(Australian Transport Safety Authority)\u00a0because he “panicked and I was in a very bad way”.<\/p>\n
Mr Edwardson read from a transcribed interview with an investigator who told Mr Robinson the helicopter had “a completely clean maintenance release [form]”, saying “there’s like, nothing on it”.<\/p>\n
Mr Edwardson said Mr Robinson had responded that it “might have done a plug on me last season and this year it hasn’t missed a beat”.<\/p>\n
But in response to the defence’s questions today, Mr Robinson said there were actually “many more problems with the aircraft”.<\/p>\n
Mr Edwardson also asked about a passage in the interview in which Mr Robinson told investigators he had stopped drinking prior to the crash.<\/p>\n
“You said, ‘This year I haven’t been drinking’, is that true?” Mr Edwardson asked.<\/p>\n
“No, it’s not true, I had consumed alcohol,” Mr Robinson replied.<\/p>\n
“Why did you lie?”<\/p>\n
“I dunno, it was just the way that I felt, to be honest with you I can’t remember answering that question.”<\/p>\n
“You were deliberately trying to mislead these interviewers?”<\/p>\n
“That’s your opinion, obviously I didn’t tell the truth entirely but you know, I panicked.”<\/p>\n
1h agoWed 13 Aug 2025 at 6:35am<\/p>\n
Defence probes pilot’s post-crash interviews<\/p>\n
Defence counsel David Edwardson KC has been taking pilot Sebastian Robinson through interviews he gave to police and the Australian Transport Safety Authority after the crash.<\/p>\n
Mr Edwardson probed Mr Robinson on various statements he made at the time, including the men’s morale ahead of the fatal trip and a plan to go fishing.<\/p>\n
The court is now taking another short break.<\/p>\n
2h agoWed 13 Aug 2025 at 6:11am<\/p>\n
Pilot denies seeking workers’ compensation via Matt Wright’s company<\/p>\n
Defence barrister David Edwardson KC is taking helicopter pilot Sebastian Robinson through various invoices he sent for crocodile egg collecting work.<\/p>\n
Mr Robinson denied sending an invoice to Matt Wright’s company, instead of crocodile farmer Mick Burns’s company for workers’ compensation insurance purposes.<\/p>\n
“So you say it’s got nothing to do with workers compensation at all?” Mr Edwardson\u00a0asked.<\/p>\n
“Not that I’m aware of,” Mr Robinson replied.<\/p>\n
The jury heard last week Mr Burns had contracted the three crews on the crocodile egg collecting mission on the day of the fatal crash.<\/p>\n
2h agoWed 13 Aug 2025 at 5:39am<\/p>\n
Afternoon tea<\/p>\n
The jurors are taking their afternoon break and we’ll be back in about 20 minutes.<\/p>\n
2h agoWed 13 Aug 2025 at 5:34am<\/p>\n
Pilot questioned about bringing alcohol to Indigenous communities<\/p>\n
Helicopter pilot Sebastian Robinson has admitted to bringing small quantities of alcohol onto Aboriginal land but says he never supplied alcohol or drugs on a commercial scale.<\/p>\n
In cross-examination, defence counsel David Edwardson KC asked Mr Robinson about flights he would do, separately to work involving Mr Wright, on Aboriginal land prior to the crash.<\/p>\n
“Do you deny that at any stage you were supplying alcohol to members of the remote Indigenous Australian groups that you would fly into?” Mr Edwardson asked.<\/p>\n
“In a commercial way?” Mr Robinson responded.<\/p>\n
“No, supplying, providing?”<\/p>\n
“There might have been the occasion I’d have a very small amount of alcohol under the seat of the helicopter, but I wasn’t supplying a commercial amount.”<\/p>\n
But Mr Robinson\u00a0denied bringing in any cannabis or other drugs.<\/p>\n
“It would be unforgivable, would it not, to supply those communities, that is, provide them, with either alcohol or marijuana?” Mr Edwardson asked.<\/p>\n
“Correct,” Mr Robinson replied.<\/p>\n
3h agoWed 13 Aug 2025 at 5:24am<\/p>\n
Matt Wright helped finance pilot’s first helicopter<\/p>\n
Defence barrister David Edwardson KC is asking helicopter pilot Sebastian Robinson about the work he did for Matt Wright in the six months before the crash.<\/p>\n
