Croc Wrangler: Oli, Matt and Stocky tell you what they really think

Hello there, I'm Mark Fidel.

And if you're tired of history podcasts that just strode on for hours and hours and hours, and you just want something a bit different,

well, check out No One Saw It Coming.

Each week, we hunt for the crucial moments, the inventions, the people, the stuff-ups, even that changed the world that you did not learn about at school.

Like, did you know that the treadmill was actually invented as a torture device?

Kind of tracks though, right?

Listen now on Radio National and the ABC Listen app: ABC Listen.

Podcasts, radio, news, music and more.

After weeks of accusations, courtroom drama and a verdict, today what we really think.

We're finally going to share what's been going through our minds this whole time.

I'm ABC court reporter Olivana Lothoris.

I'm senior ABC Darwin reporter Matt Gary.

And I'm Stephen Stockwell.

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

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.

One of the questions we get so much in the case of Inbox is:

what do you think?

We're asked, you know, this analysis, these questions about our opinions and thoughts on the cases, and it's not something that we can do during a trial, but when things wrap up, we can talk a fair bit more freely because, you know, when these proceedings are underway, Ollie, we do need to be pretty careful about how we frame this stuff.

Absolutely.

But after sitting there for so many weeks and listening to all of this, there is so much that runs through our minds as we're sitting in that courtroom listening to these proceedings unfold.

We've had Matt Garrick blessing us with his analysis throughout the trial of Matt Ride.

And I'm sure, Matt, you've got a couple of nuggets of pure gold wisdom planned for this episode.

I'm not sure about gold, Stocky, but we've got our chisels and we've been deep in the minds of analysis

with all the thoughts that we've been having in the newsroom each day after the proceedings.

We're happy we can finally share it with listeners.

Yeah, really looking forward to diving into this episode today.

Yeah, giving an idea of what we really think around the trial of Matt Wright and some of the things that we've noticed as the proceedings have been underway.

You know, everything from the way that witnesses were cross-examined to the way evidence was presented to who did or didn't do people a favor by the way that they were behaving in that courtroom.

So yeah, I think there's some really interesting things we can talk about in this episode.

Ollie, I think first though, I mean, one of the things that I found myself doing as we were making these episodes, starting each episode, I would be saying something like, you know, this isn't about a helicopter crash, but it's kind of about a helicopter crash.

Were you surprised as this got to court about how narrow the allegations that were presented were?

Yeah, Stocky, I mean, this was years in the making this trial.

When Matt Wright was first charged over the cause of this accident, his charge sheet was significantly longer than what it ended up being when we got to trial in 2025.

And we had the charges at that time, but no facts, no information, no insight into what happened and what the allegations really were.

And so, frankly, rumours just spread like wildfire in the media, on social media, you know, the chit chat and whispers in town.

You know, it really was a lot of speculation and people trying to piece these charges together without really knowing what actually happened or what the allegations were.

And it wasn't until we got into the courtroom a month ago and heard the allegations from the prosecution in their opening that any of us knew with any great certainty what this trial was even going to be about.

And I do think that there was this element of surprise when we heard just how specific these allegations were.

You know, the idea that it really wasn't about why this helicopter went down.

It wasn't that Matt Wright was being held responsible for the crash, for the death, for the injuries.

He wasn't even being charged over these breaches of civil aviation rules or this dodgying of records, which we'd heard a little bit about in previous hearings or from the ATSB report.

And so I do think that there was an element of surprise to hear finally what these allegations were really all about.

Yeah, because they were, I mean, they were sort of peripheral to the helicopter crash.

I mean, they were peripheral to the helicopter crash.

They were all things that happened in the aftermath.

And again, there's no suggestion that Matt Wright was responsible for that helicopter crashing in this instance.

You know, he was being tried for attempting to pervert the course of justice.

But, I mean, Matt Garrick, was there this kind of public perception that this trial was going to be more about the helicopter crash?

Well, absolutely, Stocky.

I think, as Ollie mentioned, you know, in the lead-up to this, as I think David Edwardson repeatedly said it, there was scandalous opinion.

There was rumor about drugs.

There was rumor about all types of things that had gone on at that crash site that were completely unsubstantiated.

And it hadn't, you know, there'd been no word about exactly what had gone on.

So it had been allowed to fester for a while.

And then finally when it got in there and it was these very specific charges, you suddenly thought, right,

is this as serious as it all seems?

