On March 15, 2019, during Friday prayers, Brenton Harrison Tarrant murdered 51 people at two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand, and tried to murder 40 others. He was arrested by police the same day. A year later, at a short-notice hearing held while the country was under pandemic restrictions, he pleaded guilty to 51 charges of murder, 40 of attempted murder and one of engaging in a terrorist act. On August 27, 2020 the High Court at Christchurch sentenced him to life imprisonment without parole, the first time a New Zealand court had made that order since Parliament created it. He was also the first person sentenced under the terrorist act provision of the Terrorism Suppression Act 2002.
The case did not end with the sentence. A Royal Commission of Inquiry examined what the state had known and what it could have done. The Prime Minister designated him a terrorist entity on the day he was sentenced, and that designation has been reviewed and kept in force twice since. In November 2022, more than two years after the deadline, he filed a notice of appeal against his convictions and sentence, claiming that his conditions in custody had left him unable to make a rational choice when he pleaded guilty. The Court of Appeal heard the application over five days in Wellington in February 2026 and refused it on April 30, 2026, calling the proposed appeal "utterly devoid of merit." He remains in custody in New Zealand, and the coronial inquiry into the deaths has been held up over whether he should be called to give evidence.
Tarrant was born in Grafton, in New South Wales, Australia, on October 27, 1990. He is an Australian citizen. In 2017 he moved to Dunedin, on the South Island of New Zealand, a country where he had no family and no other apparent connections. He was 28 at the time of the murders and 29 when he was sentenced.
He had no criminal history in New Zealand before March 15, 2019. The Royal Commission later set out exactly what the state had known about him in advance. Its consolidated finding was that the only information known to public sector agencies before that day that "could or should have alerted them to the terrorist attack" was an email he sent to the Parliamentary Service "just after 1.32pm on 15 March 2019," minutes before the killing began. The Commission found that the Parliamentary Service had "acted appropriately within a period of time that was reasonable in the circumstances," that no other information available to any public sector agency could or should have alerted it, and that there had been no failure in information sharing between agencies.
The murders took place at two mosques in Christchurch on a Friday, when congregations had gathered for prayers. Forty-four people were killed at the first mosque and seven at the second. The court later recorded that the worshippers at the first mosque were mainly men of various ages, and that women and children were also among the congregation.
Fifty-one people died. Forty others survived what the Crown charged as attempted murder, and some of them were left with lifelong injuries. Many more were present and escaped. The sentencing court counted among the victims not only those killed and wounded but everyone who had been inside the two mosques that afternoon, and it recorded the harm done to the Muslim community in Christchurch and across the country, many of whose members came to doubt their own safety in their places of worship.
Police arrested him in Christchurch the same day. He offered no resistance. In his police interview he confirmed what he had done and why; the sentencing court later referred to the case against him as overwhelming, "including a full confession."
On Saturday March 16, 2019 he appeared in the Christchurch District Court on a single holding charge of murder and was remanded in custody. On April 4, 2019 police laid a further 50 charges of murder and 39 of attempted murder. The next day, April 5, he made his first appearance in the High Court at Christchurch, where no plea was entered.
On May 21, 2019 the charge list changed again. One attempted murder charge was amended to murder, two further attempted murder charges were added, and police laid a charge under the Terrorism Suppression Act 2002 of engaging in a terrorist act. It was the first time that charge had been brought in New Zealand. The final indictment held 92 charges: 51 of murder, 40 of attempted murder and the single terrorism charge. In the sentencing remarks they are numbered as charges 1 to 51, 52 to 91 and 92.
On June 14, 2019 he pleaded not guilty to all 92. In September 2019 the court fixed a trial date in June 2020, a choice made to avoid Ramadan. On August 15, 2019 the court heard that the trial might be put back by a month. On October 3, 2019 he abandoned an application to move the trial out of Christchurch. Pre-trial matters were dealt with in December 2019, at a hearing he did not attend, and the case was called again on February 24, 2020, when the discussions were suppressed.
Through this period he was represented by two defense lawyers, who acted for him from March 2019 until July 2020. Both later gave evidence that they had raised concerns about his conditions in custody early in his remand, and that they had found officials dismissive.
