A man who allegedly took two men hostage inside a Wollongong dive shop was motivated by fears feminism and cultural Marxism threatened the white race, prosecutors allege.
In the years before the incident, Simon Fleming, 41, was overtaken by the belief that political correctness, western feminism and cultural Marxism would lead to a “white genocide” that threatened the culture and existence of Anglo-Saxon men, the prosecutor, James Renwick, told a New South Wales supreme court jury on Wednesday.
Fleming allegedly laid out his beliefs in a manifesto found on a USB he was carrying on the day of his arrest.
In it he allegedly proclaimed the “white race will become a minority” and “diversity means no white culture, no white schools, no white people”.
“When it comes out in the media that Muslims are grooming our children, the streets will run red,” he allegedly wrote.
He also allegedly espoused his hatred towards transgender people, writing he would love to gun them down with an AK-47 “as I don’t see them as human beings”.
On the morning of Sunday 28 November, 2021, Fleming allegedly dressed in black combat fatigues, armed himself with two firearms and a silver briefcase he pretended was a bomb and set off towards a main street on the outskirts of Wollongong.
There, he allegedly shot his bolt-action rifle into the air and at passing cars before entering the dive shop and taking two employees hostage.
The crown alleges Fleming’s actions were a case of terrorism, motivated by a desire to intimidate the Australian public and the government.
Fleming, who owned Nazi memorabilia and exhibited a fixation with the military, descended further into extremism during Covid-19 restrictions imposed in NSW, unable to go to church or the rifle range, or say a proper goodbye to his grandmother when she died, the court heard.
He became concerned the country was heading in the wrong direction and its freedoms eroded, the jury heard.
While Covid restrictions intensified his beliefs, Fleming had been planning some form of event as far back as 2019, Renwick alleged.
In a video of Fleming’s arrest played before the court, he tells police he had originally intended to carry out the event in central Wollongong, rather than the quiet suburb of Windang.
Asked by a police officer why he wanted his actions to generate more attention, he replied: “I wanted the government of this country to stop fucking with our people. We’re under attack.”
Fleming has pleaded not guilty to a terrorism charge, as well as charges for using a firearm in a manner likely to endanger members of the public, detaining the hostages, using a fake bomb to create a false sense of danger and unlawfully possessing gel blasters found at his home.
The trial continues on Thursday.
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