Accused mosque gunman Brenton Tarrant has dismissed his lawyer and plans to represent himself in court — raising concerns he could attempt to turn a trial into a platform for his beliefs.

The duty lawyer who represented Tarrant in court on Saturday confirmed to The New Zealand Herald today he was no longer acting for him.

Richard Peters said Tarrant appeared to be lucid and was not mentally unstable — other than the extreme views that he held.

Mr Peters said his job representing Tarrant ceased on Saturday — and the accused gunman had told him he wanted to represent himself in future.

This raises the prospect of Tarrant conducting his own defence at trial and using the high-profile prosecution to promote his beliefs, which were detailed in a manifesto before Friday’s shootings.

“What did seem apparent to me is he seemed quite clear and lucid, whereas this may seem like very irrational behaviour,” Mr Peters said.

“He didn’t appear to me to be facing any challenges or mental impairment other than holding fairly extreme views.”

Tarrant is facing one charge of murder but is likely to face more. He was remanded in custody to appear in the High Court on April 5 and did not apply for bail or name suppression.

Mr Peters said Tarrant had not displayed any condolences or regret, but “our discussion didn’t touch on that”.

He said Tarrant may want to use the trial to amplify his views, and it would be up to the trial judge to deal with that.

“I suspect that he won’t shy away from publicity, and that will probably be the way he runs the trial. The job of the trial judge will be to deal with that.

“But it’s not a place for any views to be put forward. It’s simply there to determine innocence or guilt. The court is not going to be very sympathetic to him if he wants to use the trial to express his own views.”

Mr Peters said he did not have any issues representing Tarrant, as it was just part of his job.

“It’s not an everyday event … It’s difficult in this case to take a dispassionate view, but you’ve got to put that to one side and say, ‘Right, let’s simply process things’.

“My job was simply to appear in court and advise him of his rights and procedure.”

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He said the court could provide an amicus curiae at the trial, a lawyer who could advise Tarrant on the court’s rules and how to conduct his defence properly.

“For this sort of case, you’d have to have a lawyer of some experience, so I would have thought a layperson is not going to quite cut the mustard,” Mr Peters said.

“In the absence of a lawyer, I think the court will appoint someone to make sure the case proceeds properly. That lawyer won’t tell him what questions to ask or how to conduct the case but say, ‘These are the boundaries for arguing the case’.”

He said Tarrant didn’t tell him why he wanted to represent himself.

“I presume the basis for that is that he thinks the job would be done better himself. That’s my guess,” Mr Peters said.

SHOOTER A ‘MARKED MAN’ IN PRISON

Meanwhile, Tarrant was warned he’s a “marked man” in prison.

Gang members who came to pay their respects to the victims of Friday’s shooting have told the New Zealand Herald that Tarrant could be targeted in prison.

“That stuff that happened (on Friday), that was disgusting, there was no need for it. We’re a club, we do our things but, nah, that’s just wrong in every way possible,” one man told the New Zealand Herald.

In what seemed a clear warning, another man told the newspaper, “we’ve got friends inside, too.”

Criminal justice advocate Sir Kim Workman told the New Zealand Herald he had heard that Tarrant could be in danger.

“That’s a matter I’m sure Corrections will be talking about as we speak,” he said.

“Those sorts of feelings will run high with the prisons. The only thing that Corrections can do is to segregate them and keep them in separate custodial management regimes.”

He said Tarrant would likely be kept in solitary confinement for his own safety.

Mr Workman said that system was also for other high-risk prisoners such as paedophiles

those who committed “particularly horrendous offences”, and police officers who had been imprisoned themselves.

“In my experience when you have got someone with that sort of profile, they do have contingency plans, certainly in the early stages of the sentence or when they’re in remand,” Mr Workman told the New Zealand Herald.

He also suggested that Tarrant would likely be kept in separate facilities with “fairly high security” where no other prisoners would have easy access to him. Prison officers might also be carefully chosen “to make sure that the prison officers aren’t likely themselves to be tempted to deal with the prisoner themselves”.

ACCUSED GUNMAN’S CAR REMOVED FROM ARREST SCENE

The bullet-ridden Subaru station wagon Tarrant was arrested in has been removed from Brougham St.

Several bullet holes can be seen in the windscreen. After fleeing the Deans Avenue mosque, Tarrant fired a shotgun several times at a vehicle in his way.

He also fired out the passenger window.

The police officers who dragged Tarrant from his car during the arrest had come straight from a training session on how to deal with armed offenders.

The officers, after hearing there was an active shooter on the loose in the city, took to the streets to find him — and stop him, according to The New Zealand Herald.

The unnamed officers are both based in smaller towns out of Christchurch.

Their boss, rural response manager Senior Sergeant Pete Stills, said the pair had travelled into Christchurch to attend a training session at Princess Margaret Hospital in Cashmere.

The training was held on a disused floor of the hospital and was around room clearance and dealing with offenders in armed incidents.

“They were actually training when the call came through that there was an active armed offender in Christchurch,” Sgt Stills said.

“They had their work vehicles there with them with firearms in them.

“They operationalised themselves and got into one car. They decided to skirt the city — that’s what they thought the offender would do — rather than drive through the CBD.

“They were driving on Brougham Street because they thought if he’d just been to Linwood (the second mosque attacked) that’s a route he might take.”

Moments later they spotted a suspicious car.

“They saw someone fitting the description of the offender coming towards them,” Sgt Stills said.

“The car was weaving in and out of lanes with its hazard lights on.

“They confirmed the rego, that it was the right car, and did a U-turn.”

Sgt Stills said the officers had more than 40 years of policing between them and had the experience to handle the situation.

“They were trying to catch up with him, they were discussing tactics — did they want to pursue him?” he said.

Sgt Stills said the officers weighed up a pursuit and where the gunman could have got away and “unleashed” on more innocent members of the public.

This article originally appeared on The New Zealand Herald and was reproduced with permission