On the afternoon of Tuesday March 24, 2020 his lawyers told the court that he wished to plead guilty. New Zealand had just entered its national pandemic lockdown. Arrangements were made at short notice for a hearing in the High Court at Christchurch at about ten o'clock on Thursday March 26. Only a small number of people were allowed into the courtroom, and those who entered were screened by security staff and court staff wearing protective masks. Two imams, one from each mosque, attended as representatives of the victims and the Muslim community, along with representatives of the media.
He appeared by audio-visual link from custody and pleaded guilty to all 92 charges. No reason for the change of plea was given in court. Suppression orders kept the news back for long enough for police and victim support staff to tell the victims before it became public. The Commissioner of Police said the force appreciated that the news would come as a surprise to the victims and the public. The Prime Minister said the pleas would "provide some relief to the many people whose lives were shattered by what happened on March 15," and that they would "bring accountability for what happened."
He was remanded in custody, with no sentencing date set. Police said sentencing would wait until every victim who wished to attend could be there, which pandemic restrictions would not allow for some time. Because the pleas had been entered with victims and the public shut out, the Crown asked that the summary of facts not be read until victims and their families could be present, and sought leave to file an amended summary before sentencing.
On July 2, 2020 the sentencing judge issued a minute on the pandemic's effect on the sentencing date. At a call on July 13, 2020 the date of August 24 was confirmed. At the same hearing his two lawyers applied for leave to withdraw: they told the court they had been instructed to step aside because he wished to represent himself at sentencing. The judge confirmed with him directly that he understood his right to legal representation and wished to waive it, and granted the lawyers leave to withdraw. The minute recorded that the change would not affect the sentencing date, and that the court would appoint a lawyer as standby counsel, to assist him if he chose and to take over his case should he later decide he wanted to be represented.
Further minutes followed on access to court documents (August 3), on the conditions of media coverage and remote access (August 6) and on arrangements for sentencing under the country's alert level 2 restrictions (August 18). The court also appointed a lawyer as amicus curiae, counsel assisting the court on the sentencing law who represented neither side. The court's background paper for the hearing, issued in August, recorded that 54 victims had by then said they wished to read their victim impact statements aloud, and that it would take a number of days to hear them all.
The hearing opened at ten o'clock on Monday August 24, 2020 in the High Court at Christchurch and ran until Thursday August 27. The Crown was represented by three prosecutors, with two further counsel appearing on behalf of the victims. He appeared in person, with standby counsel and the amicus in court.
The summary of facts was read, and then the victims spoke. For three days, survivors and bereaved relatives came forward to tell the court what the murders had done to them. The public gallery and seven additional courtrooms were full. More victims came forward on the final afternoon than had been expected. The judge read the written statements of well over 200 victims, and received further statements from the Muslim Association of Canterbury, the Islamic Women's Council of New Zealand, the Federation of Islamic Associations of New Zealand and the Canterbury Interfaith Society. Many of those who spoke asked that he never be released.
The Crown applied for life imprisonment without parole. The amicus put the arguments against that order, among them the guilty pleas, the possibility of rehabilitation and the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act 1990, and proposed a life sentence with a finite minimum term. He made no submissions in mitigation. Standby counsel made a single submission on his behalf: that he did not oppose the application for life without parole.
On August 27, 2020 the court delivered its sentence. On each of the 51 charges of murder he was sentenced to life imprisonment, and the court ordered that he serve the sentences without parole. On each of the 40 charges of attempted murder he was sentenced to concurrent terms of 12 years' imprisonment. On the charge of committing a terrorist act he was sentenced to life imprisonment.
The order was made under section 103(2A) of the Sentencing Act 2002, on the court's conclusion that no minimum period of imprisonment would be sufficient to satisfy the purposes of sentencing. The court recorded that such an order had not previously been made in New Zealand. It held that his guilty pleas, entered more than a year after the events and in the face of overwhelming evidence, could not displace a sentence of life without parole on the murder charges, or a life sentence on the terrorism charge, and that any credit for them could be marked only on the attempted murder charges. It ordered the destruction of the exhibits, save one item whose disposal it reserved, and directed that the four psychiatric and psychological reports prepared for the proceeding be given to the Department of Corrections. Because he had been convicted of murder and attempted murder, the court gave him the formal warning required under the three-strikes provisions of the Sentencing Act, while noting that it could have no practical effect.
