Convicted triple murderer Benjamin Hoffmann has refused to leave his prison cell to attend his sentence hearing via an audio visual link to the court in Darwin.

May 27, 2022

A gunman convicted of murdering three people in Darwin and killing another during a drug-fuelled rampage has refused to leave his prison cell to attend his sentence hearing.

Benjamin Glenn Hoffmann pleaded guilty mid-trial in November to intentionally killing Hassan Baydoun, 33, Michael Sisois, 57, and Rob Courtney, 52, and the manslaughter of 75-year-old Nigel Hellings on June 4, 2019.

Medical experts are scheduled to give evidence at the hearing in the Northern Territory Supreme Court on Friday. But Hoffmann has told prison authorities he won’t attend the hearing via an audio visual link.

Hoffmann could be heard telling his lawyer Patricia Petersen he “was being lied to” as she spoke to him via her mobile phone from the courtroom.

She told Justice John Burns that Hoffmann wasn’t feeling well but after speaking with him he’d agreed to attend the hearing. However, he wanted to be brought to the Darwin courtroom, which is about 30km from the prison.

The court heard that would take several hours to which Justice Burns told Dr Petersen she had 15 minutes to speak to Hoffmann and if he didn’t attend court via the AVL the hearing would go ahead without him.

After speaking to Hoffmann, Dr Petersen returned to court and advised that he was “mentally not in a good place” and wouldn’t be attending the hearing via AVL.

Justice Burns ordered for the hearing to go ahead, saying that Hoffmann wouldn’t be prejudiced by not being present and the sentence hearing had already experienced considerable delays since he was convicted in November.

In an earlier hearing after he was convicted, the 48-year-old told the court he wasn’t guilty of the killings and his first legal team had pressured and bullied him into admitting them.

He told the court he needed to change his plea, saying he wanted “a medical sentence as I am mentally ill and impaired”.

“I need a fair trial. I’m asking for a retrial,” he told the court in April.

Hoffmann told the court he was being given 410mg of anti-psychotic medication a day “for voice and visions”.

He said he was suffering a psychotic episode when he killed the men and didn’t know what was happening.