In this article we look at a very serious matter that involved 3 major traffic offences within the 1 night including Middle Range PCA, Drive Under the Influence & Suspended Driving, to make matters worse he was involved in an accident. Our client appeared before Burwood Local Court and we were happy to be able to get him a really positive result given the seriousness surrounding the situation he was in.
Burwood Local Court Drink Driving Details
Today I would like to talk about a recent matter that I appeared on at Burwood Local Court. This is quite a serious traffic matter because it involved three major traffic offences, all within the space of one night. Those charges include middle range drink-driving, another charge of driving while under the influence of intoxicating liquor, and also a third offence of driving while suspended.
The circumstances surrounding this matter were that my client had just returned from overseas. His girlfriend had broken up with him while he was overseas and his friends decided to take him out to dinner. He had driven to the restaurant and only planned to have one or two drinks over the course of dinner. However, throughout the night he was informed by his close friends that his girlfriend had been cheating on him for quite some time, and this triggered an unusual emotional event for my client where he decided to drink alcohol far in excess of what he usually would, or what he had actually planned to do that night.
He consumed a large number of drinks and including high alcohol spirits and he then decided to sleep in his car for a period of time after everyone had dispersed and left the restaurant. His friends were concerned about him and they told him that he couldn’t drive as he has had far too much to drink but he assured them that he was going to sleep in his car and wake up the next day and then drive home which could have been problematic in itself.
My client returned to his car, it was quite late at night, approximately 1.00am in the morning. He slept from about 1.00am until about 3.00am, about two hours in the car. He was having trouble sleeping, he was still emotionally upset at the devastating news that had been broken to him during the night and he made a very foolish and silly decision of turning his car on and thinking he could drive home, despite the fact that it was in the very early hours of the morning and there not being much traffic around. Unfortunately, as he was only one or 2 km away from his home, he lost control of his vehicle and he crashed into a barrier.
Middle Range PCA Involving an Accident
The police ended up arriving on the scene and they breath tested him. They found that he did return a positive blood alcohol reading and they took him back to the police station and he delivered a breath analysis at Ryde Police Station, a blood alcohol reading of 0.139.
He was well within the middle range category and not far off the high range category, which is that 0.150. He was very intoxicated and as he was charged the police also issued my client with a notice of suspension.
Because his reading was in the middle range category, the police immediately suspended his driving licence until such time that court had dealt with his matter. He was put on notice that he could not drive his vehicle. He was obviously very still intoxicated, still very emotional and upset. He left the police station and made a further stupid and silly decision to walk back to his vehicle, get back into his car and attempt to drive that vehicle home. He did manage to drive the vehicle home despite the minor amount of damage that was sustained to his vehicle from the prior accident.
Suspended Driving Offence
The police later that morning patrolled the area not long after he had been released from the station, seeing that his vehicle was gone they drove to his home and they caught him in the act of getting out of his vehicle as he had just driven his car into his garage.
Having just been charged with a middle range PCA offence, he was then breaking to further laws and committing to further offences. He knew that he was on a suspended driver’s license, so he was then further charged with driving while suspended.
Drive Under the Influence of Alcohol
The third charge was drive whilst under the influence intoxicating liquor or otherwise known as DUI. The reason why this particular charge was put in place and not a further offence of low, middle or high range PCA with a particular blood alcohol reading was the fact that the police are not allowed to charge him with a PCA offence with a particular blood alcohol reading if you are at your place of residence, but they can issue you with an alternative offence of drive under the influence, which is DUI, which is exactly what they did
3 Major Traffic Offences NSW
Out of this incident, my client had has incurred three major traffic offences, the middle range PCA from the first incident and offence after he was released, he then drove his car while on a suspended driver’s license, that was the second offence, and the third offence was the drive under the influence of alcohol which was the DUI, so it was a very very serious situation. It was an absolute horror night for my client. He was just thankful especially after coming to and further going and doing the traffic offenders programme. He was extremely thankful that no one was hurt or injured or even worse and that nothing worse came out of this incident.
