Croc Wrangler: Chopper pilot’s epic four-day examination

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The pilot of a fatal helicopter crash testifies against his former employer and idol TV star Matt Wright.

I'm ABC court reporter Olivarna Laforis.

And I'm Stephen Stockwell.

Just a warning, there are drug references, strong language, and adult themes towards the end of this episode.

Welcome to the case of the crock wrangler.

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

Flashing cameras and waiting reporters.

As Netflix star Matt Wright fronted quarters.

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, who is the star of two TV shows, is incredibly well known in the Northern Territory, especially around Darwin, has been charged with attempting to pervert the course of justice.

The allegation is that he tried to get in the way of an investigation into a helicopter crash that killed his best mate and paralysed the pilot while they were out collecting crocodile eggs in the Northern Territory.

The allegation is that he was worried he'd be blamed for that accident.

In this episode, the pilot.

This is Sebastian Robinson.

He's the pilot that that managed to miraculously survive this catastrophic helicopter accident and over four grueling days he gives evidence about what he can and can't remember about the days leading up to the accident the day of the accident itself and the days and weeks afterward Ollie we're going to spend this episode talking about Sebastian Robinson Where are you going to take us?

We're going to be unpacking four days of evidence, talking about how it was that Seb Robinson came to be working for this TV star, Matt Wright, what it was like working in the industry at the time, the day of that catastrophic accident.

We'll also be talking about just how badly he was injured and how hard it was for him to give evidence, but also some of the more surprising moments in the courtroom, including a lot of talk about cocaine and some interesting interactions between the judge and the jury.

Thank you, Ollie.

Zeb Robinson, such an important witness in the trial of Matt Wright.

I mean, as we've talked about, Matt Wright, charged with attempting to defer the course of justice, three different counts, all to do with his alleged interference into the investigation of a helicopter crash in the Northern Territory in February 2022.

And in this episode, someone central to that, Sebastian Robinson.

You know, tell me about this guy.

Who is he?

Zeb Robinson is is this young guy.

He dropped out of high school at 16 to go pursue this career in this exciting, risky industry of flying helicopters, doing cattle mustering from the sky,

adventuring across the Northern Territory.

And then he manages to land a job with one of the biggest figures in this industry, Matt Wright.

He was a TV star at the time.

Everybody wanted to work for him.

And Seb Robinson was one of those people.

He was a pilot working for Matt Wright and as he told the court he felt really lucky to be in that position and he really wanted to do anything that he could to impress Matt Wright and to do as he said essentially.

And Ollie, that kind of goes to sort of what is in the middle of this.

You know, it's not even allegations at this point, it's agreed facts that, you know, Matt Wright was tampering with the amount of time that his helicopters were in the Air Force, you know, trying to like fudge the numbers basically on how much flight time his choppers had.

And we heard from Sebastian Robinson that he was he was doing that for him.

Yeah Mr.

Robinson definitely talked about the fact that it was very common for him to hop in a chopper that was owned or operated by Matt Wright and for the flight meter, the Hobbes meter to be disconnected.

He also said it was very common for pilots to under-record their flying hours and he said this was something that he did because it was something he was shown and told to do and he wanted to do as Matt Wright said and you know wanted to impress him so he didn't argue and that that was just the standard practice while he was working for Mr.

Wright.

Yeah, I mean, you've got Matt Wright, he's the star of these TV shows.

He's flying helicopters around the Northern Territory, over crocodiles, over all this sort of incredible country.

And as Seb Robinson talks about,

people wanted to work for him.

They wanted to do, they wanted to be around him in his kind of orbit.

You know, there's even been conversations about his aura that he kind of projects.

So you can sort of see,

you know, how Sebastian Robinson ended up in this position and doing this for Matt Wright.

And I mean, we've talked about the helicopter crash a little bit.

You know, there's no suggestion that Matt Wright is in any way involved or responsible for that crash.

