A court heard Thomas Sewell has long held white supremacist beliefs, but a judge sentencing him over an assault on hikers said he had good prospects of rehabilitation.
Prominent Melbourne neo-Nazis Thomas Sewell and Jacob Hersant have avoided further prison for assaulting hikers in regional Victoria, with a judge wishing the “gentlemen” good luck as she left court., and co-offender Hersant, 24, were sentenced in the County Court 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.
Blair said she believed the prospects of rehabilitation for the pair, who said “Heil Hitler” outside of court, were good. 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 retain 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,” he said.
Police had been surveilling the group, members of the NSN and European Australian Movement, as they hiked to the peak of Sugarloaf Saddle.Masked group members smashed the windscreen and passenger window, threatening them with knives. Hersant reached into the car in an attempt to keep it from leaving, the court heard.