Croc Wrangler: What the jury didn't hear

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What the jury didn't hear in the month-long trial of Matt Wright.

I'm ABC court reporter Olivana Lothoris.

And I'm Stephen Stockwell.

Just a heads up, there is some strong language in this episode.

Welcome to the case of the Croc Ranglog.

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 has been found guilty of two counts of attempting to pervert the course of justice.

We have taken you through the trial, giving you all of the interesting and juicy details that have been presented to the jury in this episode.

A lot of the things that the jury didn't hear.

Ollie, there's so much that happens behind the scenes in trials like this, right?

There sure is.

As a reporter, sometimes the most interesting things are what happens when the jury isn't in the room.

And of course, we're not allowed to report it during the trial because the golden rule is you can only report what the jury hears.

And so it's always exciting to be able to get to the end and to be able to delve into those moments when the jury wasn't in the room.

Yeah, absolutely.

For this episode, we're also joined by a senior reporter from the Darwin Newsroom, Matt Garrick.

Matt, I'm sure you've got plenty of juicy details that

you've had hidden and tucked away in your back pocket just for this episode.

Great to be here, Stocky.

Yeah, absolutely.

Look, and you can really see the dynamics in play when the jury's not in the room.

You see irritations spark up.

You see moments that are a bit lighter as well.

So yeah, looking forward to sharing it all with you.

Yeah, no, very, very keen to dive into that.

Yeah, I think the personality of the people in the room really comes out when the jury's out of the room.

There was a surprising relationship I saw develop in that room that we can chat about a bit later in this episode.

But I mean, the thing I want to get to at the beginning is the fact that we almost didn't have a trial.

This nearly didn't happen.

One of the most tense moments in court is before the jury comes in.

It's this moment where the judge sits down, the prosecution and the defense team sit at the bar table, and anything that's come up overnight that could cause an issue for the trial gets raised.

And on the very first day of this trial, the jury has just been selected.

They are sitting in this room before the jury enters the room.

And Justice Blow says to the parties, is there anything you need to talk about?

And one of them says, yeah, there's something that's happened.

This is something, Ollie, that could have stopped this trial before it even started.

Talk me through it.

Yeah, absolutely.

As you said, this is such a tense, delicate time.

The jury has just been impaneled.

We've spent all this time making sure we've got a jury who don't know any of the parties, who aren't connected to Matt Wright, who can approach this trial with a fair, unbiased mind.

And then day one,

the lawyers come in and, fair to say, they are absolutely ropeable.

And we find out that the reason for this is a story that was published by Channel 9's A Current Affair program on the eve of the trial all about Matt Wright.

And it included things that were out of date and also sort of sequences of shots that the lawyers said essentially were insinuating potential guilt or downfall of Matt Wright.

And this is before we've heard a shred of evidence.

So, yeah, we were suddenly faced with this possibility that the trial was going to be derailed before it even started.

Such a tense moment.

All of this time, all of this effort, you know, millions of dollars that would have been spent preparing for this trial.

We're all sitting there.

We've got a podcast ready to go.

You know, all you're talking about these sequences of shots.

And I actually haven't watched this story, but I remember hearing the descriptions of it in court.

And it was like a shot of Matt Wright's house with some like balloons on the fence for a birthday party or something, and then the shot of a prison.

So that was the kind of concern that was being drawn there.

Matt Garrick, what else was in this story that put this at risk?

Yeah, I think they were actually popped balloons, Stocky, from one of his child's birthday parties.

And as you say, then juxtaposed against the prison walls of Darwin Correctional Center.

So

obviously Matt Wright's barrister was not taking that lightly.

To the point that he turned around to the awaiting media pack and he said is anyone here from channel 9 and of course us from the ABC kind of shrank away going oh I'm glad he's not talking about us and and the poor channel 9 news reporter had to essentially stand up and say I'm from Channel 9 and you know there was a moment where lawyers were about to get involved where they were talking about well Channel 9 better get lawyered up after this

which ended up not going further than that morning.

Judge Alan Blow Blow eventually said, look, this is unnecessary.

Let's just leave it after current affairs lawyers did get in touch.

But yes, the reporter who did the story, Steve Marshall, he was also in Darwin for an earlier hearing where we heard him ask questions outside court to

some of those who were walking out like did you fight the law and the law won

and at one point he was pushed up against the car by a former senator Nigel Scullion Scullion.

He was a former Indigenous affairs minister up here.

And he was there supporting his friend, ex-copper Neil Mellon,

one of the witnesses in this Matt Wright trial.

That was at an earlier hearing.