Seb Robinson, the only person who was there who really has a story that can tell us about what happened to that.

But, you know, the kind of challenging thing with this is that he actually doesn't remember anything about the crash, right, Ollie?

Exactly.

He's the sole survivor of this accident.

And of course, we know that other witnesses visited the scene, but Seb Robinson is really the only person who could have known exactly what happened in those moments where this helicopter crashed, which is really still a mystery in this case.

But as you say, he was catastrophically injured.

And he told the court about his injuries.

It was actually a really

gut-wrenching moment in the court.

He was asked to describe his injuries to the court and he said, I can do that, but it still makes me really upset.

And he sort of listed off this incredible list of injuries.

You know, to be honest, it just sounded like he broke every bone in his body.

Among the more serious ones was a severed spine.

He broke his neck.

He punctured both of his lungs, so he had significant internal bleeding.

And he also suffered a permanent brain injury.

And he told the court that that's meant that he suffers with short and long-term memory loss.

He struggles with controlling his frustration.

He struggles expressing himself sometimes.

And the really sort of poignant moment was when he just said, I don't, I don't even feel like the same person now than what I was before that accident.

So absolutely, the memory of what happened, not just in that moment, but the days and weeks before and after, have really been affected, he said.

And that was something that was really central to the evidence that he gave over those four days.

Yeah, you know, I remember him talking about kind of his his memory in the lead up to the crash.

And he's, you know, he's not able to describe, you know, a full scene.

He's like, I see flashes.

Like, I kind of remember being at this fueling station.

I kind of remember being here, but I get, it's not a full memory.

Like, it's just these kind of scenes that he's able to put together in his mind.

And, you know, you talk about his injuries, you know, really quite confronting to hear.

You know, Sebastian Robinson, really badly injured after that helicopter crash.

The crash resulted in the death of Chris Wilson, who was Matt Wright's best mate, co-star in these TV shows.

You know, he died after being disconnected from the helicopter when it started to crash.

But again, you know, Sebastian Robinson, he doesn't remember doing any of that either, right, Ollie?

No, that's exactly right.

And he, you know, he was asked about this.

Of course, Chris Wilson was hanging from a line below this helicopter.

He was the crocodile egg collector on that day.

Sebastian Robinson was the pilot.

And there is a function where the pilot can disconnect the collector.

And

he doesn't remember doing that, but he accepted that that is what he would have done.

And this was part of sort of emergency procedures should there be an engine failure or something else going wrong.

And when he was asked about why you might do that, he said in these circumstances where they were flying in an area where it wasn't just low shrubbery, we're talking about quite dense bushland, very tall trees, and you're supposed to really be slung or hung a certain level above the tallest tree in the area.

So if you've got,

you know, 25 foot trees, you know, we're talking about quite a significant distance above that he would have been hanging.

But a witness said he would have released Chris Wilson because, you know, he would have run the risk of swinging.

Chris Wilson into trees.

You know, if he lost control of this helicopter, Chris Wilson, who's hanging on this line below the chopper,

the term he used was could have been ragdolled down to the ground.

So he's accepted that, yes, he would have disconnected Chris Wilson in an attempt to try to minimize his injury and, of course, to avoid potentially the chopper crashing directly on top of him when it hit the ground.

Yeah, I think, you know, Seb Robinson describing kind of you're not wanting to drag Chris Wilson through the undergrowth, you know, as you say, ragdolling him.

Oh, God, yes, yeah, how horrifying.

I mean, Sebastian Robinson, you know, really badly injured following this crash.

He's in a wheelchair now.

He has a traumatic brain injury, you know, so many different broken bones during that crash.

But, you know, you talk about how he describes himself as a different person, Ollie.

How was he in the witness box giving evidence?

So he didn't actually appear physically in the courtroom.

He was beamed in via a Teams link, like an audio-visual link, from a different room.

He was seated in a wheelchair.

