Latest news with #WestArnhemLand
Daily Mail
6 hours ago
- Daily Mail
Outback Wrangler Matt Wright hit with new bombshell charges over the helicopter crash that killed his co-star and paralysed the pilot
Matt Wright is facing two further criminal charges in the Northern Territory Supreme Court following a fatal helicopter crash that killed his co-star Chris 'Willow' Wilson. The TV personality and crocodile wrangler had been scheduled to front Darwin court in early July over one count of attempting to pervert the course of justice. But during a pre-trial hearing via Teams on Wednesday, the charges changed. A Director of Public Prosecutions spokesperson said Wright is facing three counts of attempting to pervert the course of justice rather than one, reported. The charges are related to events which allegedly took place following the helicopter going down in West Arnhem Land in February 2022. Mr Wilson plunged to his death in a remote area of the Northern Territory while dangling from a helicopter owned by Wright as he collected crocodile eggs. He is survived by his wife Danielle and their two young sons. The pilot, 28-year-old Sebastian Robinson, was seriously injured during the crash and has been left a paraplegic. Wright was not aboard the helicopter. Following the incident, Wright and his pilot Michael Burbidge were allegedly first on the scene, with former NT police officer Neil Mellon. The three were later charged over their alleged actions following the crash. Burbidge was fined $15,000 after he pleaded guilty to destruction of evidence, for disposing of Mr Wilson's phone. Mellon was sentenced to eight months behind bars after pleading guilty to offences including, six counts of disclosing confidential information, destroying evidence and obtaining a benefit by deception. Charges against both men of attempting to pervert the course of justice were withdrawn. Wright has consistently denied all allegations against him. His legal team declined to comment when contacted by Daily Mail Australia. During the hearing, Justice Blow heard that the prosecution expected to call 56 witnesses for the eight-week trial, NT News reported. Defence barrister Luke Officer told the court that it was 'inconceivable' to complete preparations within four weeks before the trial was due to begin. Prosecutor James Moore argued the defence did not adequately engage when it was finalising the list of matters. Justice Blow set the trial date to July 28. Wright was also facing an additional six charges which are understood to have remained before the Local Court. They include one count of menacing or intimidating chopper pilot Sebastian Robinson, one count of making a false declaration, one count of fabricating evidence, one count of destroying evidence and two counts of unlawful entry. Wright is yet to enter pleas to those charges but, in a statement released in 2023, he said he was 'hopeful the remaining charges will all be withdrawn once this charge (of perverting the course of justice) is dealt with'.
ABC News
8 hours ago
- ABC News
Celebrity crocodile wrangler Matt Wright's NT Supreme Court trial delayed
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.
ABC News
2 days ago
- General
- ABC News
Clock ticking for patrols battling ghost net ocean plastics in Gulf of Carpentaria
It is rubbish season in northern Australia. When the winds pick up after the monsoon storms, tonnes of plastic trash and discarded fishing nets gathered in the Gulf of Carpentaria make for the coastline. Indigenous rangers patrolling the coastline find ankle-deep plastic rubbish, lids with turtle bite marks and remnants of turtles caught in discarded fishing nets. But with no guarantee of continued funding after the end of this month, they are calling for ongoing support to deal with the amount of plastic waste they see increasing each year. Scientists estimate 8-to-10 million tonnes of plastic end up in the ocean each year. In the next 25 years, they say, plastic may outweigh fish in the ocean. Two per cent of the world's fishing gear is estimated to become ghost nets — lost, discarded or abandoned fishing gear. Senior ranger Clive Nunggarrgalu works with the Numbulwar Numburindi Rangers in west Arnhem Land, where six rangers patrol and care for 300 kilometres of remote coastline. Many of the bays and beaches where ghost nets and marine debris accumulate are only accessible for a few weeks. "When the nets come, they trap animals like buffaloes, turtles and dolphins," he said. "We can cut the nets and free turtles, but even buffaloes, young buffaloes, get trapped in the nets along the sand." He said the tides often buried the nets. "Some of the beaches, they look great, but the rubbish is underneath the sand," he said. For the past four years, the federally funded $15 million Ghost Net Initiative has assisted 22 Indigenous ranger groups with clean-up efforts. They have worked alongside 3,600 people to remove 160,000 kilograms of marine debris, as well as 860 ghost nets. Some of the waste removed has been transformed into reusable fishing gear, art and woven baskets. Since 2018, Sea Shepherd's marine debris campaigner, Grahame Lloyd, has worked with the Dhimurru rangers in north-east Arnhem Land. They worked together to clean up a remote, 14km sacred turtle nesting beach. "In the two COVID years, more plastic had washed up on the beach than had accumulated seven years prior," Mr Lloyd said. "It was that bad that in certain sections, we were using shovels because the rubbish came halfway up your calves. "You had to stand in the plastic to get that top layer off." He said that, without funds to keep the beaches clean, each new season would bring another stockpile of plastic waste . Ghost Net Initiative funding has allowed researchers to use drones and AI systems to help locate and retrieve nets on hard-to-reach coastlines. Charles Darwin University researcher Aliesha Havala has been working with Anindilyakwa Land and Sea Rangers using drones to find nets. She said they found a ghost net almost every kilometre of coastline they searched — among rocks, buried deep in sand or caught in mangrove estuaries. The drones can detect a portion of ghost net as small as 50 centimetres. Using AI programming, the drones then send rangers the coordinates. "A lot of the time these ghost nets are either obscured or they are buried, essentially big icebergs under the sand," she said. "Some of the nets are so large they need to be winched out of the sand or winched onto a vessel to be removed." The marine debris season for the Anindilyakwa Rangers has well and truly started. Two more nets have washed up in areas where the rangers removed some a few weeks ago, Ms Havala said. At the UN Ocean conference in France last week, federal Environment Minister Murray Watt signalled his support for a global treaty to end plastic pollution. He highlighted the need to strengthen regional partnerships tackling ghost nets and single-use plastics in the Pacific Ocean and Arafura and Timor seas. In October, the Australian government joined the Global Ghost Gear Initiative, committing $1.4 million to regional partnerships with Indonesia and Papua New Guinea. The ABC asked Mr Watt and Parks Australia if Ghost Nets Initiative funding would continue but did not receive a direct answer.
