an alleged attack on an Indigenous site<\/a> \u2013 and taken into custody while the proceeding was happening on September 2.<\/p>\nThe hearing re-commenced and Sewell continued to represent himself from behind glass in the court dock, flanked by security officers.<\/p>\n
Sewell is accused of threatening to “dox” a police officer and his wife on podcasts in October and November last year, including threats to release personal information and wedding photos.<\/p>\n
“I’m working out how to dox him because those doxing laws haven’t come into effect yet,” he told a podcast.<\/p>\n
“Like his wedding photos, we’ve got it all downloaded, he’s a f***ing idiot.”<\/p>\n
The police officer gave evidence to the hearing about feeling “highly anxious” over his and his family’s safety.<\/p>\n
“I didn’t know what he was going to do with that information,” he told the court.<\/p>\n
The officer’s wife did not give evidence in person to the hearing, but her statement was handed to the court.<\/p>\n
“I felt really intimidated and threatened, I felt like we were in danger,” she said.<\/p>\n
Sewell claimed he was holding police to account and using his implied “freedom of communication” about public affairs when he spoke about the officer and his family.<\/p>\n
However, magistrate Michelle Hodgson on Friday found Sewell guilty of police intimidation and rejected his arguments, finding he had targeted the private life of the officer.<\/p>\n
“There were threats of doxing, openly contemplating circulating this material,” she told the court.<\/p>\n
“There is evidence of personal animosity and insult, calling him a f***ing asshole, and including his wife and family \u2013 that went well beyond political accountability.”<\/p>\n
She said Sewell’s comments did not constitute legitimate engagement in political discussion or communication about public affairs and police accountability.<\/p>\n
“Sewell … has sought to weaponise personal information, personal insult and public exposure to instil fear, and used a speech as intimidation rather than as political communication,” she said.<\/p>\n
Hodgson found him guilty of three charges of intimation against a police officer and their wife, which can carry a term of imprisonment.<\/p>\n
She further ruled he was guilty of two counts of contravening personal safety orders, in November 2024, and not guilty of two other offences regarding contravention of those orders.<\/p>\n
The magistrate found there was not enough evidence to prove Sewell failed to comply with police direction to hand over passwords to his devices during a warrant and found him not guilty of that offence.<\/p>\n
He will face a plea hearing on Friday afternoon.<\/p>\n
Sewell’s supporters, including Jacob Hersant, attended the court or watched online on Friday.<\/p>\n
After the ruling broke for lunch, after 1.15pm, police were seen arresting another member of Sewell’s neo-Nazi group outside the court.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A neo-Nazi leader is facing jail time in Australia after he was found guilty of intimidating police by…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":17773,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[85,67,111,43,139,69],"class_list":{"0":"post-17772","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-zealand","8":"tag-australia","9":"tag-crime-and-justice","10":"tag-new-zealand","11":"tag-news","12":"tag-newzealand","13":"tag-nz"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17772","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17772"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17772\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17773"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17772"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17772"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17772"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}