{"id":187644,"date":"2025-12-17T04:30:07","date_gmt":"2025-12-17T04:30:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/187644\/"},"modified":"2025-12-17T04:30:07","modified_gmt":"2025-12-17T04:30:07","slug":"hawkes-bay-man-deemed-a-national-security-threat-wanted-to-commit-mass-killing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/187644\/","title":{"rendered":"Hawke\u2019s Bay man deemed a \u2018national security threat\u2019, wanted to commit mass killing"},"content":{"rendered":"

His threat to kill people<\/a> came to police attention after a tip-off from the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), which had been alerted by a young American woman with whom he had been communicating for about two years.<\/p>\n

The American woman was not the girl he coerced into sending him images.<\/p>\n

Court documents say he told the young woman in America \u201crepeatedly and in detail\u201d about his desire to commit a mass killing, wanting to copy high-profile terrorist and extremist attacks to gain public notoriety.<\/p>\n

Police said he planned to target either a mall or a mosque and kill men by stabbing them. He intended this to be a suicide mission. <\/p>\n

The man\u2019s name has been suppressed through the proceedings so far, and it remains so until a hearing in January on whether his identity can be published. <\/p>\n

Crown counsel Megan Mitchell said the man, now 22, intended to target Muslim men particularly.<\/p>\n

Police searched the man\u2019s house and found two bladed weapons \u2013 a machete and a bayonet.<\/p>\n

\"TheThe man shared a clip from a video of the 2019 attack on the Al Noor Mosque on Deans Ave in Christchurch. Photo \/ Sam Sherwood<\/p>\n

A police summary of facts said the man\u2019s \u201cextremist ideologies\u201d and his wish to conduct a mass stabbing event was considered a \u201cnational security threat\u201d.<\/p>\n

When they searched his devices, police found more than 2300 files promoting the sexual abuse and exploitation of children, which he had made available on the internet.<\/p>\n

Other videos depicted necrophilia and bestiality. <\/p>\n

Material \u2018horrific, graphic and depraved\u2019<\/p>\n

Mitchell said the images and videos were \u201chorrific and graphic\u201d, showing the \u201cdepraved\u201d sexual abuse of children. <\/p>\n

Judge Richard Earwaker described the material as \u201crepugnant\u201d, causing physical and emotional harm to the children involved and helping create more demand for such material.<\/p>\n

The material the man collected included 93 hours of video. One of his devices contained more than 54,000 media files. <\/p>\n

Today, the man appeared in the Napier<\/a> District Court<\/a> after pleading guilty to 13 charges, including knowingly distributing child exploitation material, possessing objectionable publications, exposing a young person to indecent material, threatening to kill and failing to comply with a computer search.<\/p>\n

Judge Earwaker jailed him for five years and four months after allowing deductions from a nine-year starting point for his guilty plea, his youth at the time of his offending and his personal circumstances.<\/p>\n

The man was placed on the child sex offender register for eight years.<\/p>\n

Man wanted to be an \u2018edge lord\u2019<\/p>\n

Court documents show the man had multiple online profiles and wanted to be seen as an \u201cedge lord\u201d \u2013 someone who posts shocking or extreme material on the internet.<\/p>\n

He was flagged by the Department of Internal Affairs<\/a>\u2019 Digital Violence Extremism Team, which was created after the 2019 mosque shootings<\/a> in Christchurch<\/a> to combat material online that encourages terrorism and violent extremism.<\/p>\n

The police summary of facts said the man communicated on the Discord messaging app with a young woman in the United States for about two years between 2022 and 2024. <\/p>\n

\u201cThroughout their communicating the defendant had been expressing a desire to conduct a mass attack for notoriety,\u201d the summary said.<\/p>\n

This desire escalated when police searched the man\u2019s house in August 2024, and he was interviewed by the Department of Internal Affairs.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe defendant told the young woman that he planned to commit a mass stabbing attack,\u201d the police summary said.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe planned on doing the attack on the day he was due to appear in court on other charges.<\/p>\n

