Australian nationalist Thomas Sewell has been found guilty of offensive behaviour over a protest outside the Chinese Consulate in Melbourne demanding China hand over a fugitive who attacked a baby with hot coffee in a suspected antiwhite hate crime.
Mr Sewell, 32, who represented himself in Melbourne Magistrates Court this week, argued the demonstration involving about 35 then-members of the now-disbanded National Socialist Network outside the Chinese Consulate in Toorak in October 2024 was political and not offensive, and will now mount a constitutional defence.
The protesters burned Chinese flags and posters of Chinese president Xi Jinping, Mao Zedong, and the baby attacker – a 33-year-old who was able to fly out of Australia undetected following the horrific incident two months earlier – and held a banner saying “yellow grubs, hand over the baby mutilator”.
A complaint from the Chinese Consulate led to Mr Sewell, the only unmasked participant in the protest, being charged, but last week ambassador Xiao Qian suddenly announced he was sending a delegation to Queensland to look into the case.
Australian nationalist Thomas Sewell has been found guilty of offensive behaviour for leading a protest demanding China hand over a man who scalded a baby with hot coffee in an antiwhite attack.
But as he is also fighting the charge on constitutional grounds the case will… pic.twitter.com/XOdCUgSfnH
— The Noticer (@NoticerNews) February 5, 2026
Magistrate Patrick Southey on Thursday said he found the charge proven due to the totality of the protest, including the banner, “White man fight back” chants, and the burning flags and posters, calling it “powerful and chilling” and saying it “brings to mind Germany in the 1930s”.
“Subject to any constitutional protection that is yet to be decided, I would find the charge proven beyond reasonable doubt,” he said, Newswire reported.
“Any reasonable person would be entitled to be appalled and ask themselves ‘what is Australia coming to?’ Reasonable contemporary Australians do not accept racism at all, it is utterly repugnant.”
Prosecutors had argued the term “yellow grub” was racist and therefore made the entire protest offensive, to which Mr Sewell responded by saying the baby attack was racially motivated. But Mr Southey told the court Mr Sewell had “descended to the crudest form of protest” and that any passerby would be disgusted.
Mr Sewell made a brief statement about the outcome outside court where he confirmed he would be making the constitutional defence, and pointed out the Chinese national had attacked the baby because he wanted to get revenge against White people.
“They seem to be very upset about the use of colourful language, which was described as a ‘racial slur’, and they seem to be a bit more upset about that than catching the guy who scalded a White baby in a racial hate crime,” he said.
“The motivation for the scalding of the baby was because he was being deported from the country, and he wanted to attack White Australians, and that’s why he targeted a vulnerable child, and that’s why I said what I said.
“And I think that’s reasonable in the context, but the magistrate did not see eye to eye with me on that, and did not believe that it was reasonable.”
A video showing Mr Sewell’s speech during the protest was played to the court on Wednesday, in which he said of the baby attacker: “I will personally hang him, I will hang him from the tallest building in this country” and called Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and then-Opposition leader Peter Dutton “weak on China”.
The video played to the court:
New video shows right-wing activists protesting outside China’s consulate in Melbourne today.
They demanded the extradition of a Chinese man who scalded a White Australian baby with hot coffee in a suspected racist hate crime.
Full report: https://t.co/1gdmb9RKKQ pic.twitter.com/E8Xk8ReOsq
— The Noticer (@NoticerNews) October 26, 2024
Magistrate Patrick Southey asked Mr Sewell if he was born in Australia, and when Mr Sewell replied “no, I wasn’t”, Mr Southey asked: “There’s an irony there, isn’t there?”
But Mr Sewell said in response that he was “ethnically an Anglo-Saxon”, and said that even though Rudyard Kipling was born in British India, he was still English, the Herald Sun reported.
“I shouldn’t have engaged. You clearly turned your mind to that little irony,” Mr Southey said.
“I don’t think it’s ironic, Your Honour,” Mr Sewell replied.
“I could have been born on the moon, I’m still Australian.”
Mr Southey also told the court it was “cowardly and despicable” for the other protesters not to show their faces, to which Mr Sewell asked if he agreed with anonymous voting, and used the example of political violence carried out by Zimbabwean despot Robert Mugabe.
Mr Sewell told the court his hanging remark used “artistic and creative” language to advocate for capital punishment, “cause a scene” and draw attention to the horrific coffee attack, and that it was not a legitimate threat to kill.
“I believe this to be political speech because it is advocation for capital punishment … I believe that there is room for impassioned speech during political protests,” he said.
He also argued that the offensive behaviour charge had “mutated” from its original intention and was now being used for political policing, and brought up a famous comment made by former immigration minister Arthur Calwell during a debate about deportations that “two Wongs don’t make a White”.
Mr Sewell was arrested on November 7, 2024, and charged with offensive behaviour over the protest, and intimidating police over separate podcast comments.
In a police interview played to the same court last year when Mr Sewell fought the police intimidation charges, he asked police why he was being charged and not the Chinese baby attacker.
He also told the arresting officers that he and his family had guns pointed at them by police while returning from Brisbane, whereas the baby attacker was able to escape, in part because police failed to specify his ethnicity and did not appeal to Asian communities to “avoid bias”.
Header image: Left, Mr Sewell at the protest (supplied). Right, the baby attacker (Queensland Police).
The post Thomas Sewell guilty of ‘offensive behaviour’ over Chinese baby attacker protest first appeared on The Noticer.
The NoticerRead More
R1
T1
