Man’s alleged Christchurch shooting footage made to look like ‘video game’: court
A man on trial for allegedly sharing graphic footage of the Christchurch shooting has been accused of ‘trivialising’ the victims’ deaths.
A Brisbane man’s alleged additions to graphic footage of the Christchurch mosque massacre appeared to “trivialise” the deaths of all the victims, a court has been told.
Simon John Hickey is on trial in Brisbane’s District Court charged with sharing footage of Brenton Tarrant’s 2019 attack with five people using the encrypted messaging app Signal.
Mr Hickey has pleaded not guilty to five counts of using a carriage service in a way that reasonable persons would regard as being offensive.
The crown alleges Mr Hickey sent links to the self-edited video to five of his Signal contacts in March 2019.
The video, which was played to the jury, depicted graphic footage of the Christchurch mosque massacre with edited sound effects, music and texts and images.
Other messages allegedly sent by Hickey over Signal described the footage as “fun for the whole family” and bragged about turning it into a game so “everyone can enjoy killing kebabs”.
The jury has been asked to decide if a reasonable person would have regarded the content shared over Signal as offensive and if Hickey was reckless to that fact.
During his closing submissions, crown prosecutor Daniel Whitmore said what was depicted in the video “trivialised” the deaths of the victims by giving the appearance of the footage being a video game.
He characterised Mr Hickey’s video as appearing to praise or encourage the killing of those people.
“I submit the video and what is depicted in it is simply so offensive that it wouldn’t matter anyway if it was sent to someone who had some interest in that kind of material,” Mr Whitmore said.
“I suggest to you it is a video that … supports or endorses the attack and makes humorous the killing of those people.”
Mr Hickey’s defence barrister Emily Lewsey argued the links were sent to close friends of her client, including his wife, and Mr Hickey knew all of them well enough to know how they would perceive the messages.
The court was told none of the five people who were sent the links made a complaint to police.
“Because of those friendships he (Mr Hickey) knew what their reactions would be in response,” Mr Lewsey said during her closing submissions.
“They were private conversations. He knew the people very well, and he wouldn’t have sent it to them otherwise.
Ms Lewsey said the prosecution had failed to prove her client was “aware of the risk” when the links were sent
The trial continues.