Croc Wrangler: Matt Wright verdict returned after six-hour deliberation

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The jury has returned a verdict in the trial of Matt Wright.

I'm ABC court reporter Olivana Lothoris.

And I'm Stephen Stockwell.

Welcome to the case of the Kroc Wrangler.

He's one of the Territory's biggest stars.

Flashing cameras and waiting reporters as Netflix star Matt Wright fronted court.

The Territory tourism operator is facing three counts of attempting to pervert the course of justice.

This was a tragic event that took the life of the crocodile egg collector.

Mr.

Wright strenuously denies any wrongdoing.

Matt Wright, the Northern Territory crock wrangler, star of a couple of TV shows charged with three counts of attempting to pervert the course of justice in the Northern Territory, has had his verdict returned on those charges.

The jury has come back.

Ollie, it has been a dramatic day in the Northern Territory courts.

Take us through it.

Stocky, such a tense morning at the Northern Territory Supreme Court.

You know, we all arrived there pretty early this morning, and there was lots of just milling around, everybody sort of just waiting for something to happen.

And then a few hours into the morning, we got wind that the jury had a question for the judge.

And so everybody rushed into the courtroom and we heard from the jury that they had finished deliberating on counts one and two.

This is only

maybe three hours into their deliberations, but that they had become locked in this gridlock on count three

and couldn't come to a unanimous decision on that third count.

And of course we didn't know what the verdict would be on counts one and two.

We just knew that they'd finished deliberating on them.

And so the judge essentially told the jury to continue to deliberate and not to simply agree with each other unless they genuinely thought that the verdict was the right one and so they were sent away again to continue to deliberate and then a couple of hours later once again we were all rushed into the courtroom for a second time and it was revealed that still the jury were just unable to agree on that third count and so instead the judge accepted a verdict on counts one and two.

We're joined for this episode as well by Matt Garrick, a senior reporter with the ABC in the Northern Territory newsroom.

Matt, what was it like in the room as the jury was called back in?

Who was there?

What was the energy like?

Yeah, thanks, Docie.

Look, after a month-long trial, you know, you've got to know a lot of these characters over this period.

You know, you've seen them come and go from this courtroom too at the Supreme Court every day.

In that moment, when the jury came back in, everything kind of seemed to stand still for a moment in time.

And then we heard that verdict come down.

Count one, guilty.

There was an audible gasp out of Matt Wright's supporters.

We saw Matt Wright himself kind of slump back in his chair as if he'd almost been hit by something.

And then the second count, guilty.

Again, just a wave, a gasp that came out of that side of the courtroom.

And then again, silence.

It was really,

you could cut a knife through that stillness and that silence in that moment after the verdict was read.

And

the look on Matt Wright's face, I mean, you'd almost say that he didn't see it coming.

Yeah, you know, was there any other reaction outside of the slump?

Was it, you know, tears, any sort of visible emotion from Matt Wright?

In that moment, no, not essentially.

He kept a pretty straight face while the jury was still in the room.

He sat there, he looked straight ahead, and he basically stared down the verdict that was sitting there in front of him.

His family, some of the members of his family and supporters, were starting to shed tears and just kind of come to terms with the gravity of that moment.

You know, there's some of the key players from this trial who were in the courtroom today.

Mick Burbage, one of the other helicopter pilots who was involved in this saga, Danielle Wilson, the widow of Chris Willow Wilson, Zach Chellingworth, the brother of Sebastian Robinson.

I mean, they were all there watching this moment unfold.

So, you know, while on one side of the courtroom there was tears, on the other side of the courtroom, there was relief.

And in some cases, you started to see this, a sense of justice having been served.

Yeah, we had Matt Wright in this situation charged with three counts of attempting to pervert the course of justice.

The first count which he has been found guilty of was that he lied to police about how much fuel was left in the crashed helicopter during an investigation.

And the second charge, again, which he has been found guilty of, was that he attempted to move hours from the crashed helicopter to the helicopter of the pilot, a separate helicopter,

in the aftermath of this, while Sebastian Robinson, who was flying the helicopter that crashed on that day, was lying in a hospital bed in Brisbane.

And we heard the scenes of that conversation.

The third charge, where Matt Wright allegedly directed someone to destroy a helicopter maintenance record.

I mean, what happened with that charge, Ollie?

Well, this was that third charge that the jury just seemed to not be able to reach a unanimous decision on.

We didn't hear what the voting numbers are, so we don't know what the split was in the jury pool.

But the judge did just say that the jury members had made it clear that they just weren't going to be able to agree.

And in those circumstances, a verdict just simply wasn't delivered.

The first time that the jury came into court this morning and said that they were in this gridlock situation, the judge really sort of urged them to go back, listen to the recordings.

He also made mention of the transcript issue again.

He sort of said, be wary of suggestibility.

Don't just look at the transcript.

You need to try to work out for yourself what you can and cannot hear in those recordings and just sort of, yeah, urge them to just do their best to come to an agreement.

But clearly, they simply weren't able to do that.

Such a short period of time this has turned around in as well.

