Sovereign citizen taunts cops from ‘superyacht’
A controversial sovereign citizen has filmed another bizarre interaction with police “harassing” him while behind the wheel of a boat.
A self-proclaimed ‘sovereign citizen’ has filmed another bizarre interaction with the police accusing them of “harassing” him while behind the wheel of a boat.
“I know that you’ve been waiting for this scenario and here funnily enough we’ve got them in the background again,” Gold Coast-based Grant Hilton excitedly tells viewers in the video, as two water police on a jet ski are seen approaching the boat, which he describes as a “superyacht”.
“Look at this. There they are down there, and they just will not stop harassing me. It’s really interesting, and I tell you what … they just want to talk to me, but do you know what? I’m really interested in ignoring them.”
He then turns to the officers and tells them he’s in the middle of recording a video.
“I don’t care, push that way,” one of the officers says. “Push that side or you’ll get a fine.”
More police are seen arriving, as Mr Hilton tells the camera it’s “perfect timing”.
“It’s really amazing, for some reason I just keep on attracting the attention of people that think they can tell me what to do on my journey,” he says.
“I’m going to give you all the details about what the truth is about the law, what the right of contracting is, in order to combat what’s happening in the world right now. Because let’s face it, everybody has had enough, including me.”
He says he just wants to “travel around the world … without being hindered or harassed by police or government”.
“Clearly they think that they own the world, but it’s not true,” he says.
“If you’re not hurting anyone or harming anyone, they have no right whatsoever to come and talk to you. They think they have some sort of authority over everyone. Do they? That’s the question I want you to all ask yourself. If you’re just cruising along minding your own business, do they have the right to even talk to you if they don’t know you?”
He adds, “I’m sure the original people of Australia and all the Indigenous cultures, this is exactly what happened with them. When they were walking through minding their own business, they had all these people come in, rape, pillage their families and a take over their land, and now they think they actually own it. They’ve got crowns on their shirts, neo-Nazi tattoo signs behind it. When will you all wake up. Let’s do it together.”
Queensland Police confirmed the incident occurred during the Pacific Airshow over the weekend.
“Water police were actively patrolling a designated exclusion zone in place for the Pacific Airshow to ensure the safety of all spectating vessels,” a spokeswoman said.
“Officers observed a vessel drifting toward the exclusion zone and informed the driver, who complied with the instruction to move away.”
According to his online bio, Mr Hilton is a former advertising executive turned “multi-millionaire mentor and innovator” who now owns a wealth management and coaching firm called KSGH Security.
Mr Hilton appeared on Seven’s Sunrise in 2010 where he discussed his life story and journey into spirituality.
“I studied with the Dalai Lama … spent time wandering through the Himalayas,” he said.
More recently he appears to have begun his “journey” as a sovereign citizen.
Sovereign citizens are individuals who are anti-government and believe laws and regulations do not have jurisdiction over them.
The sovereign citizen movement gained a huge wave of popularity in Australia during Covid restrictions.
Earlier this week Mr Hilton uploaded footage of a strange interaction with Queensland Police after being stopped for driving an unregistered vehicle.
Giving his name as “Grant Warren Hudson” in the footage, he winds down the window and hands the officer a sheet of paper, stating “you’re being served” for “unlawful detainment” and that the car is “registered under international law”.
“You are driving around with plates that don’t belong to the vehicle,” the officer tells him.
Mr Hilton insists the plates do belong to the vehicle and that his registration is “totally lawful”. “It doesn’t make sense to you, but you need to understand that it is lawful,” he says.
He adds that “everything has changed since 2020”.
“You know we are currently in martial law,” he says.
“I own every part of this vehicle. I own the plates, I own the car, and it can’t be touched or tampered with, it’s my vehicle.”
He claims that any “unlawful detainment, apprehension, or arrest” would incur a fee of $10,000 per hour.
Queensland Police later revealed he was issued four infringement notices relating to the incorrect number plates, and driving an uninsured and unregistered vehicle.
“Police have issued a 54-year-old Kallangur man with four traffic infringement notices totalling $1,484 in fines following a routine traffic stop conducted in Southport on June 22,” a Queensland Police spokesperson said.