1/ A few people have been asking what it was like to be inside the courtroom for the sentencing of the Christchurch terrorist, so thought I’d share a few thoughts and observations in a thread below, for anyone who is interested.

2/ For starters, the pandemic meant it was held under unprecedented restrictions, where most had to watch a live-stream in an ‘overflow’ room. That left less than 100 people – including victims, journalists, lawyers and security - inside to watch the historic moment play out.

3/ And given the scale of the grief, it was remarkably quiet in the courtroom. The families stayed silent as the Crown prosecutor called for life without parole. The only sound was soft crying when the judge began to read a tribute to each of the murdered and injured.

4/ The killer was quiet too. I watched closely and his expression didn’t change once in the four hours or so it took to play out. He was completely unmoved by the details of the massacre, or the toll it had taken on the victims. He stayed that way even when he received his fate.

5/ Then, after the judgement was handed down, it all came out at once. As we left, we found ourselves stuck in the middle of a huge outpouring of grief. The entire top floor of the High Court was a mass of survivors, hugging and crying, even the big burly police guards in tears.

6/ We ran down three flights of stairs, out the back of the building, and rounded the corner to find hundreds of supporters on the street singing ‘Stand by Me’. It came as a complete surprise and the victims, who didn’t expect it either, immediately started responding.

7/ It felt like a movie. Linwood mosque hero Abdul Aziz jumped on a fence and screamed ‘thank you’. Two men held hands in the air and shouted ‘that’s our family’. Imam Gamal Fouda yelled ‘We are the winners, he is the loser’. Strangers started hugging each other in tears.

8/ The cameras moved in and you could feel the sense of occasion, like we were watching history. It was a huge boost for the survivors: Taj Kamran, still holding the crutches he needs for his bullet wounds, declared he wouldn’t need painkillers to sleep that night.

9/ For me, watching on, it felt like the end of a long chapter. We've been there from very first hour. I was at Al Noor Mosque 20 minutes after it happened, and saw the victims running through Hagley Park, as the armed police took cover behind civilian vehicles.

10/ We were live on air soon afterwards interviewing survivors with blood on their clothes, as the nation learned what had happened for the very first time. We went to the hospital, to the funerals, to the survivors’ homes as they graciously allowed us to into their lives.

11/ It was tragedy on another scale, and those observing all felt a strange kind of secondary grief. I think many people in Christchurch and New Zealand will know that mix of shame and anguish, the pointless feeling of wanting to take away pain when there’s no way to do so.

12/ And so that unexpected celebration outside court all those months later, felt like a chance for all involved to heal. It was a moment of victory, after so much loss, and a public display of the love and acceptance that now defines our nation.

13/ The day afterwards, we went to Al Noor Mosque ahead of Friday prayer, and I watched as a young family walked inside. The Dad was holding the hand of a girl no older than three with a bright hijab, that had a giant sequin heart sewn in the back, and smiled as he walked by.

14/ Outside, the worshippers said the sentence had not cured their heartbreak, but it had given them hope for the next generation. All they wanted now was a better future for themselves, their children and their grandchildren.

15/ For me, those few moments outside the mosque afterwards will be the enduring legacy of the sentencing. The terrorist now dealt with and forgotten, a defeated man in a dark cell, as loving families returned to the very place he tried to terrorise.

16/ And it made me realise there is a way to help. We can all make an effort to fight racism every single day. And if we all continue to work together, maybe that little girl in the bright hijab really will have a better future than her parents did.