Croc Wrangler: How Matt Wright is appealing his verdict

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An appeal, a pet crock, and a pregnancy announcement.

Everything that's happened since a jury found Matt Wright guilty.

I'm Stephen Stockwell.

Welcome to the case of the Croc 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.

Six weeks ago, Matt Wright was found guilty of two counts of attempting to pervert the course of justice for what he did following a helicopter crash in early 2022.

Today, we're bringing bringing you an update because his legal team has come good on its promise to appeal that verdict.

Meanwhile, there's still been a legal argument unfolding in the background of all of this about whether or not this case should have even been brought in the first place.

Keeping an eye on this for us and telling me what I need to know to bring it up to speed like this is Darwin court reporter Olivana Lothuris.

Pit going on in Darwin Ollie?

Oh, there always is stocky.

Never a dull moment up here in the top end and certainly not a cool moment either.

It's been certainly heating up up here in the Northern Territory since the last time we spoke.

I think I whinged about being a sweaty court reporter out the front of court last time and how nice the dry season was.

Well, that time is well and truly over.

I'm just a sweaty mess 90% of the time these days.

Well, look, you know, don't worry about how you're presenting outside of court.

You're presenting well in here as we get through the appeal, talking about our good friend, Justice Alan Blow, a bit of the legal argument that's been happening around in the background as well.

And I'm very excited to hear what's happened to Matt Wright's personal crocodile, Spicy, now that the Wrights have sold their house.

That is all, you know, ancillary to our true purpose today, though.

We have seen an appeal filed in this trial, Matt Wright's team appealing his guilty verdict on two counts of attempting to pervert the course of justice.

What have we got here?

Yeah, so Stocky, this is the appeal notice that we were expecting the day that Matt Wright walked out of court when he was found guilty.

It was pretty much the first thing I think he told reporters when he walked out of those doors.

And he was asked what he thought about the results.

And he said that he was disappointed and said multiple times that he was absolutely planning on, you know, continuing this fight.

And so they had 28 days to file an appeal notice.

And they did exactly that.

And there were five sort of reasons or they're kind of called grounds of appeal.

And those were sort of set out in this appeal notice.

So yeah, five grounds.

Yeah, right.

Okay.

Can you take us through them?

Like are they these all sort of like all grounds that are appealing kind of the way this was done in court or are there little different elements of this?

How does it kind of, how does it look?

Yeah, I mean, it's quite technical.

I'm sort of used to seeing appeals to sentences as opposed to appeals to verdicts, which is what this is, because Matt Wright hasn't been sentenced yet.

And so this is an appeal to the guilty verdict.

And

as a little sort of refresher if we cast our minds back there was three charges of attempting to pervert the course of justice that Matt Wright was facing and he was found guilty on counts one and two and of course there was no verdict delivered on count three so all of these five grounds relate to the guilty verdict on counts one and counts two.

And some of them are pretty technical.

On each of those counts, his lawyers say that the verdict was either unreasonable or unsupported by evidence heard during the trial.

And so that made up two of those five grounds, obviously one for each of the counts.

So are they saying that the jury got it wrong?

Is that kind of the takeaway or that the evidence was presented wrong?

Well, I mean...

You can't really say that the jury got it wrong.

The jury, you know, have their process

and they worked with the evidence that was presented to them in court.

And so again, in the sort of wording of that appeal, it says unreasonable or unsupported by evidence.

And there is sort of some particulars that get kind of listed below each of those grounds.

It sort of like fleshes them out a little bit.

I mean, at the end of the day, it is an appeal to the guilty verdict.

So clearly they don't agree with the outcome.

There is also, in relation to Count 2 specifically, so that is the allegation that Matt Wright tried to convince injured pilot Sebastian Robinson to doctor those flight documents whilst he was still in hospital recovering from those really severe injuries that he suffered as a result of the accident.

