Hoffmann trial: Alleged gunman threatened to ‘blow his head off’ in lead up to mass shooting

Ben Hoffmann regularly complained to colleagues about a man named Alex ‘pimping his girlfriend out’ and threatened to ‘blow his head off’ in the lead up to his alleged killing spree, a court has heard.

UPDATE OCT 01: ALLEGED Darwin gunman Ben Hoffmann regularly complained to colleagues about a man named Alex “pimping his girlfriend out” and threatened to “blow his head off” in the lead up to his alleged killing spree, a court has heard.

Hoffmann is facing trial in the Supreme Court after pleading not guilty to murdering four men on June 4, 2019.

Steven Barlee, who worked with Hoffmann at a roofing business prior to the killings testified on Friday that Hoffmann told him he was “going to get Alex”.

“He was going to shoot him or blow his head off, bash him with a baseball bat, there was many times, many things said,” he said.

“He made noises with his mouth that sounded like a gun and made the hand gesture and went ‘Pow, pow’.”

Then a couple of days before the four alleged murders, Mr Barlee said Hoffmann bragged about “acquiring a gun”.

“It would have been a couple of days before it all unfolded,” he said.

“(He said) he had got a gun from someone that he said old, starting with ‘J’, I didn’t quite get whether it was John or Jack or something like that, but it was along those lines.

“He said he was going to get Alex (with it).”

Mr Barlee said on the day of the shootings, he noticed Hoffmann behaving “very erratic”.

“He was running around flat out, he was quite agitated,” he said.

“He was getting cranky at other trades on site.”

In cross examination, an incredulous defence counsel, Jon Tippett QC, queried whether the other workers “kept on eating your lunch” after their colleague had just told them he was planning a murder.

“So when Mr Hoffmann then goes to lunch and announces to everybody sitting around at lunch that he’s acquired a gun, is that right?” he asked “And that he’s going to go and shoot someone, is that right?”

“We didn’t believe him,” Mr Barlee replied.

The trial continues on Monday.

EARLIER: BEN Hoffmann’s recorded interview with police has been played in his Supreme Court trial, with jurors hearing the alleged gunman tell detectives he was “totally out of my mind”.

In the interview, recorded two days after the shooting, Hoffmann also tells police he is “ashamed” and “unsure whether I can live with what I’ve done”.

“I just don’t know if my life’s worth living anymore in a way,” he tells police.

“I will give you anything you need to know to get to the bottom of this.”

In response, the investigating officers tell Hoffmann they have “more than enough evidence to charge you with four counts of murder” and it will be up to a court decide “whether you were, as you put it, out of it, at the time”.

In another interview a month after the alleged murders, Hoffmann tells officers he “feared for my life” on the night of the killings.

A knife found inside the ute Ben Hoffmann was driving when he was arrested on June 4, 2019. Picture: Supplied

“I felt as though somebody had deliberately tried to kill me that night and that ignited the fury, or the fear, in me,” he said.

Hoffmann also complains to police in the interview about “lies” in the brief of evidence against him.

“One thing that did upset me was I did go to the Peter McAulay Centre in an attempt to hand myself in and I did not have a shotgun in my hand at the time and if you do have footage at the (PMC) it will back up what I’m saying,” he says

“I’ve seen the footage and you do have a shotgun in your hand,” an officer replies.

“You’re kicking the door and you’ve got a shotgun in your right hand.”

Hoffmann responds that “the shotgun was broken” and he was “there to give myself up”.

“I was under the belief that I was being followed - by other people, not the police - that were going to get me, I wanted to get in there for my own safety,” he says.

The trial continues on Friday.

EARLIER: ALLEGED Darwin mass murderer Ben Hoffmann asked a friend for help getting a gun at least two weeks before his alleged killing spree in June 2019, a court has heard.

Hoffmann has pleaded not guilty to all charges and on Thursday, jurors in his Supreme Court trial heard from witness Jeremy Brazendale who claimed Hoffmann approached him on the street in Stuart Park some time the previous month.

“It would have been a week, maybe two weeks, maybe a little bit before that but me and a mate were walking along the road, Ben pulled up and had a quick conversation,” he said.

A shotgun found inside the ute Ben Hoffmann was driving when he was arrested on June 4, 2019. Picture: Supplied

“He asked me if I could get him anything and made hand gestures like a pistol or a gun and I said ‘Ben I’m out of that shit, see ya later’ and I walked off.”

In cross examination, a fired up defence barrister Jon Tippett QC suggested Mr Brazendale’s testimony was “quite different” to a police interview in which he had recalled being on a bicycle when the conversation occurred.

“I suggest to you that the conversation that you told us about simply did not take place and that you are a self-effacing liar,” he said.

“You didn’t have the conversation did you Mr Brazendale? You’re just a liar, aren’t you Mr Brazendale? A liar, 15 minutes of glory, a liar.”

But Mr Brazendale responded that he didn’t “remember every conversation with a junkie”.

“Mate I had about a 30 second conversation with him and I’ve got another person that can actually verify that I was there,” he said

“I don’t know if I was on a pushbike or walking, I get around a lot in Stuart Park mainly on foot.”

Mr Tippett countered by questioning whether Mr Brazendale remembered a conversation with prosecutors “where you said if you were called to give evidence you’d say that Ben Hoffmann was innocent”.

“Is that a conversation you had with the Director of Public Prosecutions?” he asked.

But again Mr Brazendale rejected the line of questioning and stuck to his story.

“What I actually said was if the police would have done their job and arrested him before that when he tried handing himself in it wouldn’t have happened,” he replied.

The trial continues.