Bullied teen turned to extremism

Picked on for his weight, white supremacist loner Brenton Tarrant turned to bodybuilding, video games — and guns.

Brenton Tarrant Grafton football team

Accused white supremacist terrorist Brenton Tarrant lived as a loner nearly all his life, with acquaintances in two countries saying he had been a bullied teenager who became obsessed with bodybuilding, computer games and guns.

A childhood friend from Tarrant’s home town of Grafton, in northeast NSW, yesterday described how he was targeted as an adolescent for being overweight.

Tarrant left the small community as a young adult, travelling the world before moving to Dunedin, in New Zealand, where he gained a gun licence in November 2017 and joined a local gun club.

“We spent a lot of time together and there was a time when he was picked on pretty badly and I had to just go out of my way to have a yarn with him,” former Grafton Ghosts junior rugby league teammate Daniel Tuite said.

“Grafton can be a pretty harsh place … so if you’re overweight and a bit what some people might call useless on the field, you’re going to probably get picked on. That’s why he just kept himself to himself.”

Tarrant, 28, grew up with his parents and sister in a small cottage on Morrison Street, Grafton. Neatly painted, with chairs on the front porch and a tidy yard that backs on to fields where horses graze, it is still owned by his ­mother, Sharon, a schoolteacher, but is rented out.

His father, Rodney, drove a rubbish truck before his death at the age of 49 in April 2010. An obituary said he “died from cancer”. It was reported yesterday that the father took his own life after suffering from mesothelioma, caused by ­asbestos exposure, and that Tarrant found his body.

The death of Tarrant’s father saw him gain a financial windfall and he left the town to travel overseas about 2012.

Tarrant’s mother and sister Lauren both still live close to Grafton. They left their homes and have been talking to police but have not commented publicly since his rampage on Friday afternoon in which he used ­legally obtained weapons including semi-automatic rifles to kill 50 people in Christchurch mosques.

Neighbours at the weekend were protecting his grandmother Joyce Tarrant, who lives locally and is in her 90s.

His other grandmother, Marie Fitzgerald, told Nine News last night he spent most of his time “learning the ins and outs of computers and playing games on computers”. He returned to Grafton 12 months ago for his ­sister’s birthday. But his murderous rampage showed he had “changed completely” from “the boy we knew”, Ms Fitzgerald told Nine.

Tarrant’s uncle Terry Fitzgerald yesterday issued an apology on behalf of the family. “We are so sorry for the families over there, for the dead and injured,” he said.

Tarrant’s under-15s team of 2005 was a sea of white faces, but the coach for that year was an ­Aboriginal man. “Where we’re from, we’d never even come in contact with Muslims, really,” Mr Tuite said.

He said a knee injury, along with Tarrant’s weight, was the ­precursor to the teenager hitting the gym. “Something just changed and he got really serious about exercise and got himself in shape.”

His neighbours in New Zealand say he rapidly “buffed up” in the months leading up to Friday’s ­attack. A Dunedin hotel manager, Justin, told news.com.au that Tarrant had seemed weird and gave off a “certain vibe”.

“I was wary of him,” he said.

Security agencies around the world are now looking into the globetrotting Tarrant and his ­associations. His Facebook page was filled with photos and videos of his travels — including those taken in Central Asia, China, ­Europe and ­Africa.

One man, Pete Breidahl, has claimed to have found Tarrant as “not f..king right” when he met him at the Bruce Rifle Club near Dunedin in 2017, and was so concerned about him and others with him discussing “homicidal fantasies” that he made a ­report to police.