Suspect in Haines attack clashed with neighbours as his health unravelled

Brendan Nugent was no stranger to police when he allegedly mowed down Helen Haines outside her Wangaratta electorate office on Monday.

The 43-year-old had clashed with neighbours in the nearby town of Tarrawingee, and local officers had visited his property over their complaints in the months before what police say was a targeted attack on the federal MP.

Wangaratta police had also received a report last month, which is still under investigation, that Nugent had menaced a woman with a claw-hammer following an alleged road rage incident near the town.

Nugent’s family said in a statement on Tuesday that they were devastated by the alleged attack on Haines, describing her as their “close friend of more than 20 years”.

“We will be assisting Victoria Police in any way we can,” said his father, Rod, and his partner, Christine Cunningham, a health executive who has worked with Haines. “We would like to sincerely thank members of the local community and police who came to Helen’s aid yesterday after the shocking and horrific crime.”

Nugent remains in custody after hero locals performed a citizen’s arrest when he allegedly drove at Haines with his four-wheel-drive vehicle repeatedly.

As counter-terrorism police and ASIO continue to probe possible motives, a picture is emerging of Nugent’s rapidly unravelling mental health and the myriad views he shared on social media about the environment, the Israel-Gaza conflict, local politics and medicinal cannabis as pain treatment.

The talented school footballer had once worked in ecological research. He had a reputation for quiet intellect and a history of peaceful community activism in the area. But those who knew him said he had changed dramatically since his days protesting logging in the local forest.

Concerned neighbours had begun calling police out to Nugent’s property after hearing screams, music and ranting in the night. Two neighbours, who did not want to be identified for safety reasons, said Nugent had recently spent time in a mental health facility and was a prolific marijuana smoker.

His sprawling property is a short drive from central Wangaratta and was raided by police on Monday night after the incident. Overgrown and littered with stray garden tools, plastic pot plants and beer bottles, it remained cordoned off by detectives for much of Tuesday.

Nugent had lived there for seven years, neighbours said, after his father bought the land.

He was unemployed, had few friends and locals said his family had also become concerned about his recent behaviour and rarely visited.

One neighbour said they personally had obtained a 12-month intervention order against Nugent in the Wangaratta Magistrates’ Court.

Another, Peter, who requested his surname not be published, said he had made repeated calls to Triple Zero over the past year regarding what he described as Nugent’s allegedly concerning behaviour.

“He’s an absolute nut job,” said Peter, a business owner who lives about 700 metres from Nugent. “He would put music on at 4pm and it would be blaring until eight in the morning.

“He’d be yelling. He was an absolute nightmare and there were a couple of elderly ladies who lived closer to him who were too scared to report him to police.”

Wangaratta police had gone to Nugent’s property three months ago and conducted a welfare check, Peter said.

The local Strathbogie forest anti-logging group confirmed that Nugent was a member for two years in about 2018 and 2019.

He is featured in photos posted by double police killer Dezi Freeman’s landlord, Rebecca Swift, who was involved in the community group around the same time.

Swift, who owns the property where Freeman lived and murdered the police, was pictured with Nugent in a protest in November 2019. Her online activity suggests she joined the anti-government conspiracy movement of which Freeman was a part well after she left the Strathbogie forest group.

“When I knew these people, they were lovely”, said a forest group member who asked not to be named for privacy reasons.

“[Nugent] was very intelligent, did great research. He was a very decent person.” The group was shocked to learn of his alleged involvement in such an incident, they said. Many members of the group know Haines well.

Swift was contacted for comment, but there is no suggestion she and Nugent were in contact or shared any radical views.

According to one source who knew Nugent after he left the forest group, he had begun railing against government and straying into other activism since the COVID pandemic and as he battled health issues.

Haines, 65, lost a leg in the incident and remains in hospital as doctors fight to save the other. Pictures of the white Toyota LandCruiser which struck her, including a matching number plate, feature on Nugent’s social media.

A barber who pulled Nugent from his car said he also found a knife in the man’s pocket.

A local butcher said Nugent had come in to have several knives sharpened in the days before the incident, and he had seemed like “a normal bloke”. One of Nugent’s knives remained at the shop on Tuesday.

Nugent’s social media history reveals he had previously praised Haines and backed her independent campaign in the area

In 2019, Nugent commented on one of Haines’ posts that it would be good to see a politician like her “who takes climate change seriously”.

In another apparent show of support for her, he complained about a “wave of LNP funded anti-independent propaganda” that he claimed appeared to have been tailored specifically to target Haines’ electorate of Indi.

Nugent’s comments on Haines’ social media channels, including one in 2020 querying the MP over her support for the forestry sector, did not attract a response from Haines.

His posts had shifted over recent years from local environmentalism to criticising Israel’s war in Gaza, and calling for donations for children in the war-torn Congo.

He criticised the government’s approach to Israel in a series of comments on posts by Senator Penny Wong. In 2024, he accused the Australian government of being “US lap dogs”.

“Maybe if you had warned Israel about [Iran’s] attacks, the world wouldn’t be where it is right now,” he wrote.

“You have not been clear on anything other than giving Israel impunity to kill thousands of children,” he commented on another post by Wong a month later.

Earlier in 2024, he defended Houthi strikes on ships in the Red Sea in retaliation against Israel, in a comment on a post from Defence Minister Richard Marles.

In 2015, Nugent tweeted that “Dame Pauline Hanson just has a ring to it … [especially] in the order of Australia”.

State MP Tim McCurdy, who represents the area for the Nationals, said Nugent was known in the area and “has been in contact with our office over the journey”.

But McCurdy said Nugent had not made any threats. “Not down that path, but he’s known to our office as well. So I don’t know whether he’s frequented Helen’s office or not. I’m not clear about that, but he’s been in touch with our office over the journey. So he’s known to us.”

McCurdy said he wasn’t planning to take any extra safety precautions at his electoral office following Monday’s incident.

“You can’t help, I suppose, think about these circumstances,” he said. “And, you know, being a bloke walking around a rural town, I don’t feel threatened at all. But I know there are women colleagues in this role who sometimes can feel threatened. And I hear what they’re saying, and we understand that. And we have to address how we can help them to feel safer and be safer by just doing their job.”

Australian Federal Police Commissioner Krissy Barrett said Nugent might face state and federal charges.

“At this stage, it appears this is an isolated incident, and there are no known threats connected to this matter,” Barrett said.

With Annika Smethurst, Lachlan Abbott and James Costa

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