A NSW District Court judge has handed a full-time prison sentence to the man who used social media to threaten to kill Brittany Higgins, her partner and her dog.
On Wednesday, David William Wonnocott was handed a head sentence of three years and two months for sending threats via Instagram direct message to David Sharaz, Higgins’s partner.
The court heard that Wonnocott had a long history of sending a range of discriminatory messages online that were homophobic, racist and misogynist. He was also sentenced for sending dozens of separate messages and posts, including messages to NSW MP Alex Greenwich, who he told to get “full-blown AIDS and die”.
Judge John Pickering said the 51-year old had disregarded warnings, leniency, and avenues to rehabilitation previously offered by courts, adding that despite sensing some remorse from Wonnocott, he questioned the extent of it, given his “entrenched views, particularly about the gay community”.
“To be quite frank, he has not helped at all in this particular matter, despite the courts giving him warnings, opportunities, leniency, and trying to give him a path to rehabilitation,” Judge Pickering said.
Wonnocott “upped the ante” while already risking a prison sentence by sending the messages to Sharaz in 2022 and then publishing further material about his “vile” views on the LGBT community.
Judge Pickering said a message needed to be sent to “people who behave in this fashion”, not about “thought crimes” for the views they hold, but about the possible consequences of those views being published.
“You may get leniency the first time, the second time, the third time, but after a while you won’t get it anymore,” he said.
Wonnocott initiated contact with Higgins’ partner, David Sharaz, in April 2022, expressing his doubt of Higgins’ allegation that she was raped in Parliament House.
Sharaz and Wonnocott engaged in a back and forth on Instagram, where Wonnocott threatened to kill Sharaz and Higgins and chop their dog into “little pieces”.
“She’s a useless lying c— who wasn’t raped,” he wrote. “I know the truth c—, I’m going to pay you a visit.”
In a victim impact statement read in court by the Crown, Sharaz said the threats continued to impact their lives and altered their feeling of safety. They installed a security system including alarms and cameras and were scared to leave their dog outside.
“[The threats] profoundly impacted my life and the life of the woman I love,” he said, adding that they were “terrified” to leave the house alone, while daily tasks have become affected by hyper vigilance and fear.
“My wife and I have been exposed to a lot of public abuse since she came forward about her alleged rape in Parliament House,” he wrote. “However, it was an escalation of death threats by Wonnocott that made us terrified to leave the house alone.”
“Over weeks and months, we became petrified that the next person we would encounter would be the nameless, faceless stranger who threatened to end our lives.”
While delivering his sentencing, Judge Pickering said the intense public vitriol against Higgins during that period in 2022 could reasonably lead her and Sharaz to believe the threats may be genuine.
“If we were to process and imprison every moron – and I use that word deliberately – who said something offensive about Brittany Higgins online, I’d be sentencing people for the next 10 years,” he said,” adding that Wonnocott’s threat were different to other “random utterances about Brittany Higgins” online, which “sadly thousands of morons have been doing, the brave people, trolls that they are, out there”.
“But that’s really not what happened here. He wanted him to genuinely feel that this was more than just another idiot online.”
The quantity and range of Wonnocott’s apparent hatred “might reflect that he is quite an awful human being who has awful views”, Judge Pickering said. “It’s not sophisticated, but it’s revolting.”
Before sending his first messages to Sharaz in 2022, Wonnocott had successfully appealed against a previous sentence over his record of using the internet to make offensive comments.
The court heard that in 2019, he had made offensive remarks online about the Christchurch massacre. He has also pleaded guilty in the past to using a carriage service to threaten to kill and using a carriage service to menace, harass or offend — several of the posts were about the gay and trans communities.
The court heard that Wonnocott, who appeared via AVL from Tweed Heads Local Court, has been diagnosed with persistent depressive disorder.
His barrister, Susan Kluss, said the messages her client wrote were sent under “unique” circumstances while he was socially isolated during the COVID pandemic.
Wonnocott was given a non-parole period of one year and four months and will eligible for parole in June 2026.
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