Tears as gunman admits murders

Fouda of Masjid Al Noor and Alabi Lateef from Linwood Islamic Centre, who survived the massacres, were asked to come to court on behalf of their Muslim communities.

But it’s understood that even they didn’t know what it was going to be about.

Fouda wept as the court registrar took several minutes to read aloud all 51 murder victims named on the Crown charge list, before asking the accused if he pleaded guilty or not guilty.

Afterwards, they had to go and speak to their communities.

A court-imposed one-hour embargo on publicising details of the hearing, which concluded at 10.30am, gave court and police victim advisers a window to try alert the victims and families as soon as possible.

Justice Mander admitted it was “regrettable” to hold the hearing without any victims or family members being present, especially given the “obvious reasons of health and safety that apply at this extraordinary time”.

But he felt it could be managed if numbers inside the courtroom were severely limited.

He said yesterday’s guilty pleas signalled a “very significant step” in bringing finality to the proceedings.

In the large Christchurch Justice Precinct courtroom there were only 17 people, including six journalists and two imams.

Although the families couldn’t be there to witness the murderer admit his crimes, Justice Mander stressed that when the gunman was finally sentenced, it will be once the courts return to normal operations after the Covid-19 restrictions ease.

But for now, the families can take comfort from the fact they will be spared a long, painful, harrowing trial.

Yesterday morning, Brenton Tarrant entered shock guilty pleas to the murder of 51 people in Christchurch on March 15 last year. was in court.