And so in regards to that count, Matt Wright's lawyers are basically arguing that the evidence produced during the trial raised an iradicable doubt about whether Wright even asked Mr.

Robinson to falsify flight hour records.

And also in relation to that count, they say that the prosecution failed to produce evidence that aligned with their opening speech to the jury in relation to that count, and that that departure was permitted by the judge.

Right, okay, cool.

Because, yeah, we get the opening speeches at the start of a trial, and that's when we sort of get, yeah, where the trial is going to go, sort of, laid out for us.

And yeah, the defense is basically saying, well, the prosecution said they were going to do this, and they never did.

So,

is that the grounds basically for that one?

Yeah,

that's one of the grounds, and that's specifically in relation to count two.

And then, another one of these grounds is this allegation that Acting Justice Alan Blow made what they call an impermissible comment to the jury in his final speech to them before they began their deliberations.

So at the end of all the evidence, after each of the parties do their closings, the judge has an opportunity to sort of sum things up for the jury and sort of give them some final instructions, if you like.

He's not going to tell them obviously what to do, but it's sort of just a little bit of guidance as to how to approach their task of having to come up with a verdict and Matt Wright's lawyers have said that there was a comment made by Acting Justice Alan Blow in that final speech that essentially led to

a miscarriage of justice that it was an inappropriate and unnecessary comment to make.

So it's again in relation to Count Two, which again is about Matt Wright's attempt to convince Sebastian Robinson to doctor those flight records.

And in the appeal notice, Matt Wright's lawyers say that Acting Justice Alan Blow told the jury that if they could be satisfied beyond reasonable doubt that Matt Wright had indeed tried to convince the pilot to doctor those flight owl records, they then needed to go on and consider whether his actions had the tendency to pervert the course of justice.

And in relation to that, the notice points to this very specific comment.

It says that the judge then told the jury, quote, that might not be hard to, that might not be a difficult question.

And that's exactly what's quoted in the appeal notice.

And basically, they've said it was that specific comment that was unnecessary.

And they said it gave rise to a substantial risk that the jury would be persuaded of the guilt of Matt Wright in relation to that second count.

Yeah, right.

Okay.

So, yeah, really interesting because, yeah, he's talking about whether or not

he's obviously referring to whether or not he was asked to doctor the records.

And then basically Blows said to the jury, look, if you can, if you decide that that's what's happened, well, look, you know, it's probably not far for you to go.

So, I mean, I can see why he would say that.

You know, that's kind of a conversational approach.

And I think, you know, as you're talking through this, Ollie, the thing I'm realizing is that this is so technical, you know, hair's width of kind of like the legal terminology, right?

And it like, is this, it's common?

This is usually how they kind of go.

They're really kind of working in the weeds?

Yeah, I mean, generally, appeals are on these sort of quite specific things.

I mean, not always.

There's obviously a various range of things that people, or grounds of appeals that are possible in these circumstances.

I think I said before, I'm sort of more used to seeing appeals to sentences.

You know, that sort of manifestly unjust sentence.

You know, I've covered a few appeals like that before.

But this is different in the sense that it's actually not about the sentence and how just that sentence is.

It's really going to tackling whether or not Matt Wright is or should have been found guilty at all.

And certainly they're really technical.

But we saw this all the way through the trial.

I mean, trials are so, they're a technical thing.

These arguments aren't these sort of broad brushstrokes.

They really come down to often very specific things.

And that's, I feel like that's really been a theme of the trial all the way through.

It feels like at every point, there were sort of these very nuanced questions that the jury had to consider and very sort of, yeah, nuanced takes on different things.

And so, yeah, it's certainly some very technical arguments in there.

But

some of them are a little bit more, as I said, those first two about it just.

you know, essentially saying there's just insufficient evidence to even get these charges over the line, maybe a little less so, but certainly those later ones a little bit more nuanced.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And I mean, all we've got at this point is what Matt Wright is keen to appeal his guilty verdicts on.

