By David Estcourt and Alex Crowe
An investigation has been launched into a possible breach of Victoria’s Nazi salute laws after a prominent Melbourne white supremacist lifted his arm in a gesture comparable to the now-banned action outside court.
Jacob Hersant will be investigated for potentially performing the Nazi salute in front of media outside Melbourne County Court on Friday, while celebrating avoiding further prison for assaulting hikers in regional Victoria.
Thomas Sewell and Jacob Hersant outside the Melbourne County Court on Friday.Credit: Con Chronis
The 24-year-old stood alongside the self-proclaimed leader of the National Socialist Network Thomas Sewell, his co-offender in the bushwalkers case, who said “Heil Hitler” as they left the court.
Hersant repeated “Heil Hitler” and lifted his arm before appearing to remember the salute had recently been outlawed in Victoria.
“Nearly did it,” he said. “It’s illegal now, isn’t it?” he said, laughing and lowering his arm.
Victoria Police said in a statement issued on Friday night that it was investigating allegations that “a man performed the Nazi salute and said Heil Hitler outside the Melbourne court.”
“We will locate and interview this person in relation to this behaviour,” the statement said.
“Police will be taking a zero-tolerance approach to any breach on the prohibition on performing Nazi salutes or displaying Nazi symbols in public.”
The Summary Offences (Nazi Salute Prohibition) Bill received royal assent last Friday, which means it has been illegal to undertake a Nazi salute in Victoria for just a week.
This is the first time an alleged incidence of a Nazi salute has been reported to police since the new legislation came into effect on October 21.
A decision to strengthen the anti-vilification laws was confirmed after a far-right protest at Parliament House in March attended by the National Socialist Network, who performed Nazi salutes on parliament’s steps before being led away by police.
Sewell and Hersant were sentenced in the County Court on Friday after pleading guilty to violent disorder against three bushwalkers who filmed the pair’s group as they gathered at the Cathedral Range State Park at Taggerty in May 2021.
The National Socialist Network at a gathering in the Grampians.
During the sentencing, Judge Kellie Blair said the pair were both young fathers who had little prior contact with the criminal justice system and their offending was at the lower end of the spectrum.
“I do not consider the offending to be directly or causally related to your political views. I accept that your offending was reactive in nature to the situation that unfolded on the day,” she said.
Blair said she believed the prospects of rehabilitation for the pair were good.
“I agree ... that the offending of each you should be seen towards the lower end of seriousness for offending of this type,” she said.
“Good luck with the future gentlemen,” she added as she left the bench.
It is the second time Sewell, Australia’s most prominent neo-Nazi, has been sentenced for violent behaviour in the last 12 months.
During a plea hearing in September, Sewell’s barrister Michael McGrath said his client had held white supremacist, far-right beliefs for a long time, and was likely to hold them into the future.
“This is a belief that he’s held for a long time, and he’s likely to have into the future, and as long as he’s not breaching the law, whether people agree with it or not, he’s entitled to have it,” McGrath said in September.
Blair’s comments prompted disbelief and stiff rebuke from extremism experts. Josh Roose, a Deakin University expert on the far-right, said his study of the National Socialist Network indicated that Sewell has for a long time held far-right and extremist ideas that are inherently undemocratic and hate-filled.
“It beggars belief that this person could be considered to have good rehabilitative prospects,” he said.
“This is someone who leads the biggest group of far-right extremists in the country … to argue that an individual with that track record has good rehabilitative prospects calls for some sort of reflection about what that actually means in practice.”
Victoria University extremism expert Mario Peucker said he was confused by Blair’s finding that the attack was not motivated by the group’s beliefs given two members were heard yelling “ANTIFA” before setting upon the car – a term he said they use to describe their political enemy on the left.
“That suggests there’s a political element in the action that unfolded,” he said.
Shadow Attorney-General Michael O’Brien said: “Rather than wishing “good luck” to these thugs, perhaps the judge should have wished good luck to the rest of the community.”
Dvir Abramovich, chair of the Jewish-Australian community group the Anti-Defamation Commission, said he expected the community would be “shocked that the prospect of rehabilitation was considered as realistic given what we have witnessed over several years”.
Sewell and Hersant both complained police were targeting them with unfair and unwarranted attention because of their beliefs. Police had been surveilling the group, members of the network and European Australian Movement, as they hiked to the peak of Sugarloaf Saddle.
The victims were attacked after filming the group in the car park. Masked group members smashed the windscreen and passenger window of the victims’ vehicle, threatening them with knives. Hersant reached into the car in an attempt to keep it from leaving, the court heard.
The driver of one of the cars drove into a rock while trying to escape, before restarting the car and dialling triple zero.
Blair said Sewell’s DNA and fingerprints were found on the VW, as was Hersant’s DNA, and that Hersant had been identified by a victim. Blair accepted they had not been wearing face coverings and had not been armed with knives.
“All the occupants of the car were in fear of being assaulted or killed,” she said. Sewell was sentenced to a month and seven days’ jail over the incident and Hersant to three days and an 18-month community corrections order with 200 hours of community work.
They walked free immediately with time served, hugging and congratulating each other as they left the dock. Timothy Lutze, previously a director of Legacy Boxing Gym in Sunshine West, a venue that has held multiple gatherings of neo-Nazis, also attended court on Friday.
At the time of the violent disorder offence, Sewell was on bail over an attack on a security guard outside Channel Nine’s Docklands headquarters before an A Current Affair broadcast a segment about his group in March 2021.
Sewell was later found guilty of that attack and placed on an 18-month community corrections order with 150 hours of community service.
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