Dept told to pay $3000 in legal fees
The Department of Corrections has been ordered to pay white supremacist Philip Arps $3000 in legal fees.
Arps was jailed for 21 months in 2019 for spreading disturbing footage of the March 15 mosque massacre.
The 45-year-old was released in January last year on strict conditions which included him not loitering near Christchurch’s two mosques or having contact with Muslim people without special approval from his probation officer.
He was electronically monitored
with a GPS tracker — an ankle bracelet designed to trigger alerts if he entered “exclusion zones” around the Al Noor Mosque and Linwood Islamic Centre in Christchurch where the shootings happened.
Arps visited a shop beside the Linwood mosque and was then arrested on August 25 last year — the second day of mosque gunman Brenton Tarrant’s historic sentencing hearing in the city.
He was charged with breach of release conditions and appeared at Christchurch District Court, where he denied the charge.
But in October the charge was dropped after it was concluded there was no evidence that he had breached his release conditions. His lawyer said the arrest had resulted in significant expense and “distress” to Arps and his family and he wanted Corrections to pay his legal fees.
In an application for costs, his lawyer said Arps’ full legal costs concerning the matter totalled $7300.
In his decision, Judge Peter Rollo said although the charge against Arps was eventually dismissed, it was not “improperly brought”.
“I emphasise that there was, in my view, good grounds to suspect the commission of an offence at the time of his arrest.” Judge Rollo ordered Corrections to pay Arps $3000 within 21 days.