A pilot made a paraplegic in a fatal helicopter crash is among four men facing charges of stealing hundreds of crocodile eggs from a world-famous national park.
Pilot Sebastian Robinson along with Timothy Luck, Dean Larsen and Stephen Slark are all charged with taking, keeping and moving a species from Kakadu National Park in February 2024.
A company, SDRL Pty Ltd, operating under the name Kinga Contracting, is also charged with obtaining a financial advantage by deception in relation to the case.
The egg-stealing charges follow a joint investigation by Parks Australia, the Australian Federal Police and the Northern Territory Parks and Wildlife Commission.
Legal crocodile egg collecting in the Northern Territory provides eggs to crocodile farms and involves helicopter pilots lowering a man on a line onto nests to do the collecting in remote wetlands.
In the Darwin Local Court on Tuesday Ruth Champion, appearing for the Commonwealth Director of Public Prosecutions, said the charges of illegally taking crocodile eggs involved serious offending.
That took into account the sophistication and complexity of the operation, the number of accused acting in concert, the use of a helicopter and the very large number of eggs taken, she told the court.
"We're not talking about one, two or three, but something in the hundreds."
Ms Champion also noted the impact of the alleged egg stealing on Traditional Owners and the cultural harm felt by them.
Defence lawyer Thomas Clelland told the court the matter was a complicated one involving the complex area of DNA analysis.
Judge Elizabeth Morris set a five-day hearing from November 30 to December 4, with 10 witnesses to be called.
In February 2022 Robinson was piloting a helicopter on a legal crocodile egg collecting mission in the Top End when the machine crashed, killing egg collector Chris "Willow" Wilson and leaving Robinson a paraplegic.
Their employer, helicopter operator and reality TV star Matt Wright, was found guilty in December of attempting to pervert the course of justice in relation to the crash investigation.
The star of hit TV shows Outback Wrangler and Wild Croc Territory is behind bars in Darwin, serving a five-month term for trying to tamper with evidence to cover up the disconnecting of flight time meters.
Wright was not accused of causing the crash, the death of his co-star Mr Wilson or the injuries of Robinson and is not involved in the egg-stealing case.