He had a support person with him to help him go through all the various documents that he was being handed and asked about.

And the court had to break every 30 minutes to just give Mr.

Robinson an opportunity to have just these short five-minute breaks.

And that is because of the injuries that he suffered as a result of that accident.

So that really just goes to show the really the lifelong impact that this crash has had on his life.

Yeah.

And I mean, in our last episode, Ollie, we heard about Sebastian Robinson being evacuated from the crash site by CareFlight.

You know, eventually he ends up in hospital in Brisbane.

And it's at this point where he gets a visit from Matt Wright.

Matt Wright, again, he's the guy at the center of all this, charged with attempting to pervert the course of justice because of what he allegedly did following that helicopter crash.

Ollie, what's he doing?

at hospital with Seb.

So this is 11 days after this helicopter goes down.

When you think about the injuries that Seb would have been suffering at this time, you can imagine, and he told the court, he painted the picture, he said, I was in a neck brace, I had to have this sling to help me get out of bed.

So he's really just, he's lying in hospital.

He would have been, of course, in a huge amount of pain, so he's heavily sedated with drugs.

And 11 days after this crash, Matt Ride goes to visit him in hospital.

And it's this visit, this initial visit, that is really at the heart of count Count Two.

And if we cast our minds back to those three individual counts of attempting to pervert the course of justice, they each relate to things Matt Wright allegedly did to get in the way of this investigation that was happening into the crash.

So this visit to Sebastian Robinson is really at the crux of Count Two.

And what we heard throughout Sebastian Robinson's evidence was during that visit,

while he doesn't have a crystal clear memory of that time, he remembers Matt Wright coming coming to his bedside holding a bunch of documents and he said he couldn't quite make out or remember what the documents were.

But he recalls Matt Wright asking him to transfer flying hours from one helicopter to another.

And the two helicopters he's talking about are ZXZ, that's Sebastian Robinson's personal, his own helicopter, and IDW, that's the helicopter that crashed.

So he told the court he remembers Matt Wright asking him whether he would move a couple of hours from the records of one chopper onto another.

Sebastian Robinson at this point, you know, as we've been talking about, lying in a hospital bed,

he has memories kind of like, kind of, I guess kind of fragmented in these points.

But

he also remembers, I think, have I got this right earlier, he remembers looking over and seeing Matt Wright also like scrolling through his phone and like, I mean, is he deleting stuff?

What's going on there?

Yeah, this was another thing that he said he has a memory of.

He said he remembers seeing his mobile phone in Matt Wright's hands, and he said Matt Wright was sort of scrolling through and deleting things from it.

He was also asked by the prosecution whether he himself deleted anything from his mobile phone, and he said that he did.

He told the court he deleted a couple of notes

which had start and stop times of flying hours related to other egg collecting missions.

So Seb Robinson was involved in a number of these crocodile egg collecting missions in the past, and he had made some notes about how long he was flying during those

missions and he'd kept them on a notes page in his phone.

So he said he deleted those as well as some text messages pertaining to a similar thing between him and Matt Wright.

And the prosecution asked, why did you do that?

And he told the court, I panicked.

I panicked, I was scared.

The words he used was, I didn't know who to trust.

And he just deleted a bunch of stuff from his phone.

So it's almost like this, yeah, this panic response to the idea that this crash was going to be investigated.

I mean, important to remember as well at this point that Chris Wilson wasn't just Matt's friend.

He was Seb's friend as well.

And so Seb Robinson has woken up from a coma and been told, you're not going to walk again.

And also, your friend who was hanging out of the helicopter you were piloting has died.

Given that, Sebastian Robinson told the court that, yeah, he was in a panic state and decided to just frantically delete some things off his mobile phone.

Yeah, Ollie, it would have been such a confronting just time for any of the people involved in this trial and this event.

And, you know, Matt Wright doesn't just visit Sebastian Robinson once.

