Two prominent Melbourne neo-Nazis have complained in court about being targeted by state and federal police over their white supremacist political beliefs, during a hearing to determine their sentence for an assault while bushwalking with far-right adherents.
Thomas Sewell, 30, the self-proclaimed leader of the National Socialist Network (NSN), and co-offender Jacob Hersant, 25, appeared in the County Court over an assault on three bushwalkers who filmed Sewell and Hersant’s group as they gathered at the Cathedral Range State Park at Taggerty on May 8, 2021.
Alexander Patton, a barrister representing Hersant, told Judge Kellie Blair on Tuesday that his client felt he was being unnecessarily targeted and surveilled by authorities.
“Mr Hersant refers to being unnecessarily targeted, under constant watch due to his political opinions,” Patton said, “[which is] objectively true.”
Patton said his client was being excessively monitored by police, who would wait outside Hersant’s home and gesture when family peered through the curtains at them.
“[It’s the case for Hersant that] members of various state and Commonwealth bodies sit on the bottom of the car and wave at he and his family through the living room window,” he said.
Sewell’s barrister, Michael McGrath, echoed those sentiments and said the NSN leader took issue with the way police had dealt with his belief system.
Read the article by David Estcourt in The Age.