Crocodile-wrangler Matt Wright’s jury to start deliberating as early as Tuesday as closing submissions begin

The jury in Outback Wrangler host Matt Wright high-profile trial could be sent to consider its verdicts as early as Tuesday.

It remains unclear whether the celebrity croc-wrangler will testify at his high-profile trial, which began in Darwin last month.

If reality TV star decides to give evidence, his defence barrister David Edwardson KC will call him on Tuesday morning.

If not, prosecutor Jason Gullaci SC will proceed to deliver the crown’s closing address before the defence does the same.

Acting Justice Alan Blow will then instruct the jury who, after hearing almost three weeks’ of evidence, will retire to begin its deliberations.

Mr Wright is fighting three charges of perverting the course of justice in the Northern Territory Supreme Court following a fatal chopper crash in 2022.

During the trial, the jury has heard witness testimonies and audio recordings and seen documents.

The court heard that police bugged the Wrights’ Gold Coast home for three months in late 2022 and obtained several recordings which the Crown relied upon to prove its case.

Mr Wright owned and operated the Robinson R44 which “fell out of the sky” during a crocodile egg collecting mission at West Arnhem Land on February 28, 2022.

The helicopter accident at King River killed his Netflix co-star Chris Wilson, who was slinging beneath the chopper, and left Mr Robinson, who was flying, paraplegic.

The reality television star is charged with attempting to pervert the course of justice on three separate occasions in three separate ways by “providing false information in relation to the investigation”.

The crown alleges Mr Wright committed the offences while trying to conceal that he had not properly maintained the destroyed aircraft, registered VH-IDW, before the accident.

Throughout the trial the court has heard Mr Wright engaged in practices whereby the hours that were actually flown by his helicopters were not properly recorded to avoid costly maintenance and expensive end-of-life overhauls which cost about half-a-million dollars.

Mr Gullaci has said the 45-year-old feared that, after the crash, investigators would discover he had been non-compliant with a several obligations as a helicopter operator.

On count Mr Wright is accused of lying to police about how much fuel he could see in the destroyed chopper’s tank when he visited the crash site.

A few days after the crash, Mr Wright told investigators there was half a tank of fuel in the chopper when he checked it.

Mr Wright was covertly recorded in several conversations in which he tells people the tank was actually empty.

On December 7, 2022, Mr Wright was recorded telling William Cook, “I didn’t see f..kin’ any fuel in the tank, zero”.

“F..k, mate, I don’t know, but there was f..kin’ zero there. The tank’s only f..kin’ exploded like nothing, like there was nothing in the tanks.”

And on September 25, 2022, Mr Wright was recorded telling his friend Jai Tomlinson, “I just looked in it then. F..k that, nah, it just had no fuel. He had run out of fuel. I’ll just say he was a shit pilot.”

On count two, Mr Wright is accused of attempting to manipulate flight records between March 3 and March 13 of 2022 “to cover up certain things that had occurred with the helicopter that was involved in the crash”.

Mr Robinson – who was critically injured but survived the crash – told the court that in the weeks after the crash, Mr Wright visited him twice in hospital and asked him to manipulate flight records and delete material from his phone.

Mr Robinson – who worked for Mr Wright at the time of the crash – told the jury that during those hospital visits, Mr Wright asked him to move flight hours from the destroyed chopper to one of his own helicopters.

Mr Robinson’s mother and other relatives also testified to this. However the defence accused them of concocting the claims against Mr Wright to protect Mr Robinson from being blamed for the crash.

On count three, Mr Wright is accused of destroying VH-IDW’s maintenance release document between September 21 and September 25 of 2022.

The “MR” is an A3 document that is kept inside the helicopter and contains information about the aircraft’s maintenance, air-worthiness and flight hours.

The court heard that on March 3, 2022 an ATSB investigator saw and took photos of the MR at Mr Wright’s home in Darwin.

On March 14 of that year, Mr Wright’s partner Kaia scanned and emailed a copy of it to police but the physical original was never seized or examined by authorities.

In May 2022, the Civil Aviation Safety Authority issued Mr Wright, as chief pilot with Helibrook, a formal notice to produce the “original of the most recent maintenance release for R44 helicopter VH IDW serial number 12355”.

The court heard that NT Police were chasing VH-IDW’s original maintenance release because they wanted to forensically examine it.

In September 2022, a lawyer acting for Mr Wright, David Newey, told the Civil Aviation Safety Authority his client “cannot locate the original” MR.

The crown alleges that in a September 2022 conversation, recorded on a covert listening device, Mr Wright tells his mate Mr Tomlinson to “just torch it” in relation to the MR.

“I don’t know where it is but I’m thinking it’s either there. I’ve got to send it to CASA or ATSB (unintelligible) if they don’t have it and they’re asking (unintelligible),” Mr Wright allegedly says.

“Yeah, so they don’t have the original. I reckon CASA are chasing the original to set us up. I don’t remember signing it.

“Just burn the c***.”

In court last week, Mr Tomlinson denied Mr Wright asked him to destroy the MR.

During his examination in chief, he said he would “maybe” remember it if it had happened and that he did not know how many times in his life someone had asked him to destroy a document in connection to an investigation.

“I don’t remember. I wouldn’t remember the conversation,” he said.

Asked if it was “your serious evidence”, Mr Tomlinson replied, “100 percent”.

Mr Edwardson said count three was “based entirely on the prosecution’s interpretation and construction” of the recorded conversation which occurred in the early hours of the morning and is of poor quality.

The trial resumes on Tuesday.