When is that appeal going to be heard?

Is heard the right word?

Yeah, absolutely.

In terms of the appeal, there's sort of so many different sort of things on the go when it comes to Matt Wright.

So there's a few different

things in play.

In regards to the appeal of the verdict, it's unlikely that this is going to happen sort of anytime soon.

It's looking like early next year.

But again, who could say, Stocky, the creaking wheels of justice?

Who could say?

But obviously they would want to be getting this dealt with as quickly as possible.

So

yeah, looking like early next year.

Yep, cool.

And I mean, as well as the appeal that we've got the details of now, there was also this conversation we had during the trial where Matt Wright's defense team were claiming that he didn't have a case to answer.

They moved this no-case motion during the trial and the argument on that was deferred until afterwards.

Now, we actually had that on a court list for Tuesday, so we're expecting to hear that earlier this week, but it dropped off the list.

What's happening there?

Yeah, so this is sort of another one of those things that's sort of on foot in the background.

And as you said, this was something that came up sort of midway through the trial and there was sort of two arms to it.

And again, you know, forgive me for how technical this is, but it is quite a technical argument.

And there were sort of two arms to that no case.

First arm was sort of a more substantive question.

It was again saying,

you know, there's not enough evidence to support these charges of pervert the course of justice.

Second arm of it was a little bit different.

It was more about the provision that Matt Wright was being charged under, that specific charge of pervert the course of justice.

And his lawyers were arguing that...

he never should have been charged with that specific charge.

It should have been something else that carried a much lower maximum sentence.

And it's that second arm that that there's going to be further legal argument on.

It was listed for court.

We were supposed to be hearing that legal argument in the Northern Territory Supreme Court on Tuesday.

We got to Tuesday and

it had disappeared off the court list.

So we were all scratching our heads for a couple of hours wondering what had happened.

But it was later revealed that the reason it had dropped off the list was because the parties had essentially decided between themselves that they didn't need to have any more discussion about this, that they had had the opportunity to provide written submissions and provide their arguments in a written form.

And then now it's just up to the Court of Criminal Appeal to answer those questions of law and provide a decision.

When we'll get that decision really remains to be seen, so we just have to wait and see.

Well, look, we'll keep you, you know, keep the Teams chat going to get the latest of that.

Yeah, the surprise when it dropped off

in the little chat that we've got, you know, that was something that I wasn't expecting early this week.

Had a whole episode planned around the timing of it.

How dare they?

Don't the courts know we're trying to make a podcast here?

Anyway,

when Matt Wright was found guilty, he was granted bail.

So Matt Wright has actually been kind of wandering around in the community this whole time.

And while he's been doing that, there's actually like a fair bit going on in Matt Wright's personal life, including the sale of his house.

They've sold the place they had up in Darwin, right?

That's right.

Yeah, this was something that was sort of ticking along in the background throughout the trial.

I think we saw a fairly amusing Instagram post that Matt Wright put up halfway through the trial, you know, giving a bit of a tour of his house, which is sort of out in the rural area of Darwin.

Pretty specky-looking property.

And yeah, the house sold.

I think it went for about $1.3 million.

And along, of course, with the beautiful house and the nice property,

of course, in true Matt Wright Northern Territory style, there was a crocodile on the property, Spicy, who we all got introduced to,

you know, through Instagram.

Spicy the croc, this massive, I think it's four or five meters, huge saltwater crocodile that they were keeping at the property.

It's been enjoying its life there for a few years.

Is Spicy a pet or is Spicy just a crocodile that happens to inhabit the property, like the land that the property has been built on?

Look,

I mean, I guess he's a pet.

I know most of us just, it seems very bizarre to think about keeping a crocodile as a pet.

But yeah, I mean,

I guess it's a pet.

I mean, there's no river system running through the property, so I assume that he wasn't just randomly there.

But yeah,

Spicy's been

living out on Matt Wright's property for quite some time now.