He goes into a hospital a couple of times, and we know he's there again because on the second visit, we have a recording of that conversation that was played to the court.

I mean, What's in that recording?

Yeah, so we had the first visit from Matt Wright Wright 11 days after the crash.

And then Seb Robinson told the court that Matt Wright sort of said, I'm going to come back, you know, you think about it.

Think about whether or not you want to do this transferring flight hours and I'll come back and see you in a couple of days.

So he comes back two days later and asks again whether Sebastian Robinson would consider moving these flight hours from one record to another.

And during this visit, there's a recording that is taken by Sebastian Robinson's uncle.

And that was played to the court.

And so this is a recording that's taken off someone's mobile phone.

And you can just sort of hear little snippets of conversations,

you know, a few mentions of training hours, for example.

But ultimately, Sebastian Robinson was asked, did you agree to this request that Matt Wright allegedly made of moving flight hours from one shopper to another?

And he said that he said no, he refused.

He said he felt something wasn't

And so he didn't agree to do this.

Aaron Ross Barrett, such an interesting scene, Ollie.

And I mean, you know, we've got one recording here.

There's a couple more sort of secret recordings that we'll hear throughout the rest of this trial as well.

And I mean, Sebastian Robinson

was in the witness box for four days.

He's examined by the prosecution in this time.

They take it through, and then he's cross-examined by David Edmondson, the defense barrister.

This is Matt Wright's side, basically.

And during this cross-examination, we start hearing these stories about times that he had allegedly taken alcohol into prohibited communities, First Nations communities where you're not allowed to take alcohol into.

And also,

these messages about him trying to source cocaine for friends.

Yeah, this was a really large portion of the cross-examination by David Edwardson of Sebastian Robinson.

You know, we went through a whole series of text messages in which there's references to bags,

cocaine.

There was one reference where, you know, the text message read something like,

footy boys are in town and looking for bags.

Seb Robinson said, I don't remember what that was about.

David Edwardson said, would this help?

Was it Richmond?

And he said, nope, that doesn't help me.

But, you know, eventually, you know, he agreed that he was discussing procuring illegal drugs

and the defence also tended this USB with 11 video clips on it these sort of couple of second clips that showed

things like Sebastian Robinson with a friend of his who he said was a ranger from up in Arnhem Land, an Aboriginal man,

where he can be seen sharing alcohol and they're sort of laughing about being high.

And so he was asked over and over again about his use of illicit drugs.

And in particular,

how he came to have metabolites in his system, which indicated cocaine use at the time of the accident.

So this is something we're expecting to hear more about.

But Sebastian Robinson did have metabolites in his blood that indicated he would have consumed cocaine at some stage.

And he was asked about this party that he went to two days before the helicopter goes down

where he's alleged to have consumed drugs but Sebastian Robinson said he does not remember being at that party or consuming drugs at that party.

Yeah and one of the things that's come up during the examination and cross-examination of Sebastian Robinson is this conversation about like trafficking drugs.

And you know at the start of this he was like no no no I never trafficked drugs like I would occasionally you know get drugs for my friends.

And Justice Blow had to explain to him that that's what trafficking drugs is.

If you are supplying drugs to someone, you are trafficking drugs.

And then he had to sort of go, oh, okay.

Well, in that case, I accept that I was trafficking drugs.

But we also, Ollie, you know, in some of these messages around cocaine use, and, you know, we'll give a content warning here because this gets into some pretty adult themes.

There were some pretty interesting messages tended from, I mean, what we can assume are maybe Sebastian Robinson's friends.

There were some rogue messages that got read to the court.

It's very jarring hearing senior lawyers talking about sniffing cocaine and using some of the foul language that was used in some of these messages.

But one of the messages that was downloaded off Sebastian Robinson's phone was from a friend.

And it was in this exchange where Sebad texted him saying something like, I can't come down on Monday, I'm sick as a dog, or something to that effect.