But look, you know, this was all part of the colour of that story.

And I think some of those images were included in that story that was mentioned at the beginning of this trial.

So, as Ollie said, an incredibly tense time.

One person of the jury actually conceded that they they had watched that episode when the judge asked, Had anyone seen a current affair last night?

And the juror,

you know, quite honestly, stuck his hand up and said, Look, I did.

And the judge basically said, Well, can you go on impartially for the rest of this case?

And he agreed that he could, and he wouldn't watch Current Affair anymore.

And this was also, mind you, a day after

the jury has just been told, do not

watch any news stories about this.

Don't look at anything.

You need to make sure that you're not,

you know, consuming anything that could sort of poison your mind with anything before going into this trial and hearing the evidence.

I mean, they want a clean slate.

So they were given a very stern reminder to avoid the news.

And also we should mention the Channel 9 journal who...

got sort of called out in court that morning, had nothing to do with the story.

completely different program.

Sorry, I should have mentioned that.

She was a news reporter as opposed to a current affair.

But it's like every journal's worst nightmare getting called out like that and all of us, you know, it was like getting, you know, a group of young students getting a very stern talking to by a teacher.

We were all sitting there with our heads hung in shame.

Yeah, absolutely.

And for the jurors,

you mentioned that they were told the night before, don't watch anything on social media.

I think David Edwardson said there were scandalous opinions out there.

And then, yeah, a current affair comes up the next day.

So it was obviously pretty wild timing.

That moment before the jury comes in is, I've found, the most tense time of the day as a reporter in that room.

You know, we're doing so much reporting on this.

You know, Ollie, you were producing online articles, TV pieces, all this sort of stuff.

Matt Garrick, you're doing the same.

We're making the pod and forever worried that something that we've done, you know, despite the checks we have, gets pulled up in front of the various parties in the morning.

And as soon as the judge says the words, bring the jury, and there's this wave of relief that kind of washes over you.

But Ollie, you know,

you weren't pointed out for this first story, but

you did have a moment

in the crosshairs of Justice Blow during this trial for some of your reporting.

I did.

And you're so right.

It's that 10-minute, five-minute period before the jury gets called in where you're just holding your breath.

Because if you're going to get told off, that's the time.

And of course, you know, we absolutely do our best to make sure that, you know, we report fair and accurately on court proceedings, but it's complicated and

yeah, mistakes happen sometimes.

And so it always is very nerve-wracking.

And there was one morning

where,

yep.

I was warned that

something I had published the night before was going to get a mention in the courtroom.

And so I sat there with my stomach in my throat or my heart in my throat as the

judge came in and one of the lawyers, Jason Galachi, you know, stood up and said, Your Honour, we have something to address.

There was a story published by the ABC last night that we have some concerns about.

And of course, by this time, everyone knows that I'm the ABC journalist in the room.

So all the reporters are looking at me like, what have you done?

The story was, in short,

a court report from a different court, the local court in Darwin, where I normally spend all of my time.

And Sebastian Robinson and Timothy Luck, who was another one of the egg collectors involved in that 28 February egg collecting mission, their names had popped up on the local court list in Darwin, and they were charged with essentially stealing crocodile eggs or the illegal removal of crocodile eggs from one of our most iconic national parks here in the Northern Territory, Kakadu,

which is located south of Darwin.

And I had reported on the fact that they were facing these charges.

Of course, at this stage, they're absolutely allegations, and nothing happened in court on that day.

But of course,

really terrible timing given the fact that there was another proceeding going on at the same time, and the prosecution had concerns about the jury seeing that article and then making inferences one way or another about the evidence given by Sebastian Robinson or Timothy Luck?

Yeah, and I mean, something that we spoke a lot about during the pod was the basically the character assassination of Sebastian Robinson by the defence team in this trial, something that Jason Galachi SC was very mindful of, the prosecutor.

And, you know, this was the reason for his kind of concern around that.

You know, he was basically a bit worried that it was going to point to the same stuff that the defence had been pointing to around one of the key witnesses in this trial.

But really interesting to see the kind of that range of reporting.

And I mean, talking about how the trial almost didn't happen, we almost had a much longer trial as well.

You know, the trial started about a week later than we were initially expecting it to, because there was a huge amount of discussion between the parties on what witnesses would be called and what facts could be agreed on.

And then, you know, we also had the pre-trial proper.

So this is where you get a bunch of the witnesses in to kind of talk through various bits and pieces to see if there's a case there to kind of follow along with.

And, you know, there were a couple of key people that appeared in that.

We had Jai Tomlinson and Tim Johnson, and both of these guys are mates of Matt Wright, effectively.

