judicial review of his prison conditions<\/a> in 2023.<\/p>\nToday\u2019s hearing is to seek leave from the Court of Appeal for the 2022 appeal bid, which was lodged out of time. <\/p>\n
The crux of his argument before the Court of Appeal is that he was incapable of making rational decisions as a result of the conditions of his imprisonment, which he says were torturous and inhumane.<\/p>\n
![\"The]()
The Al Noor mosque in Christchurch was a target of the terrorist attack. Photo \/ Mark Mitchell<\/p>\n
Today was the first time that Tarrant has spoken at length in any forum, and he appeared via audiovisual link from prison.<\/p>\n
Since his sentencing five years ago, he\u2019s lost a considerable amount of weight and has shaved his head.<\/p>\n
He was calm and polite throughout his evidence this morning as he answered questions from the Crown about his time in prison, and how it affected his mental health.<\/p>\n
More than 60 survivors and family members of those killed by the terrorist are in court in Christchurch watching the proceedings, on an hour-long delay to the live hearing, which is taking place in Wellington.<\/p>\n
In an affidavit to the court, he claimed that he was psychotic and nearly insane while in custody, and that there would have been signs for Corrections officers to be able to see.<\/p>\n
\u201cObviously, my mental health deteriorated over time from quite early on,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Crown prosecutor Barnaby Hawes said that a special panel was convened to monitor his well-being, and put it to Tarrant that surely his allegedly distressed mental state would have been reported by Corrections officers who were monitoring him 24\/7.<\/p>\n
\u201cNo, they wouldn\u2019t want to incriminate themselves,\u201d the gunman replied. <\/p>\n
\u201cThey\u2019re not fools.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2018I always wanted to put on the best front possible\u2019<\/p>\n
Tarrant\u2019s lawyers, who met with or phoned him some 40 times while he was awaiting trial, said he didn\u2019t exhibit any signs of serious mental illness.<\/p>\n
He said that there was limited reading material made available to him in prison, and the process for requesting more books was not explained to him.<\/p>\n
The gunman claimed that when he made verbal complaints to Corrections officers about this, they said they couldn\u2019t understand him and said they were playing a \u201cmental game\u201d with him.<\/p>\n
He said he went through roughly two books per week and would request articles and content about world events from his lawyers, some of them about himself and others about things like the Notre Dame Cathedral burning down.<\/p>\n
![\"The]()
The gunman was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. Photo \/ John Kirk-Anderson<\/p>\n
Hawes said that Tarrant\u2019s lawyers have maintained that he always intended to plead guilty, and they had no concerns about his ability to understand them or make rational decisions.<\/p>\n
The gunman stressed it was their claims that he always intended to plead guilty, but that by August 2019, the prison conditions had made him change his mind.<\/p>\n
\u201cMeeting with my lawyers was probably the best time of the month for me,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
He said that when he had something to occupy his mind, his mental health would improve, but for the most part, he was deliberately masking how he was doing.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was definitely doing everything possible to come across as confident, assured and mentally well … to represent as well as possible.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI always wanted to put on the best front possible.\u201d<\/p>\n
Tarrant claimed that he wasn\u2019t always entirely truthful with psychologists assigned to assess him.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was more so at the time, trying to avoid being seen as uncertain or unsure about what decisions I was making,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
The terrorist claimed that it was always his intention to be self-represented at trial, but he only hired lawyers because Corrections refused to provide him with news from the outside world, which he claimed was essential for him to prepare. <\/p>\n
However, he kept that information to himself and didn\u2019t share it with his lawyers. <\/p>\n
Tarrant said in an affidavit that he timed his guilty plea with the Covid-19 pandemic to catch the \u201cstate and the media\u201d off-guard and to essentially \u201cfly under the radar\u201d.<\/p>\n
![\"The]()
The gunman claims the conditions in prison impacted his mental health to the point where he wasn’t capable of making a guilty plea. Photo \/ Department of Corrections<\/p>\n
Hawes said that Tarrant\u2019s \u201cnarrative\u201d relied on the assertion that health assessors, lawyers and Corrections staff had all failed to identify an \u201cobvious\u201d decline in his mental health.<\/p>\n
Tarrant responded that it wasn\u2019t possible for someone in his position to be mentally well, and that some of the reports did indicate that he was anxious and struggled with identity.<\/p>\n
Hawes said it was a contradiction that his condition should have been obvious, and that he was masking it so no one would notice.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt might be difficult for a lawyer who sees me every two weeks, but the guards and staff, it\u2019s impossible for them not to see,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe idea that they somehow didn\u2019t notice, it\u2019s impossible. It\u2019s absolutely impossible.\u201d<\/p>\n
In terms of why he waited so long to launch an appeal, Tarrant said his reasons were \u201cmultifaceted\u201d but essentially he needed to wait until he was of \u201csound mental state\u201d to proceed.<\/p>\n
He is being represented by a new team of defence lawyers, whose names are all suppressed<\/a>, who asked some clarifying questions of him at the end of this morning\u2019s evidence.<\/p>\nThe hearing continues.<\/p>\n
Jeremy Wilkinson is an Open Justice reporter based in Manawat\u016b, covering courts and justice issues with an interest in tribunals. He has been a journalist for nearly a decade and has worked for NZME since 2022.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cI did not have the mind frame or mental health required to be making informed decisions at that…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":274663,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[6375,17517,1040,4487,2562,8278,154912,25091,679,3368,154911,42,134,16718,31869,33444,1739,1362,1885,8444,43,116821,8442,61484,1361,40,38,41,39],"class_list":["post-274662","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-appeal","tag-because","tag-bid","tag-christchurch","tag-claims","tag-conditions","tag-drastically","tag-effectively","tag-forced","tag-guilty","tag-harsh","tag-headlines","tag-health","tag-him","tag-impacted","tag-insane","tag-launches","tag-made","tag-mental","tag-mosque","tag-news","tag-plead","tag-prison","tag-shooter","tag-that","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/274662","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=274662"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/274662\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/274663"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=274662"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=274662"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=274662"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}