Mr Edwardson asked Mr Robinson if he did any work other than crocodile egg collecting for Mr Wright.<\/p>\n
“We’re going back a few years now, it’s a bit hard to remember but I may have done some other flying with him,” Mr Robinson said.<\/p>\n
“Maybe some corporate tours or something along them lines.”<\/p>\n
Mr Robinson says Mr Wright helped finance the first helicopter Mr Robinson bought for himself.<\/p>\n
“Mr Wright owed me quite a sum of money and I’d not been paid for quite a while,” he said.<\/p>\n
“I told him I wanted to buy a helicopter and he said he’d use that money to put down a deposit for that helicopter.”<\/p>\n
3h agoWed 13 Aug 2025 at 5:03am<\/p>\n
Defence to begin cross-examination<\/p>\n
Crown prosecutor Jason Gullaci SC has now finished his questions and the court is taking a short break before cross-examination begins.<\/p>\n
Defence counsel David Edwardson KC will begin questioning pilot Sebastian Robinson when the jury returns.<\/p>\n
3h agoWed 13 Aug 2025 at 4:58amJury hears snippets of secret recording<\/p>\n
Chopper pilot Sebastian Robinson is back in the witness box, being asked by Crown prosecutor Jason Gullaci SC about the recording of Matt Wright at the hospital.<\/p>\n
Mr Gullaci is quoting snippets of the recording attributed to Mr Wright, in which he says “no, it’s not in yours, it’s, ’cause we did that, it’s in this spot here” and “you don’t need it, if you don’t want to do it, that’s fine”.<\/p>\n
But Mr Robinson says he has little recollection of what was being discussed.<\/p>\n
The jury heard earlier Mr Wright visited Mr Robinson in a Brisbane hospital in the weeks after the 2022 chopper crash.<\/p>\n
Mr Robinson said Mr Wright asked him to “manipulate” flight hours, and went through the pilot’s phone “deleting things”.<\/p>\n
Mr Robinson was left with serious injuries in the crash, leaving him a paraplegic.<\/p>\n
4h agoWed 13 Aug 2025 at 4:08am<\/p>\n
Matt Wright\u2019s charges explained<\/p>\n
While court is on a lunch break, here’s an overview of the charges.<\/p>\n
Matt Wright\u00a0has\u00a0been charged with three counts of attempting to pervert the course of justice.<\/p>\n
The charges relate to alleged events in the hours, days and months following a fatal helicopter crash in remote West Arnhem Land which killed Mr Wright’s close mate and Netflix co-star,\u00a0Chris Wilson.<\/p>\n
Crown prosecutor\u00a0Jason Gullaci SC\u00a0has told jurors\u00a0the cause of the chopper accident is not the subject of Mr Wright’s charges.<\/p>\n
Instead, each of the charges allege\u00a0Mr Wright\u00a0tried to interfere with or obstruct ongoing investigations into the crash.<\/p>\n
1.Charge one\u00a0relates to allegations\u00a0Mr Wright\u00a0lied in a police interview about checking the fuel tanks at the scene of the helicopter crash on February 28, 2022. The evidence includes covertly-recorded conversations in which\u00a0Mr Wright\u00a0allegedly contradicts his statement about the level of fuel in the tank.2.Charge two\u00a0is tied to alleged incidents between March 3 and 13 in 2022. Among those,\u00a0Mr Wright\u00a0is accused of visiting crash survivor\u00a0Sebastian Robinson\u00a0in hospital and asking him to doctor flight log documents, to hide the true amount of hours the crashed chopper had flown.3.Charge three\u00a0relates to conversations prosecutors say\u00a0Mr Wright\u00a0had between September 21 and 25, including a midnight conversation with an associate in which he’s allegedly directed him to burn a helicopter maintenance document.<\/p>\n
For more background on the case, check out our weekend read below.<\/p>\n
4h agoWed 13 Aug 2025 at 3:41am<\/p>\n
Want to hear more on the Matt Wright case?<\/p>\n
The ABC has launched a new podcast called The Case Of, which in its first season will cover the Matt Wright trial.<\/p>\n
In episode two Northern Territory court reporter Olivana Lathouris and Stephen Stockwell\u00a0unpack the prosecution’s case against Matt Wright, and how his legal team will defend the charges.<\/p>\n