On the same day, August 27, 2020, the Prime Minister designated him a terrorist entity under section 22 of the Terrorism Suppression Act 2002. The notice in the New Zealand Gazette, signed by the Commissioner of Police, identified him as "Brenton Harrison Tarrant, born Grafton, Australia, on 27 October 1990." A designation freezes the New Zealand assets of the person designated and makes it a criminal offense to take part in or support that person's activities, which includes dealing with their property or making property or financial services available to them.
When a designated entity is imprisoned in New Zealand, the Prime Minister must review the designation every three years. The first review was completed on August 1, 2023, and the designation was kept. The second began in February 2026. On February 13, 2026 the Chair of the Terrorist Designation Working Group, acting for the Prime Minister, published a Gazette notice headed "Commencement of Periodic Review of the Designation of an Imprisoned Terrorist Entity," inviting third parties with an interest to provide relevant information, and he was sent a letter telling him the review had begun and that he could put material before the Prime Minister. Requests for information went to the Department of Corrections, the Department of Internal Affairs, the police, the Combined Threat Assessment Group and the Security Intelligence Service.
The summary of that review, published by the police in July 2026, concluded that there were still reasonable grounds under sections 35D and 35E of the Act for his continued designation, and that the designation "continues to remain necessary and desirable for the prevention and suppression of terrorism, and is justified." Among the effects it credited to the designation were limits on his ability to receive funds and material support and to distribute material from custody.
The Prime Minister set up a Royal Commission of Inquiry into the terrorist attack on Christchurch masjidain to examine what state agencies had known about his activities beforehand, what they could have done to prevent the attack, and what they should do to prevent such attacks in future. Its report, titled Ko tō tātou kāinga tēnei, was presented to the Governor-General on November 26, 2020 and released on Tuesday December 8, 2020. It made 44 recommendations, eight of them led by the police.
Beyond its finding on the email to the Parliamentary Service, the Commission concluded that the concentration of counter-terrorism resources on the threat of Islamist extremist terrorism, before the Security Intelligence Service began a baselining project in May 2018, had been inappropriate, because it was not based on an informed assessment of the threats associated with other ideologies and did not result from a system-wide decision. It found, however, that this concentration "did not contribute to the individual's planning and preparation for his terrorist attack not being detected," and that no public sector agency in the counter-terrorism effort had failed to meet required standards or was otherwise at fault in respects material to that failure of detection.
Among the recommendations the police took on were a single government contact point for the public to report concerning behavior and the systematic recording of hate motivation in offending, with training for frontline staff to identify it. The police began quality-checking every hate crime report on January 1, 2021, and a hate crime program received Cabinet funding in July 2021.
He has served his sentence in a New Zealand prison in the Auckland region, held in solitary confinement under close staff observation. Judicial review proceedings connected with the case were filed in April 2021.
Under the rules for criminal appeals he had 20 working days after sentence in which to lodge an appeal, a deadline that fell in September 2020. He filed nothing until November 3, 2022, when he lodged a notice of appeal against his convictions and his sentence. It was 505 working days out of time, so the first question for the Court of Appeal was whether to extend the time at all. His case was that he had been driven to plead guilty by irrationality brought on by his conditions in custody, and that he should be allowed to withdraw the pleas and go to trial.
The application took more than three years to reach a hearing. In November 2024 the Court of Appeal allowed the lawyers now acting for him to remain anonymous, on grounds of their safety, and the Supreme Court declined to hear a further appeal on that point. As a result the February 2026 hearing was held in a closed court, with the proceedings relayed by video on a delay. The court appointed a lawyer on standby in case he dismissed his counsel. In a 2024 affidavit filed for the appeal, he set out his account of daily life in custody.
A panel of three Court of Appeal judges sat in Wellington for five days, beginning on February 9, 2026. He appeared by video conference from prison, the first time in years that he had been seen or heard in a courtroom. Bereaved relatives were invited to follow the proceedings by video from Christchurch, on a one-hour delay.
He gave evidence that exhaustion had pushed him into his admissions. He described constant solitary confinement, surveillance by staff, limited reading material and almost no contact with the outside world, and said that these conditions had damaged his mental capacity and that he had hidden symptoms of serious illness from those around him.
His two former defense lawyers gave evidence. Both said they had raised his conditions with officials early on. Neither believed that his surroundings had harmed his decision-making, and both were sure he had always intended to plead guilty given the strength of the evidence. They also said it had been important to him to be convicted on the terrorism charge. One said he had told his client that the defense his client had wanted to run at trial was not available under New Zealand law. Prison officers and expert witnesses gave evidence as well. The Crown put it to him that he had had many opportunities to raise concerns about his mental health or to seek a postponement before he pleaded, and no witness agreed that his conditions or his mental state had left him unfit to plead.