So they're strongly in kind of Camp Wright.

And some of the stuff they said in that pre-trial ended up kind of coming back and being

used against them in the trial, right, Ollie?

Yeah, that's right.

You know,

this conversation that we canvassed about those secret recordings taken from inside Matt Wright's Queensland home, the ones where he allegedly instructs his mate Jai Tomlinson to burn the maintenance release of IDW.

I mean, that was really the subject of a lot of this pre-trial cross-examination, essentially.

And indeed, the answers that he gave to questions during that pre-trial hearing were brought up again when he was questioned during the trial.

And the same applied for Tim Johnson, who was the guy who the family said Matt Wright sent to the hospital to come and collect some of Pilot Sebastian Robinson's stuff while he was recovering and after he had just woken up from that coma.

And yeah, during the questioning of both of those witnesses, the prosecutor Jason Galachi did sort of say, remember when you gave evidence during the pre-trial hearings?

Well, here's what you said then, and it doesn't marry up with what you're telling the court now.

And, you know, going on to sort of accuse them of not telling the whole truth to the jury.

Early how different was the stuff they were saying in pretrial to what they were saying in the trial proper?

Well for example Tim Johnston during the pre-trial hearing told the court that he was sent to pick up specific things from Sebastian Robinson in hospital.

He talked about the diary and the mobile phone and then later when he gave evidence before a jury he said he was just instructed to pick up some stuff and that was then the subject of all this questioning by the prosecution saying, well, how could you have known what to pick up if you didn't know what you were there to collect?

And again, that sort of discrepancy in the evidence was brought up.

One of the things that we saw repeated between both pre-trial and trial questioning was the topic of squealing, one of the words that came up in those secret recordings, and Jai Tomlinson being asked on both occasions what he knew squealing to mean.

And that certainly was something that we spent a fair bit of time on during the trial proper.

It's so interesting kind of getting the context of pre-trial.

The pre-trial of this was something I wasn't involved in at all and had any background of and so you know there's these moments during the trial around say the squealing for example or around the questioning of Tim Johnston and what were you getting at the at the hospital that you know makes you wonder what the prosecution and defense teams know about this, why they're going so hard.

And so you hear these things, you hear this context and you're like, ah, this is why they're questioning so deeply on this, is because they can see this as a potential weak point or they know there's an inconsistency here.

They can start to kind of tease parts of that out.

And they really want to kind of present that to the jury.

They want the jury to see that.

So it helps, you know, them make the decision in, you know, whatever direction, be it the prosecution or the defense team who's asking the questions at the time.

And so much of that pre-trial evidence kind of came back in other ways as well.

I mean, we saw a lot of legal discussion during this trial.

There's a few key points that I want to kind of touch on with this.

But one of them was this idea of, you know, the prosecution having to deal with these, what they were describing as hostile witnesses, people that weren't answering questions.

And so there'd be these moments where, you know, the Jason Galachi SC, the prosecutor who'd, you know, brought these charges against Matt Wright for attempting to pervert the course of justice, would say to Justice Blow,

Can we have the jury out of the room for a moment?

And can we have the witness out of the room as well?

There's something I need to talk to you about.

And he would, he'd send everyone out and then basically say to Justice Blow,

Look, I need to treat this person as a hostile witness because basically they're not cooperating, right, Ollie?

Well, Stocky, the terminology is to be able to treat a witness as unfavourable.

So there's an ability for the prosecution when a witness they've called isn't giving evidence that's considered favourable to them, or potentially they're not making a genuine attempt to recall information or to give evidence.

The prosecution is then able to go into a cross-examination style of questioning.

And it was really after those applications to treat witnesses as unfavourable were made that we saw this really marked change in the temperament or approach by prosecutor Jason Galachi.

You know, during the initial part of questioning, it's quite

straight, calm questioning.

And then following the application to treat a witness as unfavourable, you really go into cross-examination mode, which is normally what we see from the defence.

But then getting to see it from Jason Galachi really suddenly going hard.

I always wonder whether witnesses know what's happened and they leave because the witness has to leave the room too.

It's not just the jury that has to leave.

The witness gets sent out of the courtroom and then they apply to treat that witness as unfavourable.

And then the witness comes back in and I always wonder whether they get back in the chair and then are like, whoa.

There is a real difference to how I'm being spoken to here.

So yeah, that's what that that was all about.

You talked about the evidence given by Jai Tomlinson in pre-trial and also Jason Galachi's approach.

Jai Tomlinson, when he came back to give evidence in the actual trial, there was one of those moments where you really saw Jason Galachi's temperament change.