You can listen to The Case Of the croc wrangler on the ABC Listen app or wherever you get your podcasts.<\/p>\n
5h agoWed 13 Aug 2025 at 3:21am<\/p>\n
Lunch time<\/p>\n
We’ve now taken a slightly later lunch break than usual and the jury will be back in court from 2:15pm ACST.<\/p>\n
We’ll be back with more live updates then.<\/p>\n
5h agoWed 13 Aug 2025 at 3:20amPilot says trip sheets ‘fabricated’<\/p>\n
Crown prosecutor Jason Gullaci SC has pointed to a section of the recording he says contains the words “we don’t even need to fill a trip sheet out for that do we”.<\/p>\n
When Mr Gullaci asked Sebastian Robinson whether he was familiar with such a document, the pilot said they had once been used at Matt Wright’s company, Helibrook, but “not in years”.<\/p>\n
“There was a small period, from memory, with the previous chief pilot, where he showed us how to use them but it wasn’t common practice to fill them out,” he said.<\/p>\n
Mr Robinson said he had “never” filled out a trip sheet in the 12 months before the crash and denied filling out three such documents shown to him by Mr Gullaci dated early February, 2022.<\/p>\n
“That’s fabricated, I did not do that,” he said.<\/p>\n
5h agoWed 13 Aug 2025 at 3:17am<\/p>\n
What is this case about?<\/p>\n
While we continue to hear evidence, here’s an explainer on Matt Wright’s criminal case.<\/p>\n
The celebrity crocodile wrangler is facing three counts of attempting to pervert the course of justice, in relation to the aftermath of a fatal chopper crash in 2022.<\/p>\n
The helicopter accident occurred on February 28, 2022, during a crocodile egg-collecting mission on the King River, west of Maningrida, in an isolated part of the Top End.<\/p>\n
The accident killed Mr Wright’s close friend and TV co-star Chris Wilson and seriously injured pilot Sebastian Robinson.<\/p>\n
The prosecution says the fatal chopper accident is not the subject of Matt Wright’s charges.<\/p>\n
Instead, the charges relate to alleged events in the days and months following the crash.<\/p>\n
Mr Wright has pleaded not guilty to all three counts and a Supreme Court jury in Darwin is listening to a second week of witness testimonies.<\/p>\n
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The trial is being heard in the NT Supreme Court in Darwin. (ABC News: Tiffany Parker)5h agoWed 13 Aug 2025 at 2:59amCourt played secret hospital recording<\/p>\n
The jury is being played a secret recording of Matt Wright’s visit to pilot Sebastian Robinson in hospital.<\/p>\n
Like with other recordings played previously, jurors have been given a transcript to follow along and without it, it’s difficult to make out the details.<\/p>\n
After listening to the recording, Mr Robinson says he can identify Mr Wright speaking with another man on the telephone as well as his own voice.<\/p>\n
5h agoWed 13 Aug 2025 at 2:52amPilot says Matt Wright went through his phone ‘deleting things’<\/p>\n
Pilot Sebastian Robinson says Matt Wright deleted notes and text messages from Mr Robinson’s phone while he was in hospital after the crash.<\/p>\n
“He asked to go through my phone and delete a few things,” he said.<\/p>\n
“I remember looking over and seeing him holding my phone and flicking through it and deleting things.”<\/p>\n
Mr Robinson said he also “vaguely” remembers “deleting notes out of my phone” while Mr Wright was with him in hospital.<\/p>\n
“Start and stop times for [helicopter]\u00a0IDW for egg collection,” he said.<\/p>\n
“They were notes in my iPhone that I would send to him, for example, at the end of the week after a week of collecting.”<\/p>\n
5h agoWed 13 Aug 2025 at 2:35am<\/p>\n
A short break<\/p>\n
The court is taking another short break before we reconvene for the final session before lunch.<\/p>\n
5h agoWed 13 Aug 2025 at 2:34amMatt Wright asked pilot to ‘manipulate’ flight hours, jury hears<\/p>\n
