Nazi spared jail for ‘very serious’ police intimidation

BY EMILY WOODS for AAP at MELBOURNE MAGISTRATES’ COURT

Neo-Nazi leader Thomas Sewell has been handed a community work order (CWO) for intimidating a police officer and his wife.

Thomas Sewell, 32, was found guilty today, Friday, September 12,  of three charges of intimidation of a law enforcement officer and his wife, over targeted threats to expose his personal information.

He faced the Melbourne Magistrates’ Court in person, from the court dock, while on remand for separate matters.

Sewell threatened to “dox” a police officer and his wife on podcasts in October and November last year, including threats to release personal information and wedding photos.

“I’m working out how to dox him because those doxing laws haven’t come into effect yet,” he told a podcast.

“Like his wedding photos, we’ve got it all downloaded, he’s a f***ing idiot.”

The police officer gave evidence about feeling “highly anxious” over his and his family’s safety.

The officer’s wife said she felt “really intimidated and threatened” in a statement to the court.

“I felt like we were in danger,” she said.

Sewell claimed he was holding police to account and using his implied “freedom of communication” about public affairs when he spoke about the officer and his family.

But magistrate Michelle Hodgson rejected these arguments, finding he had targeted the officer’s private life.

The magistrate found he had “sought to weaponise personal information, personal insult and public exposure to instil fear” in the officer and his wife.

His offending was “objectively very serious”, she said as she shut down Sewell’s claim it was at the lower end.

“Police officers are front line forces of the law, if they are intimidated from carrying out their duties – because of threats of exposure, humiliation or retaliation – the justice system itself is undermined,” she told the court.

“A threat to dox can expose family, friends and home life, it uses technology to make private information available to a potentially hostile audience.

“Once online, it’s virtually impossible to contain.”

She said the maximum term of 10 years in prison for the offending, or two years if heard in the magistrates’ court, reflected the offending involved “a high degree of harm and trauma”.

However, Ms Hodgson decided not to hand Sewell any prison time.

She ordered he complete 200 hours of community work over 18 months, which will commence once he is released from custody for the separate offending.

Sewell had self-represented in a contested hearing over the charges, which ran for more than a week.

On day two of the hearing, September 2, he was arrested outside the court over an alleged attack on an Indigenous protest site, known as Camp Sovereignty, and taken into custody.

Ms Hodgson found him guilty of intimidation against a police officer and his wife, earlier on Friday, and also guilty of two counts of contravening personal safety orders.

He was found not guilty of two other contraventions of those orders, and of failing to comply with a police direction to hand over passwords to his devices.

After the hearing broke for lunch, police were seen arresting a member of Sewell’s neo-Nazi group.

Victoria Police later confirmed a 20-year-old Yea man was arrested outside the court on William Street over Sewell and his group’s alleged attack on Camp Sovereignty on August 31.