The sentencing of Brenton Tarrant began in Christchurch yesterday with the reading of the Police summary of facts. He faces 51 charges of murder, 40 charges of attempted murder and one charge of commiting a terrorist act.

Then victim impact statements began – these are expected to take about three days.

The judge indicated that the actual sentencing won’t happen until Thursday morning at the earliest. Tarrant will get a mandatory life sentence and will presumably get the longest non-parole period imposed, or possibly no chance of parole.

The summary of facts shows how callous Tarrant was. From Stuff – Mosque gunman killed worshippers as they pleaded for their lives:

New details emerged as the summary of facts was read in court on Monday morning, including the gunman’s planning of the attack and graphic accounts of the “systematic” shootings he carried out, including of young children.

He slowly and deliberately shot people who were wounded and crying out for help with his AR-15. They included a 3-year-old boy clinging to his father’s legs. He shot the child twice.

The gunman fired 32 shots from his AR-15 into the mass of people huddled in the corner.

As the gunman drove off, he drove over the body of a woman who was lying on the side of the road where he had killed her earlier.

Various news reports give quite a lot of detail, but I don’t see a need to repeat more here.

Reading the statement of facts is a requirement of New Zealand’s judicial process.

It is hard to imagine how anyone could be so callous and cowardly, killing and injuring so many innocent people going about their normal lives, but Tarrant was.