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Australian celebrity crocodile expert Matt Wright has been convicted on two counts of attempting to pervert the course of justice after a month-long Supreme Court trial over a 2022 helicopter crash.
The case relates to the crash in Arnhem Land in the Northern Territory during a crocodile egg-collecting expedition, which claimed the life of Wright’s friend and co-star Chris “Willow” Wilson and left pilot Sebastian Robinson with serious, life-altering injuries.
The Air Transport Safety Bureau determined that the helicopter crashed after running out of fuel, which caused the engine to fail.
Wright was found guilty of lying to police and urging the injured pilot to falsify flight records in an effort to obstruct the investigation, the Australian Broadcasting Corporationreported.
A third charge, concerning alleged attempts to destroy the helicopter’s maintenance records, did not result in a verdict.
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Wright, who had pleaded not guilty to all charges, was granted bail following the verdict. He said that he was “pretty disappointed in the verdict” and confirmed that he intends to appeal the decision.
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“It’s been a long fight and we’ve got an appeal in process now, and we’ll keep moving forward with this,” he said.
According to 9News, the charges against Wright were unrelated to the cause of the crash, and the prosecution did not claim he was responsible for Wilson’s death or Mr Robinson’s injuries. Instead, prosecutors argued that Wright was primarily concerned that investigators would discover that his helicopters’ flight-hour meters had been routinely disconnected to extend flying hours beyond official thresholds, with records subsequently falsified to align with the altered readings.
Meanwhile, senior defence counsel David Edwardson KC had sought to shift blame onto Mr Robinson, portraying him as a cocaine-trafficking “party animal”, the outlet reported.
Wright is known as the star of National Geographic’s Outback Wrangler and Netflix’s Wild Croc Territory.
Danielle Wilson, Chris Wilson’s widow, called the verdict “an important moment in a long and painful journey”.
“We are now approaching the fourth Father’s Day that my two young sons [are] facing without their dad,” she said outside the court on Friday.
“Once again, there will be an empty seat at the table, a constant reminder of all that has been taken from us.
“That is our reality, and it is a pain that we live with every single day. It does not go away.”
She added: “It has been about the conviction of an individual who attempted to pervert the course of justice, and in doing so denied a complete, thorough and unimpeded investigation into the crash – an investigation that could have provided my two young sons with the answers that they so much deserve,” she said.
Zac Chellingworth, brother of the injured pilot, said the verdict brought “some closure” but acknowledged that the “scars of the defendant’s conduct are huge and permanent”.
“Danielle Wilson, her boys, and Willow’s family lost everything on February 28th, 2020 – their lives were shattered, and I carry the immense grief of losing my mate that day, a pain which will never leave me.”
He said that the family went through “relentless” trauma following the crash and that his brother had “fought through devastating injuries and learnt to live from a wheelchair”.
“Those wounds made worse by the defendant’s cover-up, designed to bury the truth about the crash,” he said.
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“I also faced a malicious and sustained campaign of lies, aimed at destroying my reputation and that of my family – including the way the defendants ran this trial. The jury saw the truth.”
Wright will be sentenced on 6 October.