3 days ago
Matt Wright trial hears allegations of cocaine use and COVID-19 breaches
An "anti-vax" crocodile wrangler, a helicopter pilot's cocaine use and the patchy memory of witnesses struggling to recall key details of a fatal crash scene.
These were just snippets from an explosive week of evidence heard by a jury in the high-profile Northern Territory Supreme Court trial against the Outback Wrangler Matt Wright.
The star of Netflix reality adventure show Wild Croc Territory has been charged with three counts of attempting to pervert the course of justice, to which he's pleaded not guilty.
The prosecution has alleged Mr Wright tried to obstruct and interfere with investigations into a helicopter crash which killed his co-star Chris 'Willow' Wilson on February 28, 2022.
Mr Wright's alleged to have done so with the motive of covering up a culture at his helicopter business, Helibrook, of systemically under-reporting helicopter flying hours — which the prosecution alleges was to avoid costly maintenance requirements for his fleet of choppers.
Crown prosecutor Jason Gullaci SC has alleged that after the crash Mr Wright was concerned that his "failure to record hours" would be revealed and "he could be blamed for the crash".
Mr Wright is not alleged to have been at fault over the crash.
The sole survivor of the crash, pilot Sebastian Robinson, took to the stand this week as a key witness in the prosecution's case, in which he branded Mr Wright an "anti-vaxxer" who allegedly asked him to alter flight records just 11 days after the crash which nearly killed him.
Now paraplegic and forced to take breaks from giving evidence every 30 minutes, Mr Robinson told the jury of the life-altering injuries he'd been left with from the crash, from losing the use of his legs to a traumatic brain injury he continues to grapple with.
He alleged that in March 2022, Mr Wright visited his Brisbane hospital room, with documents in his hand, and asked him to "manipulate hours on my aircraft".
"I was obviously laying in a hospital bed," he said.
"I was still in a pretty bad way and very confused, and I knew something wasn't right.
"And I said, 'I'd think about it.'"
While at his bedside, Mr Robinson also alleged Mr Wright deleted items from his phone, including notes about flying hours – an allegation which Mr Wright's barrister David Edwardson KC described as "an absolute falsehood".
"Mr Robinson I suggest that, brain injury or not, Mr Wright never touched your phone and never deleted a single message from it," he said.
In visiting the hospital, Mr Robinson also alleged that the Outback Wrangler had broken COVID-19 restrictions, due to him being unvaccinated.
'He was an anti-vaxxer," Mr Robinson said.
'[To visit the hospital] you had to have a valid COVID certificate … a certificate of vaccination."
As the injured former pilot gave evidence via video link to a packed courtroom, Mr Edwardson turned the microscope onto his past illegal drug use.
The barrister questioned Mr Robinson on the extent of his past cocaine use, presenting extracted text messages sent and received by the chopper pilot.
In one such message from 2019, Mr Edwardson said the pilot wrote: "Footy players in town and want bags."
In another, a text conversation was laid bare with a "distant friend" named Morto:
Sebastian Robinson: "Might have to come down Monday, crook as a dog."
Morto: "Snorting too much coke out of Matty's arse, bro"?
In response, Mr Edwardson said "you certainly know that Matt Wright has nothing to do with cocaine, don't you?"
"Well, Morto's saying, 'snorting too much coke out of Matt's arse,'" he said.
"Are you telling me you've been snorting coke out of Matt's arse?" Mr Edwardson asked.
Mr Robinson was also asked whether he was ever a drug dealer, which he denied.
"I've used cocaine before … I used to use it, you know, recreationally, maybe a couple of times a year," the witness said.
In blood test results after the fatal crash, the court heard Mr Robinson had traces of cocaine in his system, which the prosecution said in its opening statement was "metabolised" and not to blame for the incident.
Mr Robinson was also quizzed as to whether he had ever supplied alcohol to liquor-restricted remote Aboriginal communities in Arnhem Land, to which replied "to sell, no I did not".
The court was shown videos of Mr Robinson appearing to share alcohol with an Aboriginal ranger in Arnhem Land, which the pilot identified as a friend from Maningrida.
Earlier in the week, the courtroom hosted a number of other witnesses, from fellow helicopter pilots to a crocodile egg industry manager and a CareFlight nurse.
Among those was Jock Purcell, one of the crew involved in the egg collecting mission the day Mr Robinson's chopper crashed in a remote paperbark swamp.
Mr Purcell, who was an employee of Mr Wright and also featured in Wild Croc Territory, often struggled to recall key details from the fatal crash site in 2022.
At one stage that afternoon, Mr Gullaci questioned whether Mr Purcell was being more forthcoming to questioning from Mr Wright's defence barrister than to the prosecution: "Has your memory improved during the course of the day in giving evidence?"
The surviving pilot, Mr Robinson, has also repeatedly said in evidence that he can't remember a lot from the time surrounding the fatal crash.
With multiple witnesses giving evidence through the trial, often with differing perspectives of the same scene, the jury was evidently struggling.
In a note to Acting Justice Alan Blow, the jury asked whether they could have some clarity to help them navigate the "discrepancies" between witness accounts.
"Yes, different people have said different things," Judge Alan Blow said in response.
A challenging task ahead for the jury as the trial against the Outback Wrangler gets ever more complex, with evidence set to continue in the NT Supreme Court next week.