You know, he was, and Tim Johnston as well.

You know, he's describing evidence that they're giving at times as nonsense.

And I think what the audience and the jury didn't realize is they'd already gone through this moment in pre-trial of pre-interviewing them.

And in that section in the pre-trial, their memories were just as foggy at periods as they were in the trial.

So obviously, there's a point of frustration there for the prosecution.

Yeah, absolutely.

And Oli, talking, just coming back to the examination and cross-examination, I mean, am I right in thinking that the key difference between a kind of examination in chief, which is what the prosecution is doing most of the time, is they're only allowed to ask open questions.

So they have to say something like, What did you do on day X?

As opposed to a cross-examination where they're doing, where they're asking closed questions, questions that are only going to get a yes or a no, and that's going to be questions like, on Tuesday, you were doing this.

Is that, have I got that right?

Yeah, absolutely.

You are only allowed to ask open questions.

You can't sort of lead the witness in a certain direction.

And we hear that a lot during cross-examination from a defense, where they'll sort of put propositions to to a witness.

They'll say, Well, on this day, on this day, you did this.

And the witness will either say

yes, or they say, No, I don't agree.

And the jury is often reminded, it's not the proposition that the defence is putting to the witness, it's their response that's the evidence.

But then you get to see a bit of that from the prosecution as well.

And it's such a different style of questioning.

And I mean, it really is far more aggressive.

I mean, they're attacking inconsistencies and putting things to witnesses.

It's a very different style of questioning.

And it's sort of interesting to see lawyers switch from one mode to the other, which is something you get from the prosecution when they do this hostile witness thing.

Yeah, it's so interesting to hear the kind of the different styles of it.

Because, yeah, you're right, it is this like quite a dramatic change at times.

You know, you get Jason Galachi SC,

both the prosecution and the defense want to seem kind of pleasant in front of the jury.

They want the jury to like them.

So it's kind of important that, you know, they're kind of on side.

And so when you see this transition from Jason Galachi SC trying to like, you know, sort of tease information out of people to going straight to these kind of closed questions, it is a real twist.

I mean, Matt Garrick,

how different was that approach in the courtroom?

How different did it feel in those moments?

Oh, look, it could turn on a dime in some ways.

And really, you weren't always prepared for the moment because you'd be going through a long period of evidence, you know, unfurling very important things like the level and color of fuel.

Suddenly, the taps would get louder and louder when a salacious text message is read out and sorry, a little bit of a language warning here saying something like, did you snort cocaine out of Matt Wright's ass?

And then tap, tap, tap, tap, tap.

All the journos are feverishly going at it.

And you can really notice the lift in the sound of the keys going at that stage.

So that always kind of signaled to me that something, something was going on.

There's also the raised eyebrows, you know, the small looks that reporters will just turn to each other and go, whoop, no more Mr.

Nice Guy.

That's right.

The symphony of keys is something I find really interesting, yeah, in courtrooms because so much of what happens in court is actually quite slow.

You need to pay attention to all of it because these tiny details that might not seem important at one point, you know, something that happened a lot at the start of this trial was conversations around blue and green fuel.

And that wasn't something that really made sense until we got to the end of the trial.

But you need to pay attention in those moments because all of a sudden something will kick off and you you have to be able to keep up and document it.

And I mean something else we saw when the jury was out of the room, actually this was explained to the jury at a couple of moments, but not in the kind of depth that we heard it when they were out of the room, was the fact that witnesses and a number of witnesses, not just one or two, but a whole bunch of witnesses, were offered these certificates so they could speak more freely, that they couldn't be prosecuted for things they were going to say in that room that were going to implicate them.

I mean, is that something that we normally see, Ollie?

I mean, it's certainly something that is part and parcel of many variety of different criminal proceedings and court proceedings.

I would say, though, Stocky, there were quite a few of them in this trial.

A lot of witnesses gave evidence throughout these proceedings and quite a number of them were granted these certificates to be able to talk about things that might otherwise be incriminating.

Yeah, it's so interesting.

And I mean, yeah, you kind of saw this two-step approach, right?

Be like, look, someone would ask the question, Jason Galachi, SCI, send them out of the room and be like, look, Justice Blow, can we get the certificate?

Yeah, right, you get the certificate.

They come back in, they get a little brief on how it works.

You know, you have to not answer a question, then I give you the certificate, a little back and forth.

And then later on, it'd be like, okay, cool.

Well, this really isn't going anywhere.

Can I treat them as a hostile witness?

It's sort of the second step that we would see.

So, yeah, fascinating kind of process that we saw for this.

