It's the final day of the mosque terrorist's week long hearing in the Court of Appeal in Wellington.
Crown lawyers are making their closing submissions, with Madeleine Laracy telling the court: "My learned friend said yesterday that this is one of the most difficult cases, certainly it is one of the most terrible and despicable, but in terms of looking at this as an appeal, the Crown would disagree".
"It is not a legally difficult appeal, because the evidence to support the argument is not there."
She argued, "Mr Tarrant's plea is an incontrovertible admission of guilt" and "unless the appellant can impune that, the Crown says that is the end of his appeal".
The Crown lawyer described Brenton Tarrant's case as "deficient in causation between prison conditions and a plea being entered", adding the substance of the appeal has no merit, so "the application to grant leave to appeal out of time must be dismissed".
The terrorist has spent the week attempting to convince the Court of Appeal to let him reverse the guilty pleas he entered after the atrocity, so a trial could take place years after the event.
The killer, who shot down worshippers at random and without mercy, pleaded guilty to 51 charges of murder, 40 counts of attempted murder and one charge of committing a terrorist act in 2020.
He now claims he only did so because he was suffering from “inhumane” prison conditions in solitary confinement.
The 35-year-old Australian gave evidence to that effect in court on Monday as his appeal hearing began, expressing no remorse for his crimes and instead saying his own mental health was “wildly fluctuating” in jail.
He is currently serving a sentence of life in prison, without parole.
He claimed he felt forced to plead guilty because the lawyers he had at the time refused to run the defence he wanted.
“It was a decision induced by the conditions, rather than a decision I rationally made,” he said during his evidence.
Families of those he slaughtered, and those who survived his bullets have described him as evil and revolting throughout the hearing, saying he's treating it like a game for his own entertainment.
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