You know, we're talking here kind of less than a day, really, which is pretty wild when you think about how much the jury had to consider and work through

as they were doing this.

I mean, Ollie, as we spoke about briefly in yesterday's pod, you know, attempting to pervert the course of justice is a serious crime in the Northern Territory.

You're looking at a maximum sentence of 15 years for something like that.

What happens to Matt right now?

Well, this was sort of the question that you get left with after the verdict is handed down.

As Matt described, that shock that sort of reverberates through the courtroom in that moment.

And then very quickly you move to the next bit, which is what happens to Matt now.

And the prosecution were pushing for his bail to be revoked.

Matt Wright has obviously been on bail this whole time throughout this entire proceeding.

He's been walking in and out of the courtroom with his family and his supporters every single day.

But the prosecution essentially said that in circumstances where he's facing these really serious charges and he has been found guilty,

he really shouldn't be able to go.

And the defence obviously were pushing for bail to be extended.

Ultimately, because of the amount of time that it might take between now and sentencing,

it was decided that bail would be extended.

So Matt Wright was able to leave the courtroom today.

But the prosecution did indicate that they are going to be pushing for a term of imprisonment on these charges.

And obviously, what happens in regards to his sentence really remains to be seen until later in the year.

But today, he did walk out of the courtroom hand in hand with his wife, Kaya.

Pretty disappointed in the verdict.

You know, it's been a long fight, and we've got an appeal in process now, and we'll keep moving forward with this.

But, you know, it's been devastating for everyone involved.

Seeing you become emotional at any time during the course of this trial.

Emotions have been running high for the last few weeks.

What has this trial been like for you and your family?

It's definitely tough.

Very tough on the family, everyone involved.

But all right guys, that's enough for now.

We'll pick you up.

Yeah, so interesting to hear Matt Wright speaking on leaving court today.

You know, interesting day for him.

It is also his birthday.

So

mixed emotions for Matt Wright speaking outside court.

The most we've heard from Matt Wright as we've gone through this trial, you know, he didn't give evidence.

And as we mentioned in our episode, you know, no adverse inference should be taken from him not speaking

in defending himself from these charges, of which he's now been found guilty of two of them.

Ollie, can you give us a reminder of what the prosecution's key argument was in this case?

Yeah, I mean, really, this all sort of turned on this motive that the prosecution spent some time establishing, and that was really that there was this widespread practice in the aviation industry and within Mr.

Wright's business, Hellybrook, whereby flying hours on the helicopters that they owned and operated were not recorded accurately.

And the reason for doing so was to extend the life of these choppers for as long as possible to avoid having to do these really expensive maintenance checks and overhauls.

And obviously in the wake of the accident in 2022, the prosecution said Matt Wright feared investigators were going to find out about this and that he was going to be blamed for the crash because the helicopter that went down was one of those helicopters that had flight meters turned off and on and had been the subject of these dodgy practices, essentially.

And that's what the prosecution said was the motive for those three counts of attempting to pervert the course of justice.

Yeah, I mean, the evidence we've heard over the last few weeks as this has unfolded has been pretty wild.

You know, you're talking, you know, secret recordings, these pretty sordid text messages at times being shown to the jury.

If you haven't been following this case and you're joining us now, I highly recommend you jump back through the previous episodes of the case of the Crock Wrangler to catch up on some of that.

You know, Matt Garrick, we're obviously never going to know what the jury based its decision on, but I mean, what do you think were some of the stronger parts of the case for these first two charges on Matt Wright?

Well, Stocky, I think it's interesting that you pointed out the text messages and the sordid nature of a lot of them.

A lot of them came from the telephone of Sebastian Robinson.

He really was the key witness for this trial.

He was the survivor of this helicopter crash,

left as a paraplegic with a traumatic brain injury at the end of it.

And the defence really put a large amount of time in trying to prove that he was an unreliable witness, that

he'd been a cocaine user, that he was no good with his paperwork, that he really,

his family had colluded to try to come up with these allegations against Matt Wright.

What was quite extraordinary, I thought, today, was that the jury didn't believe that defense argument.

They believed Seb Robinson and they believed Seb Robinson's family as witnesses on the stand because really that second charge hinged on their evidence.

So what we heard and what we saw today was the result of that.

Seb Robinson, as a survivor of that crash, has really had his moment of justice.

We heard his brother Zach Chillingworth speak outside the Supreme Court today.

I'm reading the statement on behalf of my brother, Sebastian Robinson.

Today's verdict brings some closure, but scars of the defendant's conduct are huge and permanent.

Danielle Wilson, her boys, and Willows family lost everything on February 28, 2020.

Their lives were shattered.

And I carry the immense grief of losing my mate that day, a pain which will never leave me.

For my family and I, the trauma has been relentless.

I fought through devastating injuries and learned to live from a wheelchair.

Those wounds made worse by the defendants' cover-up designed to bury the truth about the crash.

I also faced a malicious and sustained campaign of lies aimed at destroying my reputation and that of my family, including the way the defendants ran this trial.

