Massacres justified, teenager told police

A teen caught with livestream footage of the Christchurch mosque shootings — and who later indecently assaulted a young girl — told police he shared the ideology of the killer and said the massacres were justified.

Daniel John Burrough was aged 18 at the time of the March 15, 2019 terror attacks and spouted his racist views on a Facebook chat group.

After the killings, he sent a link of the gunman’s livestream of the massacre to his chat group, which had about 15 members. Burrough recommended they check it out, saying: “Here’s the live [link] but if that’s down, I’ll share it over Google.”

After he was arrested, Burrough told police that he shared the ideology of the gunman and said the acts were justified. He admitted possession of the video.

Police analysis of his laptop com

It appears his extremist views against people of the Muslim faith continue.

Shivani Dayal, Crown prosecutor

puter found the internet link of the full video, downloaded and saved to his desktop on March 15.

Three days after the attacks, the Chief Censor banned the video, classifying it as objectionable under the Films, Videos & Publications Classification Act 1993. Burrough was charged with possession of the video on the day after the attacks.

At Christchurch District Court, Crown prosecutor Shivani Dayal said a pre-sentence report revealed Burrough shows “clearly no remorse”.

“It appears his extremist views against people of the Muslim faith continue and he has not been deterred,” she said.

But defence counsel Andrew McKenzie argued Burrough should not be treated differently if he thinks differently or has views that people find “repugnant”. The lawyer hoped counselling could help to soften some of Burrough’s “harder views”.

Judge Paul Kellar sentenced Burrough, now 20, to six months’ community detention, with a daily 8pm-4am curfew, and 18 months of intensive supervision with special conditions. He will also be judicially monitored, meaning the judge will regularly check how his intensive supervision sentence is going.

Burrough was also placed on the Child Sex Offender Register. Judge Kellar refused a defence application to grant permanent name suppression.