[Update (October 9, 2024) : Hersant has received a custodial sentence, walked, and will RETVRN for sentencing on October 23 November 8.]
Today, local neo-Nazi Lad Jacob Hersant was found guilty of being a very naughty boy: viz, falling foul of the Summary Offences Amendment (Nazi Salute Prohibition) Act 2023, which makes it a criminal offence, under the Summary Offences Act 1966, to engage in Nazi antics of the sort he did outside the County Court in October last year.
Sieg FAIL!
On that occasion, Hersant and his fuehrer, Tom Sewell, were spared jail after they plead guilty to a charge of ‘violent disorder’ following assaults upon a group of hikers in May 2021. Hersant’s naughty also follows several months after fellow (now former) European Australian Movement/National Socialist Network member Stefan Eracleous got a slap on the wrist for threatening federal Senator Lidia Thorpe. Oddly, Little Stefan’s kamerad and collaborator, Jim/eone Roberts, was never charged for the offence but, like the dynamic duo in October, was also spared jail for being cheeky; in Jim’s case, after being found guilty, in August 2022, of ‘one of the most disgusting, vile, repugnant acts of anti-Semitism and racial behaviour that [the presiding magistrate had] ever seen’. It’s further worth noting that, during the course of Hersant and Sewell’s trial in October 2021:
Prosecutor Danielle Guesdon earlier failed in a bid to have Sewell and Hersant’s supporters removed from court over “coded hate speech”.
She said a man using the name Jimeone Roberts posted coded messages in the online court’s chat function and later held up a sign saying “Free Tom Sewell”.
The alleged victims were concerned for their safety and feared they were being recorded by supporters, she said.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Anyway, to his credit, Hersant — now a relative veteran of the neo-Nazi movement — was unapologetic for his Nazi display last year and, following today’s conviction, outside court reiterated his support for the Nazi cause. From a political perspective, this refusal wins him Brownie points among his comrades, both in Australia and the global neo-Nazi network but, in the legal domain, is unlikely to assist him when he’s sentenced tomorrow: the maximum penalty for this sort of public Nazi stoopid is a $23,000 fine (a missed opportunity to apply an $88,000 penalty, in mein opinion), 12 months’ jail, or both. In which case, the ‘good luck’ wished upon him the last time Hersant encountered a sentencing magistrate may well have run out.
The EAM/NSN has gained no smol degree of notoriety since its formation in late 2019 and early 2020, with its assembly on the steps of the state parliament in March last year in support of Lady Parker’s anti-trans publicity stunt being perhaps the most remarkable public display on their part thus far. (The legal and political fallout from that event — in particular, Moira Deeming’s defamation case against the Victorian Liberals’ party leader John Pesutto — is still making its way through the federal court.) Lady Parker was herself scheduled for a royal command performance at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Brisbane on the weekend but, sadly, one failed to secure a visa in time.
Last year’s CPAC did of course feature Deeming, along with part-time Holocaust revisionist Elijah Schaffer. This year, in the interests of balance, perhaps, CPAC treated its Boomerwaffen audience to a presentation by a Holocaust survivor. Finally, while last year’s event was co-sponsored by Christian nationalist crowdfunder Give Send Go (who’ve provided a vital financial lifeline to the EAM/NSN), in 2024 CPAC relied upon Advance and the IPA.
Who said there’s no such thing as progress?