Pilot Sebastian Robinson says Matt Wright asked him to “manipulate hours” by transferring flight time from Mr Wright’s\u00a0crashed helicopter to Mr Robinson’s aircraft while he was laid up in a Brisbane hospital.<\/p>\n
Mr Robinson says Mr Wright visited him in the days after the helicopter crash that killed Chris Wilson and left Mr Robinson a paraplegic.<\/p>\n
“He asked me if I would consider putting any of his hours from his helicopter onto my helicopter,” he said.<\/p>\n
“He asked if he could put hours from [the crashed helicopter] IDW to my aircraft ZXZ.”<\/p>\n
Mr Robinson says he can’t remember exactly how many hours Mr Wright wanted transferred “because I’m a bit fuzzy”.<\/p>\n
“But he said not that many, a few, something along those lines,” he said.<\/p>\n
Mr Robinson says Mr Wright had asked him to say the transferred hours were taken up with crocodile egg collecting, even though his helicopter was not set up to do so.<\/p>\n
“ZXZ was not fitted with dual hooks to sling people,” he said.<\/p>\n
“It was not used for the purpose of human external cargo and was not fitted with the equipment to do so.”<\/p>\n
Crown prosecutor Jason Gullaci SC asked Mr Robinson what he understood Mr Wright was asking him to do.<\/p>\n
“Manipulate hours on my aircraft,” Mr Robinson said.<\/p>\n
“I was still in a pretty bad way, very confused and knew something wasn’t right and I said I’d think about it, from memory.<\/p>\n
“I remember something along the lines of him saying, ‘Just have a think about it and I’ll come back and see you tomorrow.'”<\/p>\n
When Mr Wright returned to the hospital two days later, Mr Robinson says he told him he “didn’t feel comfortable doing it”.<\/p>\n
“I don’t think he was upset, from the way I remember it he sort of said, ‘That’s OK’,” he said.<\/p>\n
6h agoWed 13 Aug 2025 at 2:16amMatt Wright ‘left two specific documents’ at the hospital<\/p>\n
Helicopter pilot Sebastian Robinson\u00a0says he remembers Matt Wright visiting him in hospital in Brisbane with his wife, Kaia Wright.<\/p>\n
Mr Robinson says he doesn’t remember any general chit chat but that Mr Wright had some documents with him.<\/p>\n
“I remember laying in the bed looking down at an arrangement of documents all across in front of me,” he said.<\/p>\n
“Who was holding them when Mr Wright entered the room?” prosecutor Jason Gullaci SC asked.<\/p>\n
“I believe he was,” Mr Robinson\u00a0replied.<\/p>\n
“Ultimately, were two specific documents left in the hospital after his visit?<\/p>\n
“Yes.”<\/p>\n
Mr Robinson says his mother,\u00a0Noelene Chellingworth, then took a photograph of those documents.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"39m agoWed 13 Aug 2025 at 7:46am A recap of today’s evidence Jurors in the criminal trial of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":64621,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[48757,64,63,51713,51711,49710,48752,1116,34408,51715,48753,48754,48748,44,1098,51714,48747,1049,51712,40855],"class_list":["post-64620","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-australia","tag-attempt-to-pervert-the-course-of-justice","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-celebrity-croc-wrangler","tag-court-jury","tag-croc-wrangler","tag-darwin-court","tag-evidence","tag-matt-wright","tag-matt-wright-croc-wrangler","tag-matt-wright-in-court","tag-matt-wright-trial","tag-netflix-star","tag-news","tag-nt","tag-nt-court","tag-sebastian-robinson","tag-supreme-court","tag-tv-star","tag-witness"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64620","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=64620"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64620\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/64621"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=64620"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=64620"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=64620"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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