So many people kind of directly involved in various aspects of what was going on in this trial.

And I mean, while we got to a verdict last week, we almost didn't wrap up the trial proper.

I mean, you know, as we started getting towards the end, Ollie, Matt Wright's lawyers, Matt Wright's defence team, came up with what was called a no-case submission.

Am I saying that right?

What's going on there?

It literally is exactly what it sounds.

It's just the defence saying that they don't think that there's a case for their client to answer.

And that could be for a variety of different reasons, but it was certainly a spanner in the works.

I mean, this was a couple of weeks into this trial.

We'd heard evidence from over 20 witnesses by this stage,

and it was sort of getting to the point of the trial where it would have been the opportunity for the defence to present any present any evidence from witnesses that they might have called.

We didn't know whether Matt Wright himself was going to be taking the stand yet.

And then we heard that they were going to do this no case submission.

And essentially, I mean, if that had got up,

that would have been the end of the trial.

that would have been done at it so yeah a real spanner what what happened with it well uh this was you know a couple of days of fairly dense uh legal argument uh but essentially the defence had a few kind of different points that they argued about why there was uh from their perspective no case and one of them was that they argued uh the particular charges that matt wright was facing essentially weren't the appropriate uh charge they weren't brought under the right uh provision So this was attempting to pervert the course of justice and the defence said that this should really be sort of like a catch-all and if there's an opportunity to charge someone with a more specific offence, then that's what he should have been charged with.

And then there was sort of a more substantive argument, so essentially saying that the evidence that the prosecution had

didn't stack up and wasn't enough to get these charges over the line.

For example,

with Count One, which relates to Mount Wright lying to police about how much fuel he thought the crash chopper had left,

the defence said, well, how does that pervert the course of justice?

What course of justice does Matt Wright lying to police get in the way of?

And so this was sort of the argument that we heard in quite some detail over the course of about two days.

Yeah, I do kind of enjoy the kind of the lawyering that goes on behind the scenes in some of these trials.

Like moments like this where, you know, you have the parties basically going, well, actually, I think you'll find technically this is the wrong bit.

I mean, also there's this.

And, you know, I, I kind of love rules because the better you understand them, the easier it is for you to do what you want without breaking them.

And that feels like the core of lawyering to me, basically being like, well, look.

technically they actually haven't done anything wrong because you've said this and they've you know uh so that was you know i always find that very entertaining so this sort of insights uh fantastic I mean, where did we land on this?

What did Justice Blow say about the arguments that were presented to him?

Well, essentially,

Acting Justice Alan Blow.

sided with the prosecution on this.

He said that there was a case for Matt Wright to answer on all three counts, and it was sort of onward and upward.

So it was sort of this two-day pause where no one knew whether this trial was even going to go ahead.

And like I said earlier, we're not allowed to report this stuff while it's happening.

So it's like this trial has been going and going and going and we've been reporting all this evidence and then there's just radio silence for two days and

then it was sort of decided that, nope, there was a case to answer and it was back to business.

And it was so close to the end of the trial as well, Ollie.

It seemed like this last hurdle that the defence really put out there before closing arguments.

So I think it was only three or four days before we got that verdict.

Yeah, I think it was Monday last week.

That was the full day of legal argument we had and there was a bit of conversation either side of that as well.

And I think, I mean, we, I think we may have even recorded a pod in that time to release, not knowing if we were going to be able to continue on covering the trial in the same way.

I mean, we were going to keep in the loop with all of that as well.

I mean, as well as this no case submission that we saw, Ollie, that, you know, kind of is still waiting in the wings.

You know, there's still an appeal going on around that.

You know, the defence team will appeal Justice Blow's ruling in that case.

so that's been deferred.

So

that's still waiting around, and we'll keep you updated with all of that.

Ollie, we also had another long period where the jury was out of the room.

This thing called voire deer, where a witness is put before the court, the jury's out of the room, and it's an opportunity for basically the lawyers to argue amongst themselves over the way the trials unfolded.

Who did we see brought in and what were they talking about when this happened?

Yes, Docie, voire deer, which I googled in anticipation for this conversation.

And it means sort of to speak the truth and it is this exploration of evidence that happens before a jury is brought in so that lawyers can sort of feel out how something's going to go so that they can work out how to proceed as smoothly as possible when the trial starts.

And the subject of a lot of this void was these recordings, these secret recordings taken from inside Matt Wright's home that were really sort of the crux of the third count of attempting to pervert the course of justice.

And this was something we saw sort of filter through later in the trial.

You know, there was this discussion about whether or not these recordings

could be introduced at all.