The legal test was whether there had been a miscarriage of justice. If the court let the pleas be withdrawn, the case would go back for trial; if not, his separate appeal against sentence was to be heard later in 2026.
Within a week of the hearing he tried to end it. He sent the court a notice abandoning the appeal, which was rejected because it was undated and unwitnessed, then filed a second notice, dated and witnessed, later the same week, in which he also said he no longer wanted a lawyer. The following week he dismissed his counsel.
The Court of Appeal delivered a unanimous judgment, [2026] NZCA 148, on Thursday April 30, 2026. It dealt first with his attempt to withdraw. New Zealand law does not automatically let an appellant drop an appeal once it is under way, and the court refused him leave to abandon his application for an extension of time and the conviction appeal that would follow from it. It held that the application was "of significant public interest and should be finally determined," pointing to "wider public interest considerations." It did accept the abandonment of his appeal against sentence, which had not yet been argued; that appeal "is now at an end."
It then decided the extension application on its merits and refused it. The court said it "does not accept Mr Tarrant's evidence about his mental state." It found "inconsistencies in Mr Tarrant's own evidence about the severity of his mental state," and that his account was "at complete odds with the detailed observations of prison authorities" and with the evidence of his own trial lawyers. "The evidence overwhelmingly demonstrates that he was not suffering any significant psychological impacts," the court held. It accepted that before the pleas he had been "somewhat anxious and suffering a degree of depression," but found that he was "nevertheless able to function at a high level of cognitive ability," and that the pleas were "an informed and totally rational decision." It found that his solitary confinement had been necessary because of the risk of suicide and self-harm. He had accepted that he did not meet the legal definition of unfitness to plead, and the court found that he was not suffering from a mental impairment or any other form of mental incapacity. He "was not coerced or pressured in any way" into pleading guilty.
On the delay, the court found that he had "failed by a considerable margin to adequately explain the extraordinarily long delay" in filing his notice of appeal. On the merits it held that "the facts concerning Mr Tarrant's offending are beyond dispute," that he "has not identified any arguable defence, or indeed any defence known to the law," and that "Mr Tarrant's proposed appeal is utterly devoid of merit." Refusing the application, it said, served "the wider interests of society, and particularly the victims of Mr Tarrant's offending."
Lawyers for survivors and bereaved families called the decision a "huge relief," because it spared them a trial that would have made them relive the murders. Crown counsel said the judgment mattered for the victims' sense of justice and for public confidence in the appeal process. The judgment leaves the convictions and the sentence of life without parole in place. A further application to the Supreme Court remained open to him in principle.
The Coroner's inquest into the 51 deaths has run in two phases. The first began in October 2023 and heard further evidence in May and August 2024, on ten issues about the events of the day and the response of the emergency services. The second began in October 2024.
The Deputy Chief Coroner presiding over the inquest granted him interested party status, put written questions to him, and asked the parties whether they wished to cross-examine him. He provided two written briefs in September 2024, and the only application to cross-examine him came from counsel assisting the coroner. When the coroner decided to call him as a witness, survivors and bereaved families objected that he could use the hearing as a platform, and applied to the High Court for judicial review. The High Court dismissed the application in October 2025, finding "no reviewable error by the coroner." Some families appealed, asking the Court of Appeal to set aside the coroner's decision and direct her to reconsider it, and the appeal was listed for hearing in March 2026.
In March 2026 the Deputy Chief Coroner adjourned the second phase, part-heard, ruling that "the interests of justice require, at least for now, the adjournment of the Second Phase of the Inquiry and inquest." She cited the risk of prejudice to him and the jurisdictional challenges raised in the judicial review appeal, and said she must "make every effort to ensure the integrity of the criminal appeal proceedings is not undermined." She would revisit the decision once the appeal was decided. After the April judgment, the Federation of Islamic Associations of New Zealand said it feared he could still be called to give evidence.
As of November 2026 he is 36, serving life imprisonment without parole in a New Zealand prison in the Auckland region. His convictions stand, the appeal against his sentence has been abandoned and is at an end, and the 2026 periodic review of his designation as a terrorist entity concluded that it remains justified. The second phase of the coronial inquiry stood adjourned in the spring of 2026 pending the Court of Appeal's decision on the families' judicial review appeal.
