By William Ton
A former TV star who performed a Nazi salute must shadow a Jewish leader, write an apology to the community and visit a Holocaust museum as part of his punishment.
Neighbours alum Damien Richardson, 56, will undergo a “restorative justice” process after he was found guilty in November of intentionally performing a Nazi salute at a ticketed event.
Damien Richardson will have to write an apology letter and visit a Holocaust museum. Credit: AAP
Richardson was speaking at a gathering of the National Workers Alliance at Urban St restaurant in Melbourne’s south-east in September 2024 when he discussed how there was a “war on men” and “Western tradition, Western values”. The event was also attended by neo-Nazis and livestreamed to social media.
The former actor complained about The Age likening him “to Adolf Hitler” before performing the gesture, which closely resembled a Nazi salute.
Magistrate Justin Foster on Friday sentenced Richardson at Moorabbin Magistrates’ Court to a process of “restorative justice”.
This included 10 psychology counselling sessions from Sydney, two of which would be done in person, and a day shadowing a member of the Executive Council of Australian Jewry.
Richardson will be required to write an apology to the Australian Jewish community, addressing the harm, fear and intimation of the Nazi salute and the historical and contemporary impacts of antisemitism.
He must also undertake museum-based education, including visiting the Jewish Museum of Australia and the Melbourne Holocaust Museum.
The maximum penalty for performing the banned salute in Victoria is a fine of $23,000, 12 months in jail or both.
“It is important that education is extended to you in this case because I still don’t think you truly get it,” Foster said.
“Whilst you didn’t show affiliation, loyalty or obedience to Hitler, you still made a salute saying things like, ‘Are they going to fine or jail me?’
“You knew it was against the law, but you still did anyway.”
The magistrate chastised Richardson for a post on X, formerly Twitter, made days after the guilty verdict where he labelled the ruling a “perverse outcome”.
“If you’re hearing or reading to what he’s writing, it’s different to what he’s telling the court,” Foster said.
“He’s still playing cutesy games online where he’s [saying he’s] hard done by.”
The magistrate also denounced those on the “far left” who chanted slogans such as “from the river to the sea”.
“Jews are getting slammed from the left and right, and it’s time it stops … [It’s time people] bloody educate themselves because it’s horrendous,” he said.
Defence lawyer Peter Monagle said Richardson did not perform the gesture with any venom or hatred to the Jewish community, but as a response to an article written about him by The Age.
“He knows how foolhardy these acts can be, how one little thing leads to another and then you’ve got death by a thousand cuts,” Monagle told the court.
“He is sorry and ashamed.”
But the prosecutor said that in the six weeks since Foster found Richardson guilty, there had been no evidence of contrition or remorse before the court, and urged the magistrate to be guarded whether that remorse was genuine.
Foster said if the conditions of the undertaking weren’t met, the prosecution could bring the case back to court, where a different punishment could be determined.
Richardson starred as Gary Canning in Neighbours from 2014 to 2020, and also appeared in Blue Heelers, McLeod’s Daughters and Wentworth.
He retired from acting in 2021 and unsuccessfully stood as a political candidate in the 2022 federal and Victorian elections. He stood as an independent in the Senate and then ran for the right-wing Freedom Party of Victoria.
AAP
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