Nationalist activist Thomas Sewell has been convicted over a protest where he threatened to hang a Chinese fugitive who attacked an Australian baby with hot coffee and demanded China hand him over.
Mr Sewell, 33, was found guilty of offensive behaviour in February over the October 2024 protest outside the Chinese Consulate in Toorak, Melbourne, but mounted a constitutional challenge on the grounds that the charge burdened his implied right to political communication.
He represented himself in Melbourne Magistrates Court on Tuesday where Magistrate Patrick Southey rejected his argument that the protest, which also involved about 35 other then-members of the now-disbanded National Socialist Network, was a form of political expression.
Thomas Sewell speaks to the media after being convicted over a protest where he threatened to hang a Chinese fugitive who attacked an Australian baby with hot coffee, and demanded China hand him over.
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Mr Southey gave Mr Sewell an 18-month Community Corrections Order with 200 hours of community service as prosecutors did not seek a custodial sentence, but said he wished he could impose a harsher penalty while lecturing him about the protest.
In their submissions prosecutors compared Mr Sewell’s case to that of Islamic terrorist refugee Man Monis, who was convicted for sending offensive letters to the families of Australians soldiers killed in Afghanistan and lost a constitutional challenge. Monis was later killed during the Lindt café siege in Sydney.
Mr Sewell argued that his conduct at the protest did not meet the threshold of offensiveness in the Monis case, but Mr Southey found a reasonable person would have found the protest offensive.
He also brought up the immigrant status of Mr Sewell, who migrated from New Zealand as a child, and told him Australia was a laid back country where protests such as the one outside the consulate were not socially acceptable.
“I know you’ve lived in this county a long time but some might say you’re yet to learn what it is to be Australian. We’re meant to be an easy-going, tolerant, diverse society, made up of all sorts of backgrounds, welcoming to immigrants – like you,” Mr Southey said.
“I can’t fine you enough, in my view. Parliament needs to think about that.”
Mr Southey also Mr Sewell that the implied right to political communication under the constitution was “not absolute”.
“Really and truly, Mr Sewell, it looked like Germany in the 1930s. People with their faces covered, you threatening to hang someone. It was ugly behaviour, it’s intolerable,” he said.
“What’s even more frustrating is that here in the court, you conduct yourself impeccably. You let yourself down when you get out on the streets with your mates.”
During the rally protesters burned Chinese flags and posters of Chinese president Xi Jinping and the baby attacker – who was able to fly out of Australia undetected following the suspected antiwhite hate crime – and held a banner saying “yellow grubs, hand over the baby mutilator”.
Mr Sewell then made a speech where he called Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and then-Opposition leader Peter Dutton “weak on China”, and said of the baby attacker: “I will personally hang him, I will hang him from the tallest building in this country.”
Video of the protest played to the court at a previous hearing:
New video shows right-wing activists protesting outside China’s consulate in Melbourne today.
They demanded the extradition of a Chinese man who scalded a White Australian baby with hot coffee in a suspected racist hate crime.
Full report: https://t.co/1gdmb9RKKQ pic.twitter.com/E8Xk8ReOsq
— The Noticer (@NoticerNews) October 26, 2024
While handing down his February decision Mr Southey said he found the charge proven due to the totality of the protest, including the banner, “White man fight back” chants, and the burning flags and posters, calling it “powerful and chilling”.
Prosecutors had argued the term “yellow grub” was racist and therefore made the entire protest offensive, to which Mr Sewell responded by saying the baby attack was racially motivated, a reference to Chinese media reports that the perpetrator wanted “revenge on White people”.
Mr Sewell, who was the only protester arrested, told the court his hanging remark used “artistic and creative” language to advocate for capital punishment, “cause a scene” and draw attention to the horrific coffee attack, and that it was not a legitimate threat to kill.
“I believe this to be political speech because it is advocation for capital punishment … I believe that there is room for impassioned speech during political protests,” he told the court.
Mr Sewell was arrested on November 7, 2024, and charged with offensive behaviour over the protest, and intimidating police over separate podcast comments.
In a police interview played to the same court last year when Mr Sewell fought the police intimidation charges, he asked police why he was being charged and not the Chinese baby attacker.
He also told the arresting officers that he and his family had guns pointed at them by police while returning from Brisbane, whereas the baby attacker was able to escape, in part because police failed to specify his ethnicity and did not appeal to Asian communities to “avoid bias”.
Header image: Left, Mr Sewell at the protest (supplied). Right, the baby attacker (Queensland Police).