Like is this actually worth, you know, all the time and effort that they've put into this, millions of dollars for essentially three charges of attempting to interfere with an investigation.

As the weeks rolled on, of course, you saw the significance of all the evidence that that was put in front of you.

But at the very first day, you kind of thought, what is this?

Yeah, I mean, one of the things I found really interesting about exploring this case was the attempting to pervert the course of justice aspect of it.

I mean, a great opportunity for us on the pod to explore this.

And we've talked about this in past episodes, but there's just these huge Darwin figures that are involved with it.

Mick Burns, a leading figure in the crocodile industry in the Northern Territory, you know, and these other people that we've seen in cases.

And you're suddenly finally going, well, this is, they're about to take the stand these witnesses are going to step up so there's this element of what is this trial and what are we actually going to see but also knowing this who's who of of establishment darwin is about to take the stand so there's this tinge of like expect the unexpected Yeah, this real kind of cult of celebrity, I think, around the whole trial.

I mean, Matt Wright, the star of a couple of TV shows, kind of was the face of NT tourism.

This is a man who was kind of being primed as the sort of the follow-up to Steve Irwin, right?

So this is a huge character in the sense of not just the military, but in the sense of Australia, right?

So

really interesting to have him in this.

And then also, yeah, Matt, as you say, Mick Burns, there's an off-duty cop involved.

There's helicopters, there's crock-eyed collecting.

It is this just a drama from that sense of it.

But all around this incredibly serious proceeding, you know, there's been the death of someone.

There's been someone's life who's been changed forever because of this accident.

In fact, a whole bunch of lives changed forever because of this accident.

But, you know, when you're looking at that sort of celebrity side of it, the celebrity of Matt Wright, Ollie, how was it trying to report on a trial of someone so well known?

I mean, there was certainly a lot of nerves, I have to say.

You know, this is a case that a lot of people were very heavily invested in.

There'd been a lot of speculation and anticipation, like we keep saying about it.

So there was a natural feeling of pressure to want to make sure that the coverage was going to be fair and accurate and comprehensive and that people were going to be able to understand.

I mean even when we heard this opening and to hear how specific these charges were and these allegations were, trying to make sure that you know we were communicating what this case was all about in a clear way to people so that they could understand what this was about was quite nerve-wracking.

I guess the other thing was that we hadn't really seen Matt Wright or a lot of the people involved in this trial up until a couple of weeks ago.

I was actually reporting on this when Matt Wright was first charged, and on his first day coming into Darwin Local Court, it was his first court appearance way back a few years ago.

And that day was

honestly one of the more wild days I've ever had in my reporting career.

It was truly

chaos.

He came into the airport, he had quite a few supporters there with him, his lawyer at the time was there, there was this mass of reporters waiting for him at the airport and then at the courtroom.

And

since then, we hadn't really seen him.

He rocked up once or twice during some of these incremental proceedings over the years.

But a lot of the reporting that I think myself and Matt have done has been kind of at arm's length with a lot of these characters reporting on the general court proceedings and more times than not it's really just the lawyers or representatives that show up.

It's very different when you are in court day in, day out with the people who are intimately involved with this story and it becomes not just a story that we report on as journalists.

This isn't a story to them.

This is their lives.

It's their families.

It's their kids.

It's their relationships.

It's their grief.

it's their trauma, all sort of laid bare in the courtroom.

And it's very hard to

distance yourself from that when you're constantly surrounded by it.

And it makes it very, very real.

And it's an important reminder as journalists, we have to have that, to understand

the real impact of these stories on they're not just characters, they're people.

And that was something that I felt very strongly throughout this whole proceeding.

It became very clear very quickly,

as you say, Ollie, on one hand you have this cult of celebrity and on the other hand you've got this tragic event and there was an element early on that crept in I thought that you really felt this family and friendship breakdown.

You felt that feeling of,

as David Edwardson said in his closing statements, this was a group that was thick as thieves, doing real territory outback stuff, out there wrangling crocodiles and collecting crocodile eggs and up in choppers, you know, in these remote, beautiful parts of Australia that very few people get to see.

And then suddenly, you know, they're wearing ties and they're in this Supreme Courtroom faced off against each other.

bearing down this tragedy that's befallen all of them.

I think possibly one of the most confronting bits of it as a reporter that I found was since the crash itself was seeing Sebastian Robinson and the extent of the injuries that he'd faced, you know, that he was living with now.