And his friend then responded in a text message saying, Been snorting too much cocaine out of Maddie's ass, bro.

And listening to a lawyer read a text message like that out, it was this moment where everyone just, everyone's eyes were just sort of like, oh, okay, we're all awake now.

And during re-examination, that was actually clarified.

Jason Galachi

sort of asked the witness, he said,

did you, Mr.

Robinson, ever snort cocaine out of Matt Wright's ass?

And the witness responded, no.

And then Jason Galachi, who I'm not sure if he was just trying to have a bit of fun, but he said, is that something that would excite you, Mr.

Robinson?

And you could just see Sebastian Robinson's face, you know, deadpan on the other side of the screen saying,

absolutely not.

And then it continued on.

There was more questions.

It was, did you ever give a blowjob to get cocaine?

No.

What about a wristy Mr.

Robinson?

No.

It was just an incredible exchange.

And let me tell you, there were a few giggles in the courtroom from the jury.

Matt Wright himself was trying very hard not to laugh.

It was, yeah, quite an amusing exchange and jarring in the context.

Yeah, in increasingly technical terms from the prosecutor, Jason Galachi, SC.

I mean, speaking of Matt Wright-Ollie, he obviously comes up a lot in the evidence of Sebastian Robinson.

And we heard the reason that he actually wasn't flying the helicopter on the day of the Crocodile Eagle Collecting Mission was because he couldn't fly into Arnhem Land because it was a First Nations community and he wasn't vaccinated.

This was 2022.

You know, COVID was a real concern.

There were a lot of restrictions around what people could and couldn't do.

And if you weren't vaccinated, you weren't able to fly into these places, which is why he wasn't out there that day flying this chopper in the first place.

But we also heard from Seb Robinson that this wasn't the first time this had been an issue with those flights.

No, that's right.

You know, Matt Wright wasn't necessarily involved in every single egg collecting mission that he was contracted to do, but he certainly did that work.

And of course, you know, just when we all thought we were done talking about COVID-19,

COVID restrictions made their way back into this trial.

But yeah, he was asked about, you know, why wasn't Matt there?

And Sebastian Robinson said, plain and simple, he just said, because he was an anti-vaxxer.

And it was talked about that Matt Wright had not been vaccinated for COVID-19 and therefore could not fly into those protected areas.

And of course, in the Northern Territory, there was a huge concern that COVID-19 was going to get into communities that were really vulnerable to something like COVID.

And so, you absolutely were not allowed to go anywhere

where

that was a risk.

And so, Mr.

Robinson was asked about whether or not that had meant he was flying IDW, that chopper, more regularly, and whether or not he was doing more of this egg collecting work in Arnhem Land.

And he told the court he was doing more of this work because Matt Wright couldn't enter Arnhem Land, which is where they were doing a lot of this egg collecting.

Yes, where all the crocodiles are.

So where all the crocodile eggs are, I guess.

And I mean, the fact that Matt Wright couldn't fly these helicopters, like that, that sounds like it had been a bit of a source of tension, right?

Yeah, Sebastian Robinson had talked about the fact that he was looking to sort of sever ties with Matt Wright.

He was looking to get out of his business around the time that this accident occurred.

And during re-examination by Jason Galachi toward the end of Mr.

Robinson's evidence, he was asked about this quote-unquote significant event that happened around a month before the accident.

So this is Australia Day 2022.

And he told the court that he and a number of other pilots, including Nick Burbage, who was a witness earlier in this trial because he was there during the egg collecting mission on the 28th of February.

He said that he and these other pilots were doing some other egg collecting work on Australia Day.

And he said that while they were out collecting, there was a quote-unquote mother of a monsoon coming toward them.

And so he said

he made the call that the weather was just too unsafe to continue this egg collecting mission.

He said that Mick Burbage agreed with him.

So they pull out of this mission.

