An Otago law professor says proposed legislation making it an offence to plan a terrorist attack would not have necessarily made a difference in the case of the LynnMall terrorist.
Andrew Geddis says the offence would be an expansion of what criminal law covers, but would not have applied in this case because it doesn't have retrospective effect.
He says the man was also already convicted on more serious charges - that carried a longer sentence than the proposed law.
He was out under a sentence of supervision - a whole series of conditions to try to break him from the path he was going down, and police decided independently to surveil him.
