Protest over statue plan turns sinister
A plan to build statues in New Zealand and Australia in honour of Anzac soldiers was the catalyst for a man to threaten to torch a RSA building, blackmail an artist and describe to police an explosive attack on a Parliament building.
The bizarre sequence of events is outlined in a Court of Appeal judgment issued yesterday, rejecting Quinton Murray Berrett’s appeals against conviction and sentence.
Berrett was found guilty by a jury in the Whanganui District Court in May 2018 of threatening to destroy property, blackmail and attempting to pervert the course of justice.
He was sentenced to intensive supervision and community work, but wanted his convictions and sentence removed.
The case has its genesis in 2012, when Berrett came up with an idea of erecting two statues of soldiers saluting each other – one in New Zealand, the other in Australia – to commemorate the Anzac soldiers.
New Zealand Defence Force artist Matthew Gauldie liked the idea, while Berrett asked the RSA if it would sponsor it.
The RSA took up the project, with Berrett having no involvement until the RSA published a report saying the whole thing was Gauldie’s idea.
A friend of Berrett’s called the RSA to point out the error, which was passed on to Gauldie.
He and Berrett spoke on the phone, during which Berrett became agitated and aggressive.
Berrett sent an email to a large number of people in March 2015, saying the RSA had six days to ‘‘make amend for what you have cost me’’ or he would try to burn one of their buildings down.
‘‘The police can only detain me for a certain amount of time,’’ he wrote.
‘‘Sooner or later I will be released and I will do exactly what I have told you I will do.’’
He then sent multiple emails to Gauldie, blackmailing him by threatening to smear his name throughout the art world.
‘‘Even if I do decide to burn an RSA to the ground, your career still burns with it,’’ he said.
Berrett was arrested shortly after sending those emails, with then-whanganui Crown solicitor Lance Rowe, who is now a judge, taking control of the file.
Berrett then went on to attempt to pervert the course of justice in an email he sent to Rowe, in which he bemoaned being on bail formore than a year before musing on what it would be like to reach ‘‘breaking point’’.
‘‘If I were to physically assault you or worse, would anyone actually be surprised at all under these circumstances?’’
‘‘He sees himself as leading a lawful rebellion against government corruption.’’
Justice Mark Woolford
That could lead him to being ruled unfit to stand trial due to mental health issues, he said.
He also sent a plethora of letters to police, saying in one dated March 2015 he knew how to make improvised explosive devices, had built a homemade rocket launcher, and described targeting a Parliament building in an attack.
In the appeal judgment, Justice Mark Woolford said that Berrett believed that he was protesting alleged unlawful actions by the National government under Sir John Key.
‘‘He sees himself as leading a lawful rebellion against government corruption.’’
Berrett claimed the Crown had not proven he sent the emails, saying he had no knowledge of the emails’ content and they were sent when he had no internet access.
He also said his family spoke after his sentencing to a man who identified himself as the jury foreperson, who told him the jury got the verdict wrong.
But Woolford said the emails were signed in Berrett’s name and sent from an email address he used to correspond with police.
Post-verdict regret from one person – who may or may not have been on the jury – was not enough to overturn the verdict, Woolford said.