\u201cHis plans were to target either a mall or a mosque and kill men. He intended this to be a suicide mission.\u201d<\/p>\n

The man told the American woman he planned to use a blade or a bayonet that he had already acquired.<\/p>\n

The woman spoke to the FBI, who passed on the information to New Zealand Police on September 28, 2024. The police raided the man\u2019s home later that day.<\/p>\n

Radicalised \u2018soldier of Christ\u2019<\/p>\n

A diary page set out the man\u2019s manifesto, saying he had been radicalised at 19 and he was a \u201csoldier of Christ, his country, people and religion\u201d. A Quran was discovered in his wardrobe.<\/p>\n

One of the man\u2019s many email addresses was linked to a YouTube channel that carried a video containing anti-Islam narratives.<\/p>\n

In an affidavit to the court, the young man said that in November 2022, he posted a clip from the Christchurch mosque shooter\u2019s video on Discord, where he had been playing the game Modern Warfare Call of Duty.<\/p>\n

He said the scenes from the 2019 mosque shootings \u201creminded him of the game he had been playing\u201d.<\/p>\n

One of the representative charges of possessing an objectionable publication related to 20 media files of violent extremist content, five of which were taken from the Christchurch mosque attacks. <\/p>\n

The man said he encountered a group online known as 764, members of which threatened to make his personal information public or \u201cdox\u201d him.<\/p>\n

In a sworn affidavit, the man said he put a 15-second clip of the mosque attacks online, and was contacted by a member of 764 later, who invited him to join.<\/p>\n

He claimed that a day or two after that, he received a request from a member of 764 telling him to distribute an image that was degrading to a young person.<\/p>\n

After he refused, he said, he was sent a copy of his driver licence and internet IP address. He said the group threatened to publish those details.<\/p>\n

He said he continued to post videos on behalf of a 764 member called Neo, reluctantly, so that his personal information would not be posted online. <\/p>\n

Claims \u2018simply not credible\u2019<\/p>\n

He said he had no personal interest in the material he was sharing.<\/p>\n

Judge Earwaker, however, said the man\u2019s claims about why he distributed the material were \u201csimply not credible\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe nature and extent of the images he was downloading and distributing clearly demonstrates an interest in both child exploitation material and violent extremist material.\u201d<\/p>\n

The 764 group is an online global network engaging in criminal activities including hacking, fraud, doxing, extortion, and the creation and distribution of child sexual exploitation material.<\/p>\n

Members coerce children into performing sexual acts on camera, or making them self-harm or commit acts of animal cruelty. <\/p>\n

The 764 users collect child sexual abuse material, and gory or violent content to create digital \u201clore books\u201d, which are used as digital currency, traded and used to increase a member\u2019s status.<\/p>\n

Harmful activity<\/p>\n

Detective Inspector James Keene, of Eastern District Police, said the sentencing showed a commitment by New Zealand and overseas agencies to work effectively together to reduce the level of harmful activity.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis individual preyed on the innocence of children by distributing horrific child abuse and exploitation images online, including personally requesting explicit images from a teenager.<\/p>\n

\u201cAny threats of mass harm, such as in this case, are always of concern to Police, which is why we moved quickly to arrest this man, and sought to detain him in custody.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ric Stevens spent many years working for the former New Zealand Press Association news agency, including as a political reporter at Parliament, before holding senior positions at various daily newspapers. He joined NZME\u2019s Open Justice team in 2022 and is based in Hawke\u2019s Bay. His writing in the crime and justice sphere is informed by four years of front-line experience as a probation officer.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"His threat to kill people came to police attention after a tip-off from the US Federal Bureau of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":187645,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[1561,23999,13023,1976,11156,5158,27612,3556,111,43,139,69,2437,1555,61,5828],"class_list":["post-187644","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-bay","tag-commit","tag-deemed","tag-hawkes","tag-killing","tag-man","tag-mass","tag-national","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-security","tag-threat","tag-to","tag-wanted"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/187644","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=187644"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/187644\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/187645"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=187644"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=187644"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=187644"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}