The jury saw the truth.

Yeah, I mean, so interesting to hear from the, you know, the families of the people who've been involved in this as well.

And I mean, you know, the crash that led to all of this, you know, while Sebastian Robinson survived that with life-changing injuries, it did lead to the death of Chris Wilson, Matt Wright's best friend, you know, someone who was in the TV shows with him.

And Ollie, as well as Matt Wright, as well as Zach, we heard from Danielle Wilson, Chris Wilson's wife outside of court as well.

We did.

It was a really emotional statement that she gave out the front of the court today.

She was holding a piece of paper, sort of reading a statement, and

it was very clear how much she was sort of trembling, shaking, trying to get

this statement out.

And the statement began with this heartbreaking tribute to her husband, Chris Wilson, and the father of their two children.

We are now approaching the fourth Father's Day that my two young sons are facing without their dads.

Once again, there will be an empty seat at the table, a constant reminder of all that has been taken from us.

That is our reality, and it is a pain that we live with every single day.

It does not go away.

In the midst of our grief, we are comforted by the fact that Willow is with God in heaven.

This has never been about theatrics, inside or outside of the courtroom.

It has been about the conviction of an individual who attempted to pervert the course of justice and in doing so denied a complete, thorough and unimpeded investigation into the crash.

An investigation that could have provided my two young sons with the answers that they so much deserve.

We've also heard from the police outside of the court as well.

That was quite a brief statement.

Firstly, I'd like to thank the judicial system of the Northern Territory and the jury.

They've done a great job and a difficult job.

My investigation team has spent three years on this job and got the result that we did.

As you heard, it's a matter for appeal now, so there's not a lot more I can say, but thank you to the media as well.

And

we'll see you at the next one.

Ollie, you know, we hear there in the statement from police that

there's an appeal likely to be coming, you know, to the conviction of Matt Wright on those two counts of attempting to pervert the course of justice.

What happens from here?

Well, the appeal process could take quite some time.

We're obviously unsure how that's going to unfold at this stage.

One of the other things that Corey Borton, the lead investigator on this investigation into Matt Wright, one of the things he said out the front of court today was that there's also going to be a coronial inquest.

So that's also another really significant proceeding that could soon be underway into that accident back in February of 2022.

Yeah, well, there's so much that still kind of has to come, I guess, in this trial.

I mean, well, the trial's done, but I guess the story around this, Lily, there's still more that's going to unfold.

When are we back in court next?

So we will be back in court on the 6th of October.

Presumably, we'll be hearing the beginnings of sentencing, submissions.

Both parties will be able to make their arguments about what kind of a punishment or penalty Matt Wright should face for these two counts of attempting to pervert the course of justice.

As I mentioned, we did hear an indication today from the prosecution that they would be pushing for a term of imprisonment.

Yeah, we're going to be back in your feed on Tuesday to wrap up this trial.

You know, the jury found their decision very, very quickly, which I

think Justice Blow is going to be very, very pleased with.

He sounded so keen to get home to Tasmania.

And, you know, there's a bit more we can share about, you know,

his desire to get this done in some of those episodes next week when we can speak with a little bit more freedom.

I mean, Ollie, what's on your mind for some of those apps?

Well, I think one of the things that really stood out

today was just the thing that was reiterated by many of the people who spoke out the front of court today was just this sort of sense of relief about this particular

long and painful chapter being over.

But for many of the people involved here, this is not over yet.

There are other proceedings which are on foot that involve CASA,

the ATSB, federal court proceedings.

There's been a lot happening outside this trial, which of course we haven't been able to speak about until now.

And now that this stage of the trial has wrapped up,

there's going to be a very long road ahead for most of the people involved in this case.

Absolutely, Ollie.

And at the side of this case, aside from the main allegations that Matt Wright was facing and has now been found guilty of, we heard hours and hours of evidence about helicopter records not being properly maintained, Hobbes meters, essentially the odometer on a helicopter being disconnected in a routine way and it being really widespread across the Northern Territory aviation industry.

We're certainly going to be trying to flesh that out with a bit more detail over the days and weeks ahead.

Yeah, absolutely.

Make sure you grab yourself the ABC Listen app so you're first in line for the episodes that we produce following the verdict.

Yeah, as Ollie mentioned, we can speak with a fair bit more freedom now the jury has reached a verdict on those two charges.

And so, yeah, you're going to want to be involved in some of them, talking through some of our reflections on the case, some of the questions we couldn't answer, and also some of the things the jury didn't hear.

There's a fair bit of interesting stuff that, yeah, we're really looking forward to share.

If you have any questions, please get in touch.

The caseov at abc.net.au is our email address.

There's a heap that have flowed in overnight since our last episode.

Please keep them coming because we'll dive into all of them when we're back in your feed next week.

The case of the Croc Wrangler is produced by ABC Audio Studios and ABC News.

It's presented by me, Olivana Lothuris, Matt Garrick and Stephen Stockwell.

Our executive producer is Claire Rawlinson and this episode was produced on the land of the Larakia Larakia and the Wuruntri people.

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