And they said that they go to a nearby pub and they just go get a feed and a beer instead.

And he said that when Matt Wright found out that they had pulled out of the mission, he called Seb Robinson.

The witness was asked, you know,

how did that news go down with Matt Wright?

And he said, and I give a language warning here.

He told the court that Matt Wright said, what the fuck are you doing?

Get on with the job.

Get back out there.

And Jason Galachi asked, and how did you respond to that when Matt Wright?

told you to get back out and continue on.

And Sebastian Robinson's response was, and again, I give a language warning, I told him to get fucked, get vaccinated and fly his own helicopter.

And once again, there was quite a few giggles in the courtroom to that response.

But yeah, so again, this was something that had been a source of tension, clearly, in the past.

Yeah, and you know, hearing just how candid people are on occasion in a courtroom environment is often quite jarring.

So I can understand the

looks and maybe some of the giggles in the courtroom in that moment.

Ollie, I want to talk a bit about the cross-examination style.

So we have David Edwardson, SC, is the defence barrister for Matt Wright.

He has been, you know, he's been challenging Sebastian Robinson.

It's his job, right?

He's got to check bits and pieces of this story.

But, I mean, how has Sebastian Robinson coped with that?

Sebastian Robinson gave evidence over four days and a large portion of that was cross-examination.

Of course, you know, things took longer because of those 30-minute breaks that the court was taking.

But certainly David Edwardson

was relentless in his cross-examination of Sebastian Robinson.

It's clear that Mr Robinson is a really key witness in this case.

if not one of the most important witnesses in this case.

So it's unsurprising that both sides took a long time to go through his evidence sort of with a fine-tooth comb.

But David Edwardson was really testing Sebastian Robinson's memory.

Of course, we'd heard time and time again Mr.

Robinson saying, I've got a brain injury.

I don't remember things clearly.

I can't remember this.

I can't remember that.

But this also came up in terms of just being able to keep up with the actual proceedings happening in court.

And there were multiple times during cross-examination in particular where Mr.

Robinson would say to Matt's lawyer, can you slow down?

I don't understand this line of questioning, getting confused about where they were in terms of looking at particular documents or different texts.

And at one point where David Edwardson was questioning him about something and the witness didn't have the transcript or the document in front of him about what Mr.

Edwardson was questioning him about.

And he said he was getting confused.

He said, I don't have the transcript.

I don't know what you're referring to.

And David Edwardson got quite frustrated.

He said, well, you were able to answer questions by the prosecution when you didn't have a transcript.

Has something changed?

And again, Seb Robinson said, I am struggling with a brain injury.

He said he did feel like he was under a bit of pressure.

You know, by this point, he'd been going for hours.

And so, yeah, there was definitely moments where

there were definitely moments of tension, particularly toward the end after being on the stand for such a long time.

Yeah, I mean, four days, a long time to be giving evidence when you don't have a traumatic brain injury, when you're not giving evidence from a wheelchair and talking about the death of one of your mates and a helicopter crash you were involved in.

Some of this stuff is really heavy, as we've talked about in this episode.

Other parts of it are like, you know, quite light.

There is this, as we've kind of found in the trials we've covered on the case of

this levity, the light and dark that you get through the trials.

I mean, we've seen moments of the jury asking questions of Justice Blow, asking for certain things, photos of different places, and he said to say, oh, no, no, you need to wait.

You're not going to get that just yet.

You have to wait for the prosecution to pop it up.

I'm just wondering, you know,

how he's going.

He's an acting judge.

He's in a different spot.

How's he managing the jury?

One of the funny things that has come up a few times is they must do things differently down in Tasmania, where Acting Justice Blow originally is from.

But one of the things has been,

you know, everyone will come into the courtroom and the way it works in the Northern Territory is everyone will be ready to go.

So all the lawyers will be at the bar table.

They knock three times.

the judge comes in and then the judge will make sure that the lawyers don't want to say anything first or raise any issues first and then they'll bring the jury in.