And if so, how, the conversation about whether or not there should be transcripts provided to the jury.

And the reason for this sort of contention around these recordings was because of their quality.

They were so unclear.

And therefore, was it going to be problematic to have a jury read words off a transcript and then try to listen for what they could hear in the recordings?

And what the defense was arguing was that by providing a transcript, the jury was going to be...

primed, groomed, if you like, into hearing words that in fact they couldn't hear at all.

It's like when you hear a song and you've been singing the wrong lyric for like 10 years and then someone says, that's actually not what they say at all.

And you think, but I just,

now that I think that's the lyric, I can't unhear it.

And it's sort of like that.

And so there was, yeah, lots of discussion about how

the trial should proceed in regards to these recordings.

And of course, Jai Tomlinson, being the person who Matt Wright was speaking to in those recordings, was obviously brought into court and questioned about what the subject of that conversation was.

And as Matt mentioned, even at that time, he told the court he couldn't remember what the conversation was about.

We also had

an expert kind of coming up during those conversations as well,

kind of explaining to the court the impact that reading a transcript, that

priming has on people.

And incredibly, when we were talking about this, and this is why you would have noticed us through the pod, kind of, you know, reminding people saying, look, it's, you know, the judge was reminding the jury to listen to the audio.

We had people emailing us saying, hey, yeah, so it's really interesting that they're playing these recordings because there's actually this transcription expert from here.

So you should talk to.

And it was, you know, I'm reading these emails, knowing that this expert is the woman who has been called to give evidence in this void,

that there's a suppression over it, that we can't talk about any of those details,

wishing that we could answer the questions that have been sent to the case of at abc.net.au.

And, you know, part of me wishing we could answer them.

The other part of me being so impressed by our audience that they have

basically clocked what these very highly paid barristers have also clocked and introduced into the court.

Matt Garrick, how did this void, how did these hearings change what unfolded in the courtroom after this was wrapped up?

Essentially, Stocky, this expert witness, the final ruling was she wasn't allowed to give that evidence in front of a jury and the transcripts went ahead.

Basically, as Ollie mentioned, much of that audio that was covertly recorded in Matt's home, Matt Wright's home, as well as some of the bugged phone calls, they were very difficult to hear and make out exactly what was being said without the transcripts.

So for those charges to go, for charge three to go ahead, essentially those transcripts were deemed necessary with investigators and the prosecution saying they really showed what was going on at that time.

We also got evidence given from the police, which showed how they installed the bugs in people's houses, how they installed them in Matt Wright's home, and

how those bugs actually worked, which was an interesting insight.

Yeah, I mean, the thing that I found really interesting, I mean, we had this

evidence in Vardea about the transcription priming and all of that kind of halfway through the trial.

At the end of the trial, we had the police officer who'd installed this stuff in the home talking through how all of that was gathered.

Absolutely, Stocky.

And the defense, in their closing argument about this evidence,

they basically said sounds like is not the same as it was said.

So then they asked the jury to really, really carefully consider the recordings.

And I guess what makes it interesting is charge three was deadlocked.

So there hasn't been a verdict on this audio, really, whether Matt Wright is guilty or not guilty based off that evidence.

Yeah, I mean, this episode is about what the jury didn't hear.

And I guess as well, you know, when they're deadlocked on that third charge, some of them also didn't hear the words

that the prosecution said were being said

in that recording that related to Matt Wright allegedly asking someone to destroy a helicopter maintenance record.

Just before you wrap up, someone that we talk about a lot, but we didn't know that much about was Justice Alan Blow,

Acting Justice Alan Blow, because he is actually actually a retired judge, Ollie, and he's come up from Tasmania, have I got that right?

Yep, he's come up from

Tassie to the sunny Northern Territory to be a part of this trial because of the problem that we encountered right at the beginning, which was how do we find people to be involved that haven't sort of had anything to do with this case.

I mean, this trial has been sort of in the works for a very long time.

Matt Wright's a very high-profile person.

Darwin's a small town and there aren't a lot of judges up here.

And so we needed someone to be able to conduct this trial who was going to be able to be totally impartial and who hadn't had something to do with it over the last couple of years.

And I mean, that's something that you kind of think might happen.

I was kind of under the impression that, look, there just wasn't a judge in Darwin at the time.

And so they brought up Justice Alan Blow.

But at one point, while the jury was out of the room, he said to the parties, look, the reason I'm here is because they needed someone impartial, right?

Yeah, absolutely.

That was sort of confirmed.

I mean, I definitely think a part of this is also that, you know, we have a small justice system which is under a lot of pressure in the Northern Territory.

