Matt Wright, star of Outback Wrangler and Wild Croc Territory will serve time behind bars after being found guilty of tampering with evidence following a fatal helicopter crash
A Netflix star dubbed the ‘real life Crocodile Dundee’ has been jailed for 10 months for tampering with evidence after a helicopter crash in Australia that killed his co-star and left the pilot paraplegic.
Outback Wrangler and Wild Croc Territory host Matt Wright – whose shows have been shown on both Netflix and Amazon Prime – was found guilty of lying to the police about the amount of fuel in the helicopter when it plummeted to the ground in a remote part of Darwin in February 2022.
He was also convicted of trying to pressure a witness and asked pilot Sebastian Robinson, who survived but now has life-changing injuries, to falsify flying hours.
Prosecutors argued this was because Wright was worried investigators would find out that he regularly changed the official flying hours of a chopper to avoid costly maintenance.
The jury could not agree on a verdict for a third charge that alleged 46-year-old Wright asked someone to “torch” the helicopter’s maintenance record after the crash, which cost his fellow presenter Chris ‘Willow’ Wilson his life.
Multi-millionaire Wright was not in the helicopter at the time it crashed but was one of the first on the scene. The court case does not relate to the cause of the crash, the death of Mr Wilson or Mr Robinson’s injuries, only the tampering with evidence.
The maximum sentence for the charges he faced was up to 15 years behind bars. But Justice Alan Blow handed Wright a 10-month prison term, which will be suspended once he has served half of it. So effectively, he will only be in prison for five months.
Justice Blow said Wright had “shown no remorse” but was “very unlikely to reoffend in any significant way in the future.” He was also fined £2,500 by the Supreme Court in Darwin.
It is thought that Wright’s legal team may try to appeal the guilty verdicts and sentence. Deceased Mr Wilson was just 34 when he died and left behind wife Danielle and their two sons. His devastated wife said her boys would soon spend their fourth Father’s Day without their father, adding: “Once again there will be an empty seat at the table, a constant reminder of all that has been taken from us.”
Injured Mr Robinson’s brother Zac Chellingworth read out a statement on his behalf saying the verdicts had brought some closure for the family, adding: “But the scars of the defendant’s conduct are huge and permanent.”
He said the trauma for his family had been relentless as he learned to live in a wheelchair with his recovery made worse by the trial, the defendant’s cover-up and failure to tell the truth.
Mr Robinson shared: “I also faced a malicious and sustained campaign of lies aimed at destroying my reputation and that of my family. The jury saw the truth.”
Ms Wilson is now reported to be pursuing a civil case against Wright and the Civil Aviation Safety Authority over the crash that killed her husband.
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Source: Mirror
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