I think the way things work in Tasmania is everyone sort of comes in at the same time.

And so there've been a few sort of funny moments where there's just been this long, awkward silence.

And one of the lawyers will say, Your Honor, the jury.

And Acting Justice Blow will say, oh, sorry, the jury, of course, we need to bring the jury in.

We can't do anything without the jury.

And so, yes.

And he has also said that he has quite bad peripheral vision.

So sometimes he forgets whether they're even there or not.

So yeah, it's been quite amusing.

There's been

a few of those little moments at times.

I find those courtroom dynamics as a court reporter so entertaining, like the dynamics between the lawyers, lawyers, between the judge and the jury.

I think sometimes we think of courtrooms as being these really sterile, boring places, but the courtroom dynamics are a fascinating, fascinating thing to watch.

It's the whole purpose behind the case of Ollie is to get us into these rooms and hear about these wonderful little moments and little procedural gems that emerge throughout, you know, what is often really heavy reporting and really heavy detail that comes up through all this.

So I really appreciate appreciate you taking us into the room and giving us these little gems.

I'd love to get some questions from our audience.

You can get in touch with us, the caseof at abc.net.au.

If there's things you're not sure about, if there's questions you want answered, please get in touch and I will throw it straight at Ollie, sometimes without notice, and see how she rolls through with them.

So I want to go into one here, Ollie, from Delhi.

Delhi says, hello, long time listener, first time emailer, absolutely loved Mushroom Case Daily and had a particular interest as my sister-in-law is Christine Mackenzie of iNaturalist fame.

If that name rings a bell and you listen to a lot of Mushroom Case Daily, there you go, little Easter egg.

If you didn't, go back and listen to a lot of Mushroom Case Daily and that'll make sense.

Deli says, I live in Melbourne, but I'm currently on holidays in Darwin.

I'm very interested in this new court case.

I attended court last week and felt very privileged to be able to briefly chat to Olivana.

What a delight she is.

And that is where we will leave that question.

Moving right along.

That's it.

You've, you know, your check's in the mail, Deli.

No, Deli's question is, the witness on the days that she was there was Mr.

Robinson, who was in a wheelchair, but he was not physically in the courtroom, but video streamed in from another room, I believe, in the Darwin area, possibly the Supreme Court itself.

Surely the court has adequate disability access.

Is this therefore due to another particular reason, or is it witness choice?

This is a great question.

So my understanding of the situation was that Sebastian Robinson ideally would have given evidence in person in the courtroom, physically been able to be there in the courtroom.

The Northern Territory Supreme Court does have disability access.

There are ramps in the courtroom.

However, there are a few steps inside the courtroom that this trial is being heard in to get up to the witness box.

And there was an accessibility slash logistical issue because in particular Sebastian Robinson needed to take these breaks every 30 minutes.

There would have been an issue with having to get him on and off the stand, you know, at such frequency because of the breaks that they were taking.

And so because of that, it was decided that he was going to give evidence remotely.

So while there is accessibility in the courtroom, clearly there is still some work to be done in terms of making sure that witnesses, if they want to, can give evidence in person.

Yeah, absolutely, Ollie.

Great question, Deli.

Thank you for getting in touch.

The caseof at abc.net.au.

And we have another email here, Ollie, from Pelly.

Different person to our previous emailer, Deli, because Pelly is emailing from Salt Spring Island in British Columbia, Canada.

Pelly's email is, hi, stocking and Ollie.

I got really stuck into Mushroom Case Daily from the start.

I have a question for you and Olivana about this new case.

How is crocodile egg collecting even legal?

A crocodile is not protected.

This really surprised me as here in Canada, removing eggs or tampering the nests of wild native species is illegal.

We have got Canada covered for crocodile population size, and this is probably the first thing.

No, it's a really great question.