Murder carries a mandatory sentence of life imprisonment in New Zealand under section 102 of the Sentencing Act 2002, and engaging in a terrorist act carries a maximum of life imprisonment under section 6A of the Terrorism Suppression Act 2002. A life sentence for murder normally comes with a minimum period of imprisonment of at least 10 years, and at least 17 years in very serious cases, after which the Parole Board may release the prisoner if satisfied that he is no longer a risk. Section 103(2A), added by the Sentencing and Parole Reform Act 2010, allows the court to order that a life sentence for murder be served without parole if it is satisfied that no minimum term would be sufficient to satisfy one or more of the purposes of sentencing. Such an order can attach only to a sentence for murder, which is why the terrorism charge drew an ordinary life sentence.
Before August 2020 no court had made the order. The longest minimum term imposed until then had been 30 years. The amicus argued that a whole-of-life order would breach section 9 of the Bill of Rights Act, which forbids disproportionately severe punishment. The sentencing court held that, where the statutory criteria were met and no rights-consistent meaning was open, Parliament's direction had to be followed in any event, and it imposed the order.
His sentencing also fell under the rules set by the Victims' Rights Act 2002, which allows victims to present impact statements in court in writing, by recording or in person, through a nominee or through Crown counsel, and to choose not to be identified, recorded, filmed or photographed. The offender may be shown the statements but may not keep copies.
The appeal turned on the rule that a notice of appeal must be filed within 20 working days of sentence. Late appeals require an extension of time, and the court weighs the length of the delay, the reasons for it and the merits of the proposed appeal against the interest in finality. His notice was 505 working days late.
His central claim on appeal, that harsh conditions in custody left him irrational and forced him to plead guilty, was tested in evidence and rejected. The Court of Appeal found that he was not suffering from a mental impairment or any other form of mental incapacity, that he was not coerced or pressured into his pleas, and that his own evidence on his mental state was inconsistent and contradicted by prison records and by his former lawyers. The convictions rest on his guilty pleas, which the court held were voluntary.
Whether he will be called to give evidence in the second phase of the coronial inquiry is unresolved, and the families' appeal on that question had not been decided by the spring of 2026.
October 27, 1990: Born in Grafton, New South Wales, Australia.
2017: Moves to Dunedin, New Zealand.
March 15, 2019: Murders 51 people at two mosques in Christchurch; 40 others the subject of attempted murder charges; arrested the same day.
March 16, 2019: Appears in the Christchurch District Court on a holding charge of murder.
April 4, 2019: Police lay 50 further murder charges and 39 attempted murder charges.
April 5, 2019: First High Court appearance; no plea entered.
May 21, 2019: Terrorism Suppression Act charge laid, the first in New Zealand; charge list reaches 92.
June 14, 2019: Pleads not guilty to all 92 charges.
October 3, 2019: Abandons an application to move the trial out of Christchurch.
March 26, 2020: Pleads guilty to all 92 charges in the High Court at Christchurch.
July 13, 2020: Elects to represent himself; sentencing fixed for August 24.
August 24 to 27, 2020: Sentencing hearing; victim impact statements heard over three days.
August 27, 2020: Sentenced to life imprisonment without parole; designated a terrorist entity.
November 26, 2020: Royal Commission report presented to the Governor-General.
December 8, 2020: Royal Commission report released, with 44 recommendations.
April 2021: Judicial review proceedings filed.
November 3, 2022: Files a notice of appeal against convictions and sentence, 505 working days out of time.
August 1, 2023: First periodic review keeps the terrorist designation in force.
October 2023: First phase of the coronial inquiry begins.
November 2024: Court of Appeal allows his counsel to remain anonymous; the Supreme Court declines a further appeal.
October 2024: Second phase of the coronial inquiry begins.
October 2025: High Court dismisses the families' judicial review of the decision to call him as a witness.
February 9, 2026: Five-day Court of Appeal hearing opens in Wellington.
February 13, 2026: Second periodic review of the terrorist designation begins.
March 2026: Second phase of the coronial inquiry adjourned.
April 30, 2026: Court of Appeal refuses an extension of time and accepts abandonment of the sentence appeal ([2026] NZCA 148).
July 2026: Periodic review concludes that the designation remains justified.