Suddenly, it's no longer this, you know, what's going on out there in the bush?

Was there drugs?

Was there this?

Was there that?

It's this has changed a man's life, you know, irreparably, and another family is left grief-stricken because of it.

And the other guy, you know, their former employer, is in the dock.

So it becomes pretty real pretty quickly.

Yeah, and I mean, being in this space gives you this insight, right?

You know, Matt, as you've been talking about, you know, you see the way that this has changed people, the way it's affected people.

And something that we saw throughout this trial was the kind of emergence of two camps through this story.

We had on one side Matt Wright's camp, you know, him and his supporters.

And then the other side, Sebastian Robinson's camp, right?

Like, is that how you would describe this?

Well, look, on one side of the room, you've got Matt Wright.

He's sitting in the dock, he's there.

All the witnesses have to essentially walk past the dock to stand up there and give evidence.

Sometimes his mates walk past him, and you're like, ooh, is he going to give him a wink?

Or, you know, you're looking for these kind of signs.

I'm not saying I saw that at any point.

They probably tried to keep those to a minimal.

But then on the same side as Matt, you've got his family and a revolving cast day by day of Wright's family, supporters, people like Chopper Pilot Mick Burbage and his wife, Matt's own wife, Kaya.

She was there every single day, a united front, hand in hand with Matt as they walked through those court doors facing down the cameras every single day for those four weeks.

On the other side of the courtroom, you've got Danielle Wilson, the wife of Chris Wilson.

She's got two young kids of herself and she's there pretty much every day, sometimes with a friend or two, sometimes by herself on the side of the prosecution.

The Chellingworths and Robinsons, Seb Robinson's family, they would come and go.

They weren't there every day, but they would sit far from the right camp as well.

That's fair to say.

And I mean, Ollie, was it as simple as this kind of like physical divide in a room when you're looking at these groups?

I mean, it is.

And, you know, to an extent with court proceedings, you do have to,

especially given that it's court proceedings, like Matt was saying, some of these people were witnesses at certain points in this trial, so they are not allowed to even be in the courtroom.

They're not allowed to speak to certain people until they've given evidence.

That's just part and parcel of a trial and court proceedings.

But it's not just in the courtroom, right?

Like, you know, we're breaking every hour or so.

Everyone is standing out in the foyer of the courtroom.

Like Matt said, people are coming and going every single day.

It was interesting, you know, the defense team would come from one direction in the morning and it seemed like the prosecution would always come from a different direction.

It's really interesting to see how, you know, the parties do try to keep their distance, not just in the court, but outside the courtroom as well.

And I think those dynamics were definitely on display, both in and out of the court.

You know, one other thing that was interesting that kept bobbing up in my mind, and Stocky, you would have seen this during the mushroom trial down in Morwell as well.

It was always interesting to me how many members of the public rolled into the courtroom on a daily basis.

You know, some of them very assiduously taking notes and others that were there day in, day out.

You know, even people I knew from around town and met here and there who had no reason necessarily to be in court like as they weren't lawyers or journals or Matt Wright supporters.

They were just there for the theater of it.

And there is that element of court as well.

You know, it is that everyone's kind of there putting on this show for the jury.

And so it was a packed court some days, and that often surprised me.

Yeah, it's one of the great parts of the open justice system that we have in Australia.

I mean, Ollie, coming back to the kind of the sides for this a little bit,

it felt to me a little bit strange that we had what sort of emerged as such clear sides.

I mean, that felt unusual, but is it?

I mean, look, Stocky, court proceedings I don't think it's a secret are a pretty horrific thing for anybody to have to go through trials are

you know people's lives are really laid bare it's not a pleasant experience and that's quite evident when you sit and watch these proceedings I'd say what potentially was more unusual in this case in particular was that the people involved weren't always on opposite sides.

It was so much the opposite.

They were really close friends and those relationships had been so public.

I mean it's literally documented in two television series.

We see how close they are and how close they were and how tight-knit this group of people once was

and then to see it shattered so obviously and for that to be then on display in the courtroom I think was certainly an unusual feature of this case in comparison to other court cases I've personally covered in the past.

One term that kept going through my mind, particularly early on,

was a term called the Bro code.

You know, you don't break the Bro code and that's like loyalty to your mates.

You keep to what your mates,

you know, you do what's right by them.