And I think it was a question of whether or not the new owners wanted a crocodile.

And clearly, they did not.

So Spicy has to be moved.

He's now at his new home at Matt Wright's top end safari camp, probably enjoying a bit of a change of scenery.

And of course the other sort of big life update that was revealed is that Matt Wright and Kaya Wright are pregnant and that Kaya Wright was in fact pregnant right through the course of this trial.

And there was quite a bit of a media flurry when that news was broken.

And of course, yeah, you can only imagine how challenging it would have been to sort of be dealing with that as well as sitting in a courtroom every single day.

But yeah, so certainly a lot happening in the personal lives of Matt and Kaya Wright.

Yeah, and I mean, Matt Wright as well, he's known to most people outside of the top end because of

the TV shows that he's been a part of.

And, you know, as well as selling a house, having a baby,

there is also another season of the TV show coming?

Yeah, there was a little teaser put out on social media saying that there had been more filming going on for the next season of Outpack Wrangler.

So it seems that a criminal trial is not enough to stop this TV show going ahead.

I think just before the trial it was announced that the TV show had been sold to Apple TV, I believe.

So yeah, they're still certainly pushing ahead with everything to do with the TV series.

Danny's, I just can't imagine, I mean, where Matt Wright is finding the time to start with.

You know, he's also doing tours of his home on Instagram, you know, just showing people that, getting home from court of an evening.

His wife is, you know, preparing to have a baby, and he's been out filming this show at the same time, which just is kind of...

incredible.

So we'll keep you up to date with kind of what happens there.

Ollie, another kind of like a highlight is not the word that you would use for this moment, but certainly something that I remember from the trial is when you were called out by the judge for some other reporting you had done on one of the people involved in this trial, Sebastian Robinson, who was the pilot flying the helicopter that crashed early 2022.

One of the things that you were reporting on was that he had also been charged with stealing crocodile eggs, totally separate to this trial and all of his work with Matt Wright.

But where is that up to?

That's been back in court as well, I understand.

That has been, and thank you for that reminder of that horrifying day that I was called out in court.

Ended up being that

nothing was wrong with the report, just to clarify.

Never in doubt.

Indeed.

Never a fun moment, anyway.

But yes, there has been an update, only a small one, quite incremental.

But Sebastian Robinson, alongside Timothy Luck, who was another of the witnesses who gave evidence through this trial, and a couple of other men who have been jointly charged with stealing crocodile eggs from one of the Northern Territory's most iconic national parks, Kakadu National Park, which is south of Darwin.

And essentially, what we heard in court on that day was just that the prosecution had filed their brief of evidence.

So they'd sort of handed that over to the defence.

And basically, their lawyer said that it was pretty complex and quite comprehensive.

It included things like purported DNA evidence of crocodile hatchlings or related to crocodile hatchlings.

So this is the kind of thing that the defence is now going to have to

work through and they requested a two-month adjournment to just try to get their heads around the alleged facts in that case.

So we're not planning to hear anything more about that for a little while yet.

So just a small incremental update there.

Well, worth it for the little teaser of the baby crocodile DNA,

which would be kind of fascinating.

I guess they'll be sampling crocodile DNA from various different places.

They would know where they're allowed to collect eggs from.

So yeah, that'd be interesting to see kind of what unfolds there.

So great update, Ollie, and sorry to

refresh that trauma for you.

But look, it's worth it for some great podcast content.

So I appreciate you making the effort.

You know, with Matt Wright still in the community, he's been granted bail until he is sentenced for two counts of attempting to pervert the course of justice.

When is that supposed to be happening?

Yeah, there's sort of been, you know, some various argument about this because there's the stated case element of this, which came out of the no-case submission, which we've talked about.

There's the verdict appeal.

So there's sort of all these various things which are going on.

And of course, meanwhile, the prosecution are pushing for Matt Wright to be sentenced.

