A SENTENCING hearing has heard a NSW man facing a terrorism charge was isolated, unemployed and living with his parents when he got "swept up in the extremist world" and made prolific posts online.
Wade John Homewood fronted Parramatta District Court on Thursday, flanked by support people, when his defence barrister and Crown prosecutor made submissions for his sentencing hearing.
The 38-year-old will remain in a high-security prison into the new year after Judge Andrew Colefax held off handing down the sentence until early February.
"I'm going to reserve on this which will come as no surprise to anybody," he said.
Homewood pleaded guilty to intentionally advocating the doing of a terror attack, or the commission of a terror offence, across several months to November 23, 2021.
A firearms-related charge was confirmed to be a back-up offence.
Specialist medical reports were also tendered in court.
Defence barrister Stephen Odgers SC told the court they showed the offending came against the background of many complex factors, including mental health.
"He is isolated, unemployed, living at home, going into the internet during the period of the COVID epidemic, becoming swept up in an extremist world," Mr Odgers said.
Mr Odgers said the reports showed he was remorseful and had an understanding that he had "gone too far in expressing the views he did" in some of the posts.
"This is not a case of a person who is proudly maintaining the position he has advocated," Mr Odgers said.
Affidavits were handed up from his parents as well as his Tamworth-based solicitor.
The Commonwealth prosecutor Sean Flood said the difficulty was that Homewood hadn't given evidence so it was hard to assess his true contrition.
He submitted the judge could take it into account but not to the same degree as if Homewood had been sworn in.
"He was involved in this offending for an extensive period of time, it involved thousands of posts," Mr Flood said.
The court also heard some legal argument after written submissions and further evidence was tendered in court. The two police officers in charge of the case were seated in court for the proceedings.
Judge Colefax formally entered convictions for the two charges, and ordered a transcript ahead of sentencing.
"Court is adjourned," he said.
Homewood was arrested at his parents' East Tamworth home on November 23 last year by a specialist counter-terror squad made up of investigators from the Australian Federal Police, NSW Police, the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation and the NSW Crime Commission.
The matter was moved from Tamworth for security reasons.