And there were certain witnesses and I mean, it's not going to take an absolute mind reader to figure out which witnesses I'm talking about here who to me seem to really abide by the bro code to the extent that, you know, you had prosecutors accusing them of possible perjury.

You know, were they prepared to tell a lie for their mate?

You sometimes thought to yourself while you're watching this, is this how far you'll go if that's the case?

Yeah, we saw that on a couple of instances through the trial.

I mean, Matt.

Do you think that, you know, helped or harmed Matt Wright's case in this instance?

In the long run, if you talk about a witness like Jai Tomlinson, who was repeatedly accused of lying on the stand, well, Wright's own barrister, in his closing statements, said that there were moments, he conceded there were moments where Jai Tomlinson's evidence was excruciating.

Did it harm Matt Wright's chance?

Well, only the jury really knows it, but I also don't think it can have helped that much.

If there was any doubt that he was being honest in his evidence, well, the jury may have rejected what he said.

Holly, have you ever seen a trial with

such uncooperative witnesses?

I've seen uncooperative witnesses in the past, but Stocky, never before have I seen such a lengthy discussion about things as tiny as what the word squealing means or having to get out dictionaries to look words up.

I mean, I don't think it's controversial to say it was fairly incredible, some of that questioning and the way that some witnesses conducted themselves.

Yeah, the theatre of some of those moments is really interesting.

And, you know, while there were moments of the questioning that seemed kind of, you know, comical, right?

Some of these moments were really, really hysterical.

Yet other times it went to a much darker place.

You know, Sebastian Robinson, the pilot who was flying the helicopter on this day, who

is now paralysed, has a brain injury from the accident.

You know, the way that he was questioned by the defence barrister, David Edwardson, KC,

at times seemed really, really full-on, you know, quite harsh.

I mean, what did you think of that, Ollie?

Yeah, Socky, I don't think

it doesn't matter what way you slice it, the questioning and the cross-examination by the defence of Sebastian Robinson and some members of his family was...

harsh.

It was tough.

I mean, David Edwardson himself said this.

He said he was trying to attack the credibility of Sebastian Robinson and his family, paint them as liars.

And he also said in his closing that he took no joy in having to do that.

So even he was able to acknowledge that there were moments during that cross-examination which weren't pleasant.

And I do think it was difficult at times to watch.

I mean, Sebastian Robinson was on the stand for several days and a lot of that was cross-examination.

and as we've discussed the part of the role of cross-examination is to attack inconsistencies to try to pick apart a witness's evidence

and having to watch someone who has gone through a traumatic event and who is

suffering a brain injury and who is a paraplegic, having to watch someone relive the day of that accident and that time in hospital and be questioned to that extent was

definitely definitely difficult.

And there were very emotional moments throughout that questioning.

Sebastian Robinson, and this wasn't during cross-examination, this was in his evidence in chief when he had to recount finding out what all his injuries were

and the prosecution asking him to recount what his injuries were and him really choking up and struggling to even

get the words out.

His mum, the moment that Nolene Chillingworth was asked to recount

that time in hospital and just remembering thinking that her son wasn't going to survive and the trauma then of learning that her son was going to be a paraplegic.

They were really heavy moments.

So certainly I think it was challenging definitely at times to watch that cross-examination.

And I think that's probably why those sort of more ridiculous moments, and I give a language warning here, those texts about sorting coke out of Matt Wright's ass and and then Sebastian Robinson telling Matt to get fucked, get vaccinated and fly his own helicopter.

You know, they did sort of bring this

sigh of relief almost because the tension in the room was you could slice it with a knife.

And so just to hear something ridiculous was almost a relief to everybody in the room.

And it was sort of a moment to be able to just let out a bit of laughter because it was so heavy for those couple of days.

The light and shade of these proceedings is something I think about a lot.

You know, these are really serious events that have happened.

You know, again, talked about it a lot.

Someone died because of this helicopter crash.

And, you know, Sebastian Robinson, we've just been talking about the injuries he lives with.

But then you have these moments that do kind of cut that tension and do give people a lift and that break from some of the darkness and the heaviness of it.

And, you know, by trying to bring people that, we're not trying to make light of that.

We're just trying to, you know, give that same balance and that same experience of what it's like being

in that courtroom.

And I mean, Matt Garrick, something we were talking about, I think it was in the verdict episode we did when we were looking at what arguments the jury took on board or didn't take on board.

That second charge that Matt Wright was facing from this around asking Sebastian Robinson to move hours from one helicopter to another helicopter.