Our courts are absolutely jammed here.

And so finding availability of judges, for example, there might have been one or two judges potentially who hadn't had to deal with this case before, but whether or not those people were even available for a trial, particularly of this length, was another issue.

And so, yeah, he confirmed that that's the reason I'm here.

Yeah, and I mean, Matt Garrick, were you surprised that, you know, we had a separate judge or a new judge brought up because of, I mean, basically, the influence of Matt Wright, how well known this guy is, and how many people, I guess, have some sort of association with him.

Oh, look, Stocky, there's the old saying about six degrees of separation.

I think in Darwin it goes to two.

And in terms of Matt Wright and that Matt Wright universe, it probably goes to about half or one at maximum.

So, no, look, I think Tasmania's about as far as you need to go to find someone who hasn't got anything to do with Matt Wright or his friends up here.

Yeah, very fair.

I mean, look, speaking of friends, we'll get into some questions very, very soon from all of our friends of the case of.

But first, something that surprised me

that I'm sure the NT courts will probably not be too stoked to hear about, and maybe the party's not not too stoked to hear about.

But during the trial, I had a video link that I would watch the proceedings on.

And this would sometimes get left on in the breaks.

And you would have Jason Galachi, SC, who is the prosecutor on one side.

You have David Edwardson, KC, who's the defense barrister on the other side.

These people, while the jury's in the room, are not friends.

They are not getting along.

But as soon as the jury's out of the room, Those guys got on like a house on fire.

I couldn't believe it.

Ollie, is this something that you're seeing around the court?

Are these guys actually pretty good mates?

I mean, this is something you see often.

I mean, a jury is like, they're the audience, right?

And when the audience is in the room, you're performing to an extent.

You know, I don't think there's any illusions about that.

And at the end of the day, these are...

lawyers just doing their jobs.

And particularly in this trial, it was quite interesting to see the dynamics.

I mean, I said that the courtroom dynamics is one of the best things about being a court reporter.

And you do get to see a lot more of that when the jury is not in the room.

And yeah, it was a really amicable relationship between the defence and the prosecution.

They definitely gave each other a lot of jabs about looks, about footy clubs, about all sorts of funny things.

I remember there was one exchange where the prosecutor, Jason Galachi, had quite a bit of difficulty getting some answers out of a witness and it seemed the defence had had a bit of an easier time.

And once the jury had left the room, David Edwardson sort of leaned over and said, you know, something along the lines of, now, if you could just do it like that next time, or sort of watch and learn.

So, you know, they do have a very an entertaining rapport, which journalists get

the privilege of being able to witness while the jury's not there.

Yeah, it's so true, Ollie.

And I think what this really speaks to, and not to sound flippant about it, but in some trials, there can be so much acrimony and constant having to pause to listen to legal arguments.

But in this this trial, it seemed to be really well run, partly, I think, because of how well these two teams got on.

And that was quite impressive to watch.

Yeah, I think it's interesting.

You know, you don't expect them to get along, I guess, because of that presentation and then for them to be so chatty in between.

You know, they're probably not going to the pub together and having a beer, but, you know, that cooperation, as you say, Matt, points to how well this trial was run.

You know, you're not going to hear about this or see this on the nightly news because it's not the news, but here at the case of, it's the kind of insight that we can offer in the courtroom process.

Ollie, Matt, I'd love to get into some questions that have been sent.

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

Love hearing from you.

As I've mentioned, you know, you really switched on.

You know, you clocked things that were actually coming up in the trial that we couldn't talk about.

But we do have some really great questions I'd love to dive into now.

Pretty straight one, Ollie.

I mean, you know, Matt Wright guilty of two counts of attempting to pervert the course of justice.

The jury didn't reach a decision on that third count.

Question here from David.

Seeing a hung jury, will there be another case for the third charge or are they dropping it?

Yeah, well, that really remains to be seen.

We did reach out to the Director of Public Prosecutions in regards to what they're planning to do with Count 3.

They said they're going to be considering it, but not until the conclusion of the proceedings, which are now obviously subject to an appeal.

Yeah, we'll keep you in the loop here on the case of letting you know if that pops up again.

You know, it could be the prosecution securing a guilty verdict on the two other charges just says, oh, look, we've got him on them.

So we'll let that one go.

But yeah, we'll keep in the loop with what happens on that one.

Another question here from Meredith on the Gold Coast, Bungeline Country.

Meredith Riots.

Hello, Ollie and Stocky.

and Matt.

Thanks for such a great podcast.

