White supremacist Jacob Hersant jailed for one month for performing Nazi salute

A “Hitler soldier” boasted outside court he was ready to go to jail for performing the Nazi salute. But when hit with a one-month stint behind bars, Jacob Hersant immediately applied for bail.

Jacob Hersant arrives at the Melbourne Magistrates’ Court on Friday. Picture: NewsWire / Luis Enrique Ascui

A “Hitler soldier” who was “ready to go to jail” after becoming the first Victorian to be imprisoned for performing a criminal Nazi salute has been immediately released upon seeking bail.

Neo-Nazi Jacob Hersant, 25, was sentenced to one month behind bars on Friday for performing the salute soon after it became a criminal offence, carrying a maximum one-year jail term.

Before heading into the Melbourne Magistrates’ Court on Friday morning, Hersant said he was ready to be locked up.

“Yes, I’m ready to go to jail because I’m a Hitler soldier and what I’m doing is right,” he said, claiming his criminal salute was a “political gesture”.

“We’re going to argue that the law is constitutionally invalid, and it’s emotional and it’s anti-white,” he said, stating he’d take an appeal all the way to the High Court.

Despite claiming he was ready for jail, Hersant immediately appealed his sentence and sought his release from custody, with Magistrate Brett Sonnet granting him appeal bail just 45 minutes after locking him up.

Neo-Nazi Thomas Sewell — on Thursday charged with police intimidation — could be seen sitting in the body of the court with other supporters for Hersant.

In granting bail, Magistrate Sonnet questioned defence lawyer Timothy Smartt on whether he resisted a non-association order.

“It sounds like the target for that is Mr Sewell,” Mr Smartt said of Sewell, who was sitting in the back row of the court.

Jacob Hersant has been jailed for one month. Picture: Luis Enrique Ascui

Mr Sonnet replied it was important his client avoid anything that could “potentially lead him into trouble” while on bail.

Hersant had faced up to 12 months jail for performing the Nazi salute to waiting media outside the County Court on October 27, 2023, soon after it became a criminal offence in Victoria.

Walking from the court that day with his co accused Sewell after they were sentenced for an attack on hikers, Hersant performed the offensive gesture.

“I nearly did it, it’s illegal now isn’t it,” he said to journalists after he performed the salute.

Hersant’s release on appeal bail on Friday followed a back and forth between Mr Smartt and Magistrate Sonnet, who ordered Hersant into custody at about 10am until paperwork for his bail bid was lodged.

“I don’t understand why he’s going into custody,” Mr Smartt said.

“There seems little utility in doing this when he’s going to be ...”

“There is every utility,” Magistrate Sonnet hit back, rejecting his call and demanding the lawyer file the paperwork if he wanted to appeal the sentence and seek bail for his client.

“I’ve given effect to a court order.”

His Honour said the standard practice for a person sentenced was to go into custody, with a bail application heard after documents were lodged.

“If the court departed from its practice, sentencing in this court would become ... almost pointless, the court announces a sentence and the accused simply walks out,” His Honour said.

“What would the general public think?”

Hersant walked from court on appeal bail. Picture: Luis Enrique Ascui

Earlier, Mr Smartt told the court that no matter who his client was, it “does not justify sending a 25-year-old to prison”.

“That’s an incorrect submission,” Mr Sonnet replied.

During his one-hour sentencing remarks, His Honour outlined the history of the holocaust, the rise of Nazi leader Adolf Hitler and the horrors committed in his name.

“The white man is not superior to any other race of people,” Magistrate Sonnet said.

Hersant could be seen smiling as His Honour made this remark.

As part of his bail conditions, Hersant was ordered not to leave Australia, not to contact witnesses and to give 24 hours notice if he moves to a new address.

His appeal bid will be heard at a later date.

Outside court, Hersant supporter and neo-Nazi leader Thomas Sewell spoke of being charged after his home was raided by anti-terror police on Thursday.

The Wantirna South man, 31, was charged with two counts of intimidating a police officer or their family member.

The raids across five Melbourne homes came amid a “day of action against the National Socialist Network”, a neo-Nazi group that Sewell leads.

Anti Defamation Commission chairman Dr Dvir Abramovich, reacting to Hersant’s one-month jail sentence, said “justice has spoken — loudly and fiercely”.

“If you salute Hitler, you’ll end up saluting the prison walls and today Jacob Hersant felt the iron fist of justice — and the Nazi salute has taken its last gasp,” he said.

Labelling the first conviction under Victoria’s Nazi salute ban as an “extraordinary moment for justice”, Dr Abramovich said it was a “major win” in his decade-long campaign to outlaw the offensive gesture.

“This isn’t just a sentence — it’s a national roar that symbols of Nazism have no place on our soil,” he said.

Of the jail term he said “one month is a start” for the offence that carried a maximum 12 months.

“Every day Hersant spends in jail is a triumph for our communities and for the memory of those who perished at the hands of this hateful ideology,” he said.