I mean, Matt Wright was found guilty of that charge.

So I guess that shows that

the defense cross-examination of Sebastian Robinson of the Chellingworths wasn't successful in kind of showing, you know, trying to present that version of the story.

That's right, Stocky.

And I think it kind of goes to the heart also of Sebastian Robinson's testimony.

Whether they agreed with bits and pieces of David Edwardson's cross-examination, I think what it showed was at the heart, they believed Sebastian Robinson and he was seen to be a reliable witness.

There is, as Ollie said, there were moments when you thought to yourself, ooh, is this cross-examination going too hard in this direction?

Would it work against them?

One moment that comes to my mind is when Sebastian Robinson's girlfriend, Rani Lee, was getting peppered with questions about text messages showing she'd had a night out.

You know, there was a reason that the defense was doing it.

They wanted to show that Seb Robinson had been out.

drinking a couple of nights before this crash.

But, you know, there's text messages getting put to this young woman that are like, you know, showing that she'd been drunk the night before and she had to admit on the stand, she'd got sloshed and had to get an Uber home.

And you're kind of like, oh, is this all necessary to prove your case to the jury of Sebastian Robinson?

And ultimately, I don't necessarily think it helped altogether.

Yeah, and you know, the jury is sitting there every day as this unfolds.

And I guess you get to know the people involved quite well, not just the various witnesses and things like that, but the various lawyers, the barristers, right?

So you have have Jason Galachi, SC and David Edwardson, Casey.

You know, have you talked about how Jason Galachi SC has examined Chai Tomlinson and Tim Johnston and how David Edwardson has spoken to the Chellingworths and Sebastian Robinson throughout this?

But one of the things that was kind of interesting from seeing the whole body of their work, really two very different people.

You know, you kind of had Jason Galachi SC who would present himself as the everyman here, you know, kind of making references to his intellectual friend who knows words he doesn't know.

And then you had David Edwardson, KC, the defense barrister, kind of playing a straighter bat and, you know, not really deflecting any of that, but, you know, kind of, you know, not defying the role of the intellectual.

It was really interesting to see.

Yeah, so fascinating.

You know, both very senior, very experienced lawyers who are, you know, there because they're, you know, very good at their jobs, but such different approaches.

You know, it really came out, I thought, particularly in the openings and the closing addresses to the jury, I felt was where you really got a lot of that character.

You know, Jason Galachi sort of making a few, you know, references to football and to the cricket, and, you know, at one point saying that Matt Wright wasn't Robinson Crusoe, saying that Seb Robinson wasn't the Tony Machbell of the North,

you know, these sort of funny sort of

jokes and references and then you had David Edwardson KC who was far more clinical.

He even said during his closing that this wasn't a case that could be compared to a footy game or that footy references weren't really appropriate, sort of much more

straight in his sort of approach.

So fascinating to see the way different lawyers try to sort of capture the jury.

It's a really fascinating, a fascinating thing to witness.

I mean, we mentioned in an earlier episode how the mics would stay turned on in some of the breaks at the bar table.

And I'm sure David Edwardson and Jason Galachi Si aren't stoked to learn that.

And I won't reveal any of their secrets.

But, you know, as we're interrogating the value of some of these references, I can say that similar debriefs were happening around the bar table around what may or may not have landed

during some of that.

So all worth kind of unpacking and talking through here.

And I mean something else, Ollie, that we haven't really spoken too much about.

You know, there was so much detail to get across in this trial.

At the end of the trial,

you get all of the exhibits released.

And so we finally get to have a look at them and a good dive through them.

One of the things I was really hoping that we would get would be some of the audio of the wiretaps and various things that have come out with charge three not having a verdict on at this stage.

You know, there's a reason that that probably hasn't been released because that could go back to a proceeding at some other point.

But yeah, we've got all of this paper trail.

You know, we're talking about maintenance releases from helicopters, pilot logbooks, you know, all this other stuff.

So many documents you've got access to.

What do you think about the way that they were kind of assembled by the prosecution and by the defense?

Because they sort of, you know, everyone uses the same documents, but in slightly different ways, right?

Absolutely.

And this was something that,

you know, throughout the trial, because we didn't have access to those exhibits ourselves, we were only seeing the ones that were really put up on the big projector screens in the courtroom and us sort of all craning our necks to see if we could have a look at what was on these documents that were being shown or the witnesses were being questioned about.