I started listening last season and my husband and I have just binged the crock wrangler while driving through the south island of New Zealand.

This was such an interesting case that went in the direction I wasn't expecting.

You made it quite clear that Matt Wright was not on trial for the death of Chris Wilson.

But now this trial is over.

Will he or anyone else face charges?

Has Sebastian Robinson been charged with negligence or flying under the influence of drugs?

Yeah, another really great question.

And again, something that unfortunately, as reporters, we don't have the inside scoop on necessarily.

You know, we, you know, who could say whether, you know, different charges will be brought.

In terms of the drugs, though, I mean, we did hear quite clearly that Sebastian Robinson did have metabolites indicative of cocaine use in his system, but we do know that that didn't necessarily impact his flying ability.

And so it wouldn't necessarily be correct to say that he was flying under the influence of drugs.

And of course, he has not been charged with anything like that.

Neither Matt Wright or Sebastian Robinson are facing any allegations of being responsible in any way for the accident or the death of Chris Wilson.

Yeah, I vaguely remember something from Jason Galachi SC's opening, the prosecutor in this case, kind of saying, yeah, look, there were metabolites in Sebastian Robinson's system, but they were well below the level that requires any action or something like that.

So

that's kind of where all that fits in.

Meredith, and you mentioned about what will happen with Chris Wilson now.

There was a lot of talk outside of the court about a possible coronial inquest, which would seek to find more information about what happened in that crash and what happened to Mr.

Wilson in his final day.

We reached out to NT courts this week.

They said no decision has actually been reached yet as to whether the coroner will hold an inquest into this matter.

So it's a bit wait and see on that front as well.

Yeah, and we've got a whole episode that we're planning for later this week where we look at all of the other trials and charges that that have been related to this crash.

So, you know, we had a couple of witnesses who we've heard from in this trial who've been charged with other offences relating to what happened at the crash site.

So we'll dive into that.

Also, yeah, what's happening around any kind of coronial inquest, any further investigations, what happened in the initial investigation into the crash as well.

We actually know a fair bit of detail around what was reported from the Australian Transport Safety Bureau that we couldn't talk about because it hadn't been presented to the jury.

So we'll have all those details for you a little bit later this week.

Question here from Zenya.

Ollie, Zenya writes, hi all.

I'm confused.

If Matt Wright has been found guilty of not maintaining his fleet of helicopters, why, by extension, does he not bear some responsibility for the crash?

Yeah, this has been something that we've continually had to sort of reiterate, and that's really just because,

you know, this trial has focused on specific charges that go to specific allegations.

And so everything outside of that really needs to be set aside.

However, Matt Wright is facing charges brought by our work safety regulator, WorkSafe, NT.

That court case is still sort of progressing through the courts.

No plea has been entered by Matt Wright in regards to those charges.

So at this stage they're just allegations

but we'll just have to wait and see.

Yeah, we'll keep you in the loop again with all of that up to date on the case of with any developments in, you know, the various machinations outside of the trial we've heard and also with this trial as well.

Our final question for today is from Deb.

Deb writes, will the two mates who gave evidence be facing perjury charges for lying under oath?

Now, Deb here is probably referring to Tim Johnston, who we've spoken about, and Jai Tomlinson.

Tim Johnston was accused on a number of occasions by Jason Galachi SC, the prosecutor, of lying.

So, yeah, what do we know, Ollie?

Again, this is something that we were curious about as well.

And we put this to the DPP and they got back to us saying that they wouldn't be making any comment about any possible charges of perjury against Tim Johnston or Jai Tomlinson.

Thank you, Ollie.

And thank you, Deb, Zenya, Meredith, and David, for your wonderful questions today.

Good to know that all the questions that you're asking us are the same questions that we're asking the DPP

around all of this.

So very much appreciate everybody getting in touch.

If you have any questions yourself, please email us the caseob at abc.net.au.

We love hearing from you.

We're doing probably a handful more crock wrangler episodes.

So, if you've got a question about the trial of Matt Wright, anything associated with it, please get in touch.

And don't forget to jump on the ABC Listen app.

It is super.

We're going to be back on Thursday with an episode around some of the other charges that people have faced because of this.

Neil Mellon, the former policeman, the charges that he pled guilty to relating to the crash.

Also, Mick Burbage, another helicopter pilot on that day.

You know, the civil case that Danielle Wilson's brought, the wife of the egg collector who died in this horrible crash in February 2022.

So a heap of detail that we can unpack in that episode on Thursday.

Now the trial has wrapped up.

So grab the ABC Listener and you'll be front of the queue when we drop that on Thursday.

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

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

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

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