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SBS staffer convicted for police threat

An SBS employee who drunkenly posted a threat to murder police in the name of Allah has been given a two-year good behaviour bond in a Sydney court.

Nicholas Rabone Hogan, 32, posted the threat to Facebook just hours after the funeral of murdered NSW police accountant Curtis Cheng on October 16, Newtown Local Court heard during sentencing on Tuesday.

Hogan’s defence lawyer argued the post was “ill-advised” satire and said her client dabbled in comedy, but Magistrate Anthony Spence said the offence was serious, and imposed the bond and recorded a conviction.

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“This was not intended in any seriousness,” his lawyer, who did not want to provide her name, said.

Hogan, who was supported in court by a producer from SBS’s Dateline program, had 10 pints before posting: “I’m going to kill a police officer this morning in the name of Allah.”

After making the threat on his publicly accessible Facebook page, five police swarmed on Hogan’s home with 10 officers going in to arrest him.

He admitted to the post immediately and pleaded guilty to using a carriage service to menace, harass or offend.

In sentencing the video editor, Mr Spence slammed his purported satire as “reckless and irresponsible.”

Hogan refused to comment outside court.

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