There was a brief kind of court hearing where we heard from the prosecution and the defence about when this sentencing hearing should be set down for.

And essentially, essentially, Matt Wright's lawyers were pushing for it to happen after the appeal was dealt with.

The prosecution said, no, we should just push ahead, set down the day, and then sort of deal with any complications afterward.

Ultimately, Acting Justice Alan Blow basically said that he wanted to deal with things

ASAP, and so a sentencing hearing was set down for the 12th of December.

December.

It sounds like the parties aren't going to be coming up to the Northern Territory necessarily.

The judge judge won't necessarily be coming up to the NT on that day.

Instead, we'll be doing it the COVID way via teams.

It sounds like Acting Justice Alan Blow has some important plans happening in December.

He doesn't want to trek it up here in the middle of the wet season, so he'll be spared that joy.

But that's looking like the day for the sentencing hearing.

Unsure whether he'll actually be sentenced on that day.

The parties both have an opportunity to put some submissions to the judge in writing and then they may also get an opportunity to do some oral submissions on that day and whether the judge decides to go ahead and sentence Matt Wright on the 12th of December.

We'll have to just wait and see.

And so when you're talking about that 12th of December hearing, I mean something we got during the sentencing of Aaron Patterson was a bunch of victim impact statements and things like that.

Obviously that was for a murder trial and this is quite different.

Attempting to pervert the course of justice is a very different charge to murder and kind of the direct impact on a victim is probably a bit different even though you know people have died in in events that kind of related to these charges.

Will we get people speaking about the impact of this, or are the oral submissions more just the lawyers kind of arguing with each other?

Look, Stocky, that's a really good question.

And the honest answer is I'm not sure.

You know, as you say, obviously, Matt Wright was never accused of being responsible for that accident.

He was never accused of being responsible for Chris Wilson's death or for the injury suffered by the pilot.

So I'm not really sure where the sort of victim victim impact statements might come into something like this.

It's very likely that we will still hear various arguments from the parties about what kind of a sentence Matt Wright should get.

We heard very briefly after the verdict was handed down that the prosecution were going to be pushing for a prison sentence, and no doubt Matt Wright's lawyers will be vigorously arguing against that.

There may be things like arguments about criminal record,

curial punishment is another thing.

You know, has Matt Wright suffered any other forms of punishment that might sort of impact how harshly the court sentences him for these crimes?

So things like that, very likely to be hearing some argument about.

Yeah, great.

Okay, cool.

Thank you, Ollie.

We'll put December 12 in the case of diary, and I'm sure we'll be catching up very soon to talk more about all this.

I look forward to it.

It's Olivana Lathuris, the ABC's court reporter in Darwin.

Yeah, thank you so much for being here and taking us us through all this.

I've missed you.

Missed you as well, Ellie.

It's so nice to have you back.

After this, we are going to be moving on to the case of Snowtown parole from next Tuesday.

In just over a week, one of those murderers, James Lusakis, will be out of prison on parole.

And to bring you that story, we'll be joined by senior ABC Adelaide reporter James Wakeland, who was at the Snowtown bank vault the day the bodies were uncovered.

And we'll bring you the story of what happened in 1999 and why Lusakis, unlike the other two murderers, has been given the opportunity of parole.

We're gonna have a short episode introducing all of that in your feed tomorrow, and then, yeah, we'll dive into that from next Tuesday.

So, make sure you grab the ABC Listen app because it is the best place to listen to the case of.

Episodes rock up there slightly before they end up anywhere else.

Of course, if you are using a different podcast platform, please give us a rating and review because it makes it a lot easier for other people to find us and enjoy the dulcet tones of people like Olivana Lothuris and James Wakeland.

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

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

Our executive producer is Claire Rawlinson, and a big thank you to our legal queen, senior lawyer Jasmine Sims, who keeps an eye across all of our content.

Also, to the Northern Territory newsroom and to Audio Studios manager Eric George.

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

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