We do have a lot of crocodiles here in the Northern Territory, so it's not as though they're an endangered species.

That is not to say that there aren't a lot of permissions that you need to have to be able to do crocodile egg collecting.

So, as we've talked about, a lot of this egg collecting was happening in Arnhem Land, and so the people who would go out and do this crocodile egg collecting need to make sure that they have permission from our traditional owners.

So that is something that they need to ensure that they do.

They're not allowed just to fly anywhere and collect eggs from anywhere.

There are certainly processes and permissions that you need to make sure that you have in order to be able to conduct this work legally.

And Ollie, it was interesting during Sebastian Robinson's evidence.

I mean, we've heard about how he was collecting crocodile eggs for Mick Burns, who owns, who at the time owned a crocodile farm in the Northern Territory that was supplying supplying crocodile skin to Amez, the designer.

I think I saw Louis Vuitton mentioned at some point in this trial, or heard Louis Vuitton mentioned at some point in this trial as well.

But also Sebastian Robinson talking about how he'd flown out to collect eggs from some of the ranger groups that are working in that area as well.

So a number of people doing this sort of stuff, as you mentioned, all with the various approvals and things like that as well.

But Pelle, it's a fantastic question.

And it's one that we can keep talking about and answering.

If you've got other questions about that as well, please get in touch.

The case of at abc.net.au olly final question karen from melbourne uh karen's email says i'm looking forward to learning more about this fascinating but so far perplexing case from your excellent coverage hoping you can help me understand matt wright is charged with allegedly attempting to pervert the course of justice it's been suggested that he allegedly attempted to do this to avoid being blamed my question is what was he fearful of and is any of this dependent on the outcome of the current case karen this is a really great question and we appreciate the the opportunity to be able to continue to clarify how this case has sort of been put together by the prosecution.

And so what the prosecution allege is that in the wake of this accident, Matt Wright, who owned and operated the helicopter that went down, was concerned that investigators who were looking into the crash or who would be looking into the crash would find out about things that were going on in his business at the time.

So these are things like the disconnecting of flight meters, the under-recording of pilot flying hours, which we've learned happens to extend the life of helicopters to avoid having to spend a whole lot of money getting them serviced or getting things repaired.

And so there was a fear that what the prosecution say is that Matt Wright feared investigators would find out about those practices and in turn that he would be blamed for the helicopter accident itself.

Now, that is not the allegation against Matt Wright in this trial.

That's not what he's charged with.

But it is sort of the motive, if you like, and that's how the prosecution has framed it, the motive for why he allegedly tried to get in the way of this investigation.

So yeah, it's a nuanced argument.

And I'm not surprised that we've had questions about this because it is a little tricky to put those pieces together.

But hopefully the more we go over it and clarify it, the easier it will be to understand.

Yeah, absolutely.

It's a great question, Karen.

So thank you for getting in touch.

Ollie, thank you for answering it.

And also, you know, keep in mind, we are limited in what we can say and explain through this podcast as well.

Basically, if it doesn't happen in front of the jury,

it's unlikely we're going to be able to hear about it.

So if there's things that you are thinking about or wondering about that you may have read somewhere else that you think we're not getting to, there's usually a pretty good reason that we're not getting to it.

We're explaining as much as we can about this case.

So Ollie, I appreciate you taking us through it all.

If you have any questions yourself, please get in touch.

Email the caseov at abc.net.au.

We love hearing from you.

Ollie, where are we going to in our next episode on Thursday?

The case of the crock wrangler continues and this time we're going to be hearing from Sebastian Robinson's family, the people who were in the hospital during those visits between Matt Wright and Sebastian Robinson in the days after the crash.

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The case of the crock wrangler is produced by ABC Audio Studios and ABC News.

It's presented by me, Olivana Lothoris, and Stephen Stockwell.

Our executive producer is Claire Rawlinson.

This episode was produced on the land of the Larakia and the Wurundjeri people.

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