So it really wasn't until Friday night after the verdict had been handed down that we got our hands on a lot of those exhibits.

And we're talking about, you know, in excess of, you know, 20 different documents.

These are MRs, they're handwritten notes about flying hours, their diaries, log books, invoices, things that sort of on their own, to be honest, you might look at and just shrug and go, well, that doesn't mean much to me.

But it's fascinating to see the way that each side sort of arranged these puzzle pieces to create a certain picture and a certain narrative.

And I found that really interesting and also to see, you know, how they're labeled.

I know this sounds like a really nuancy thing, but some of them are labeled, for example, P3 as in prosecution exhibit 3 or D3 as in defense exhibit 3.

And so it was interesting to see which documents the prosecution had tendered and which documents the defense had tendered and how each of the parties were constructing this paper trail.

And I think these documents were throughout the case actually potentially far more significant than perhaps maybe the audience might know or understand because we haven't talked about them in any great detail and that is partly because we haven't been able to look at them so it's very difficult for us to talk about them without having really been able to scrutinize them ourselves.

But these documents were really a very significant part of the evidence.

Yes, you had the

evidence that was given orally throughout the trial, but there was a great deal of time spent on looking at these documents and scrutinizing them and trying to work out what had happened between these various versions of MRs and logbooks and handwritten notes, et cetera.

You know, there was a sort of funny moment at one point where there was a little bit of math involved trying to work out these hours that had been transferred from one document to another and how they'd been added or subtracted.

And, you know, all the journalists who were notoriously hopeless at mathematics looking around at each other thinking, I am so lost.

I have no idea.

This is, you know, simple, simple mathematics, but all of us scratching our heads looking very confused.

So yeah, it was really fascinating to look at these puzzle pieces and see the various ways that they could be pieced together.

There was a moment, I think, right towards the end of the trial where Jason Galachi SC pointed out that the prosecution had been out-exhibited by the defence in this trial, which is really unusual.

That means the defence is presenting more evidence for this trial than the prosecution has gathered initially, right?

Yeah, and this was something the defence brought up during their closing, saying that the prosecution has sort of cherry-picked documents to shape a narrative that was suited to them.

And the defence saying, well, hang on a minute, look at all these documents that they left out, and here they are.

And this is the narrative that we are piecing together.

And so, yeah, it would have been a complex task for the jury to have to sort of go back through the arguments and look at the documents in front of them and try to make sense of each narrative.

Aaron Powell, we had a really interesting puzzle conversation towards the end of the Aaron Patterson trial with the prosecution pointing out that, you know, when you get all these pieces and you put them together, it

paints a picture of guilt.

And then the defence team getting up and saying, well, actually, you know, that's only if you force the pieces together in this way.

And, you know, a puzzle only fits together one way.

And if the things don't fit neatly, it can't be that.

I mean, I feel like the legal system and puzzle metaphors

is a vein that runs very deeply throughout.

So yeah, interesting to hear just that image of how it was being used by the different parties.

You know, Matt Garrick, were you surprised at how much documentation was a part of this?

Yes, I was stocky.

I think part of it also made everything very complicated.

You're suddenly sitting there going, all right, well, what does that fuel gauge show?

Why is it showing it's half full?

And then this other person's telling us the tank's run out of fuel.

And so it's kind of like a puzzle and you've got a thousand pieces and you're just like, where does each one go?

It can be completely baffling at some stages of the trial.

Something I, you know, we haven't been able to avoid as we've been making this pod is the setting of this story.

You know, in the Northern Territory, the accident that started this whole thing was while there was a guy hanging underneath a helicopter collecting crocodile eggs.

So he doesn't really get any more territory.

And to me, that felt so strange.

But I guess, Ollie, for you, that is just, pardon the pun, just part of the territory, right, when you're covering this region.

Even for a territory court reporter, I'd say this case was particularly wild.

You know, crock egg collecting, cowboys,

the whole thing really was, as we've talked so much about, something that really captured everybody's curiosity and imagination.

And it sort of seemed at every turn in this case, there was just another sort of

wild detail.

You know, we had, for example, Nolene and Stacey Chellingworth, who were identical twins, for example.

This sort of like bizarre little twist

in the tale.

There's the weather, which is sort of, again, like, oh, more weather chat, but it's this setting that we're all in, you know, rocking up to court every day and everyone's sweaty and hot and it's, you know, this intense environment.

