Christchurch gunman fails in bid to appeal against guilty pleas in New Zealand court | Christchurch shooting
The Australian white supremacist who killed 51 Muslim worshipers at two mosques in Christchurch in 2019 has been blocked from appealing his guilty plea after one of New Zealand’s highest courts said his bid was “completely devoid of merit”.
Brenton Tarrant, the man responsible for the worst mass shooting in New Zealand history, asked the appeal court in February to allow him to plead guilty, claiming harsh prison conditions affected his mental health and that he was forced to admit the crimes.
In the decision released Thursday, the court said Tarrant’s evidence about his mental state was inconsistent with detailed observations by prison officials, mental health experts and trial attorneys.
“He attempted to mislead us about his state of mind by making a feeble attempt to appeal in circumstances where all other evidence showed that he had made a conscious and entirely rational decision to plead guilty.”
The court said Tarrant was not put under any pressure or pressure to admit the crime.
“The evidence overwhelmingly shows that he did not suffer any significant psychological effects from prison conditions at the time of his guilty plea.”
The court also found that although Tarrant had access to lawyers, he could not adequately explain the delay in filing an appeal.
“The court finds that Mr. Tarrant’s proposed objection is completely ill-founded.”
Tarrant pleaded guilty to 51 counts of murder, 40 counts of attempted murder and terrorism in March 2020 after initially saying he would plead to the charges. In August 2020, Tarrant became the first person in New Zealand to be sentenced to life imprisonment with no chance of release.
However, he appealed both his convictions and sentence to the appeals court in 2022. Court was needed first Consider whether the appeal can proceed because it was lodged outside the statutory deadline.
During the week-long hearing, which began on February 9 and lasted a week, Tarrant told the three-judge panel that his mental health had deteriorated due to conditions in the prison where he was held in solitary confinement, limited reading material or contact with other inmates.
He said he suffered “nervous exhaustion” when he confessed and confessed to the crimes just months before his trial was due to begin because he felt there was “little I could do”.
Tarrant, a self-described white supremacist, said he masked his mental illness in part because of the influence of “the political movement that I am a part of” and that he applied late because he did not have access to the information necessary to submit the application.
Tarrant’s former lawyers, psychologists and prison staff also testified at the hearing, challenging Tarrant’s claims of mental health problems and harsh prison conditions. Experts had determined Tarrant was fit to participate in the defense.
Crown attorney Barnaby Hawes told the court Tarrant was “an unreliable witness and his account must be treated with caution”. Additionally, Hawes said the evidence of his guilt, including live coverage of the attacks, was so strong that a guilty verdict would be final if his case was retried.
Tarrant moved to New Zealand in 2017 planning to launch a white supremacist attack. He planned the mass shooting for months, scouting mosques, distributing a manifesto expressing his racist views before opening fire, and livestreaming part of the attack on Facebook.
Following the attack, Jacinda Ardern’s government banned military-style semi-automatic rifles and created a firearms registry.
The investigation into the attacks is the largest criminal investigation New Zealand has ever seen and is still ongoing. In October 2025, the high court left the door open for Tarrant to be called as a witness despite objections from survivors and victims’ families.
