By Perry Duffin and Christopher Harris
The leader of Australia’s neo-Nazis has been stopped by police at a Sydney train station and ordered to stay away from the city’s Australia Day events.
Thomas Sewell, 30, is the self-appointed leader of the National Socialist Network and a violent criminal who was among a group that attacked three bushwalkers in Victoria in 2021.
Police question a man at North Sydney station on Friday afternoon.Credit: Sydney Morning Herald
He was among a group of dozens of black-clad men detained at North Sydney station. Some were pictured wearing balaclavas when they were detained by police on the train.
Officers swarmed the station and detained the men, warning they would be formally arrested if they did not co-operate.
Thomas Sewell is served with an order prohibiting him from entering the City of Sydney outside North Sydney station.
Sewell posted videos on his encrypted chat on Friday afternoon showing NSW Police serving him with a legal order banning him from going to any Australia Day events in the City of Sydney.
“I believe your presence in the Sydney City local government area poses a serious risk to public safety,” a senior officer, reading from a card, says to Sewell in one video.
“This is based on your ideological links, including your associates, your previous attendance and ideologically motivated public order incidents, your criminal history of assaulting members of the public and your goal of intimidating and provoking people.”
A man is escorted from North Sydney station on Friday.Credit: Sydney Morning Herald
Sewell uploaded a second video in which he approaches a Nine News camera crew filming the confrontation with police.
Sewell described himself as a “proud white Australian” to the media crew and said his group was planning their own protest in the city – but could no longer attend.
Police escort a man out of North Sydney station on Friday afternoon.Credit: Sydney Morning Herald
After the men were released by police, they gathered in a nearby park where they waited for others to leave the station.
Sewell claimed there were 70 of them, most of whom were from Sydney while some had travelled interstate.
“They have searched us one at a time and said if we didn’t comply they were going to arrest all of us,” he said.
Sewell said they were going to celebrate Australia Day “somewhere else”.
Among those who joined the group in Sydney were members of the group’s Tasmanian cell, Tasman Forth. The nascent group has previously engaged in white supremacist activism in Hobart and Launceston.
Police later confirmed in a statement that officers from North Sydney Police Area Command, with the Public Order Riot Squad and Police Transport Command, attended the incident after being alerted to “a group of heavily disguised people” boarding a train at Artarmon.
Police arrested six people who were taken to Chatswood Police Station. A further 55 men were issued Rail Infringement Notices for offensive behaviour. Two men have since been released and issued infringement notices for offensive behaviour.
NSW Premier Chris Minns has condemned the group of people following the police operation.
“Normal people don’t celebrate Australia Day with a balaclava on,” Minns said.
“Due to great police work millions of Aussies were able to celebrate and come together without a potentially ugly confrontation. There is absolutely no tolerance for this behaviour.”
Executive Council of Australian Jewry’s Alex Ryvchin said it was a shocking display.
“This incident reminds us how fragile our social order is and the need for vigilance in the face of violent movements intent on spreading lies, hatred and fear,” he said.
Sewell was spared prison time early last year for assaulting a security guard outside Nine’s Melbourne office.
He and a fellow neo-Nazi, Jacob Hersant, had been trying to talk to producers working on an A Current Affair program about his group.
The guard had been racially abused by Hersant.
Sewell had been supported by far-right extremists in court and performed a Sieg Heil salute as he left.
Hersant also pleaded guilty to assaulting the bushwalkers in 2021 and has spent this week spreading anti-Jewish conspiracy theories across his own channels.
Thomas Sewell and Jacob Hersant (right) outside the Melbourne County Court in September.Credit: Con Chronis
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