And then that day where everything was shrouded in that weird mist when the verdict was about to be handed down, there was this wind on the day of the verdict, Matt.

I don't know if you remember that, but it was very quiet in the court and there was this wind like howling outside and it was sort of making this really eerie noise inside the courtroom.

And then of course, this other bizarre thing was the timing of all of this was happening at the time of Darwin Festival.

I mean, this is the middle of dry season for us.

And so we have our yearly Darwin Festival on.

And incredibly, out the front of the Northern Territory Supreme Court, we've got this big, beautiful green lawn that's normally there.

But on this occasion, there was a giant circus tent, which was erected.

on day one of the trial.

And so every afternoon, you'd have this circus music playing as everyone was walking out of court.

Like you just can't write this stuff.

It's just ridiculous.

One thing I think that made it one of the most territory cases that I've seen over recent years is we've got about 135,000 people in Darwin.

Across the top end, there's about 100,000 saltwater crocodiles right there.

It's a draw card of the top end.

The huge salties, the man-eaters out there on our doorstep in places like Kakadu National Park.

But even though we live there, we're not out there playing with them and grabbing at them and wrangling them around.

So to have a story about blokes that do, well, it's going to be fascinating from day one.

Yeah.

Couple that with the circus tent across the road, the twin sisters and the cowboy hats and boots coming marching in and out of court each day.

And yeah, it's a pretty incredible situation to kind of be a witness to.

And I mean, you know, we have a verdict in the trial of Matt Wright at this point on two charges, of the three charges of attempting to pervert the course of justice, at least.

But it doesn't feel like it is over at this point.

There is this ongoing insistence of innocence from Matt Wright in this trial, you know, speaking outside court, flagging an appeal.

It really doesn't feel like this is over.

You know, how much more is there to run, do you think, Ollie?

Well, Stocky, now that there's going to be an appeal, it could be some time before we see the end of this particular chapter.

And, Stocky, as our listeners would have heard in the episode last week, we discussed some of these other court cases which are going on outside of this trial.

And so, certainly, they will be taking quite some time to move through the court system.

We've also got the appeal happening on a question of law about the no-case submission, which happened midway through the trial.

So, there's all these moving parts which point to certainly a very long road ahead for everybody involved in this case.

And, you know, we heard from a lot of those people speaking out the front of court on the day of the verdict saying that they were pleased that this chapter has sort of somewhat come to an end.

But by the sounds of things, there's still a fair way to go.

Matt, can you see this being something that, you know, we are

we're talking about probably not too long into the distant future?

I think Matt Wright has a long legal road ahead.

And I think we could be reporting on this in some guise for the next few years as these cases continue to roll along.

I mean the civil proceedings that are due to take place, we're not scheduled to get a hearing for that until towards the end of 2026.

So I think in some ways, as pains as it is to say it, it may be nowhere near ended yet.

Yeah, we will definitely keep you up to date with all of those other proceedings through the case of.

Ollie, Matt, thank you so much for joining me to to report this case for the case of.

It's been such a wonderful experience.

We're going to be moving into the case of the romance scam next.

That's going to be following the story of Donna Nelson, who says she was tricked into smuggling drugs into Japan.

You would have heard of Chappelle Corby, but you've probably not heard of Donna.

So we'll change that on Tuesday next week.

But yeah, we'll keep you up to date with everything in your feed with special episodes when there's an update on the crock langra as well.

So yeah, Ollie, thank you so much for being a part of this and Matt, you as well.

Thank you so much, Stocky.

Really appreciate it.

Yeah, we've loved it, Stocky.

Thanks.

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

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

Our executive producer is Claire Rawlinson, and a big thank you to senior lawyer Jasmine Sims, our legal queen, for her legal advice as we make these episodes.

Also, a huge thank you to the ABC's Northern Territory Newsroom for letting us borrow Ollie and Matt for this pod.

Couldn't have done it without all of the support of the team up there in Darwin.

Also, a big thank you to Audio Studios manager Eric George.

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

I'm Sarah Konoski, and I've got a special episode of Conversations to share.

Kathleen Folbeek telling her own story.

For two decades, Kathleen was locked up in prison, wrongly convicted of the deaths of her four children, until friendship and science set her free.

I'm in prison accused of murdering my children.

I didn't physically do it, but carried something that did.

Hear my interview with Kathleen Folbeek right now on the ABC Listen app.