Celebrity crocodile wrangler Matt Wright's NT Supreme Court trial delayed

Australia Broadcast Center

4 hours ago

The highly anticipated Supreme Court trial of celebrity crocodile wrangler Matt Wright has been delayed by three weeks and is now set to start on July 28.
The star of Netflix's Wild Croc Territory and National Geographic's Outback Wrangler was due to face an eight-week trial in the Northern Territory Supreme Court from July 7, for allegedly attempting to pervert the course of justice.
The allegations relate to Mr Wright's alleged behaviour following a 2022 fatal helicopter crash during a crocodile egg-collecting mission in West Arnhem Land, which killed his friend and co-star Chris "Willow" Wilson.
Helicopter pilot Sebastian Robinson survived the crash with serious injuries.
At a pre-trial hearing on Wednesday, Acting Justice Alan Blow set a new trial start date at the request of the defence.
The judge issued a suppression order on the reason for the decision.
Mr Wright was previously facing one count of attempting to pervert the course of justice, but the court heard the Department of Public Prosecutions had now split that single count into three.
It heard the three counts related to allegations Mr Wright lied to police, pressured Mr Robinson to fabricate helicopter flight records so they met service requirements, and destroyed or attempted to destroy evidence.
Mr Wright has previously indicated he intends to plead not guilty.
During the hearing, defence lawyer Luke Officer told the court Mr Wright was seeking to access more than 100,000 pages of mobile phone records belonging to Mr Robinson's mother, Noelene Chellingworth.
The court heard Ms Chellingworth was with Mr Robinson at a Brisbane hospital when it is alleged Mr Wright visited twice to pressure Mr Robinson to falsify helicopter maintenance records.
Mr Officer told the court the defence was concerned Ms Chellingworth had been present in all but one of Mr Robinson's interviews with investigators from the police force and the Civil Aviation Safety Authority.
"It's not only concerning she was allowed to sit in on those interviews, but it's deeply disturbing she was permitted to answer questions on behalf of her son," he said.
Mr Officer told the court Ms Chellingworth had a motive to protect her son, given the aircraft safety regulator found evidence of cocaine in Mr Robinson's system and that the helicopter likely crashed due to fuel exhaustion.
"Mr Robinson, in large measure, was at fault in some respects, be it refuelling or being under the influence of substances," he said.
"We've got cocaine. We've got fuel exhaustion.
"[Ms Chellingworth] knows everything about aviation, she's an employee of her son, she's got motive to lie."
The lawyer representing the NT police commissioner, Trevor Moses, said the defence had already been given Ms Chellingworth's text messages with Mr Wright, and suggested they wanted to use her phone records to "attack her credibility".
"It was not submitted … there was any proper basis to think there was anything on Ms Chellingworth's phone that would be relevant to either way the Crown puts its case … other than a desire to cross-examine or discredit," Mr Moses said.
"Ms Chellingworth is, on the Crown case, a relatively minor witness.
"Her phone records were chiefly obtained in order to obtain text messages which were quite innocuous between her and Mr Wright arranging visits to hospital."
Acting Justice Blow did not make a final decision about Ms Chellingworth's phone records.