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White supremacist loses appeal over modified mosque shooting video

Author
NZ Herald,
Publish Date
Tue, 27 Aug 2019, 2:16PM
Philip Arps at an earlier court appearance. (Photo / NZ Herald)
Philip Arps at an earlier court appearance. (Photo / NZ Herald)

White supremacist loses appeal over modified mosque shooting video

Author
NZ Herald,
Publish Date
Tue, 27 Aug 2019, 2:16PM

A white supremacist who shared the Christchurch mosque shooting video, and had it modified to include crosshairs and “kill count”, has lost an appeal against his 21-month jail sentence.

Philip Neville Arps, 44, went to the High Court to argue that his sentence was “manifestly excessive”.

However, in a new decision released today, Justice Rachel Dunningham agreed with the District Court judge’s “appropriate and justified” decision.

Arps, who compares himself to Adolf Hitler's deputy Rudolf Hess and owns a white supremacist-themed Christchurch insulation company was jailed in June after admitting two charges of distributing objectionable publication after the March 15 massacres.

His lawyer, Anselm Williams claimed that Arps, 44, should’ve avoided jail and been sentenced to either a community-imposed sentence or one of home detention.

He argued that Arps had been sentenced on his extreme views rather than the acts he pleaded guilty to.

The court earlier heard how Arps shared the video with a group of 30 “friends or associates” after the shooting.Millions of people worldwide had from all walks of life had done the same thing, Williams said.

But Arps also had a version of the video modified to have crosshairs and a "kill count" added, which District Court Judge Stephen O’Driscoll said had “glorified” the killings. It was, in effect, a hate crime against the Muslim community, the judge said. When he was arrested and asked by police about the victims' deaths, he replied, "I could not give a f***, mate”.

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