Completion of the Traffic Offenders Program
He did go and do the traffic offenders intervention program. He took a lot away from that program and he wrote a letter of apology to the Court, explaining what really did go wrong on that night and how it was very much out of his character. He showed the Court what significant lessons that he took away from the traffic offenders program.
He also explained to the Court that since being off the road and having to catch public transport, it’s a constant reminder of the very dangerous situation that he puts himself and others in now that he has a lot of time to reflect on his actions while he is catching public transport on a daily basis.
Strong Prior Traffic Record
What we did press to the court was the fact that my client did have a strong traffic history. This appeared to be very much out of his normal character and further to add to that submission was that he had been dealt with some quite emotional and upsetting news which clouded his judgement on the night of the incident.
Court Ordered DUI Penalties
In relation to the Drink Driving Penalties that were handed down by the court at Burwood, for the middle range PCA offence he received a 12 month disqualification which is an automatic period. He wasn’t dealt any leniency in the disqualification period due to the situation and the aggravating features surrounding the accident and the further offences committed.
He received the standard 12 month disqualification and that was to be backdated from the date of when the offence occurred. In relation to the drive under the influence, he also received a 12 month disqualification but he also received a two-year good behaviour bond under section 9 which means that if he breaks the law again while on that good behaviour bond he can be brought back before the court and re-sentenced on this current offence.
For those two offences relating to alcohol, he was issued a combined fine of $1500 or $750 per offence and in relation to the suspended driving offence, any suspended driving offence which is a first offence or the first offence within the last five years will incur a mandatory disqualification period of 12 months, so that was a further 12 month disqualification term, he also received a further $1000 fine and a further good behaviour bond for that offence.
If we add all these penalties together, it looks very ugly, he has basically incurred a 12 month disqualification for each of the three offences, fines, and good behaviour bonds.
If we have a look at the way the disqualification period falls, I was able to request that the magistrate make an order under the legislation that these disqualification periods would run concurrently, that is to run at the same time as each other and not cumulatively, so it wasn’t then that he received three years disqualification off the road, instead he would receive a 12 month disqualification from the date of court, which is when the suspended driving offence started and the other 12 month penalties would run at the same time, so at the end of the 12 months he would be eligible to get back on the road and apply for a new licence.
Persuasive Courtroom Submissions
Given the disastrous situation, the seriousness of the position my client was in, the fact that he had three major traffic offences all arising out of the one incident, this was a very very serious situation my client was in. He could have received a far worse penalty, but we did prepare a good case. We really pull at the heartstrings of the magistrate and showed that this was a very unusual and exceptional event and very much out of my client usual character, taking a look at is traffic record and the way that the incident had come about given the very emotional and upsetting news that he had received which had clouded his judgement on the night of the offence.
All in all, our client was extremely happy with the result, he was obviously expecting to be off the road for a lot longer than he was, but we were able to ensure that his disqualification period was run on a concurrent basis and that he was eligible to get his licence back within 12 months from the court date.
Complexity of the Court Matter
This was a very tricky matter that we had to deal with, when I say tricky, it wasn’t your standard drink-driving offence where the client was pulled over with a breath test, it involved a number of high range traffic offences, there were a number of issues to consider and submissions had to be carefully prepared and presented to the court, so if you found yourself in any sort of situation where you had been charged with an alcohol traffic offence or any sort of criminal matter that matter, we do a lot of this sort of work at all of the local courts in and around Sydney and please feel free if you want to give me a call my name is Joshua Boorman.
Expert Burwood DUI Lawyers
I am happy to have a first free telephone consultation with you on the telephone. You can call me on 1300 941 900 or you can visit our website at BoormanLawyers.com.au. There are different sections there that you can choose relating to criminal law or traffic law or any other sort of law that she may need to make yourself aware of, but if it is a drink-driving matter go along to the traffic law section and there is plenty of information there on the laws, penalties, offences, videos and blog posts that we have put up and you can certainly make yourself fully aware of the potential situation that you are in. If you want to call, I am happy to give you a bit more of an idea of your situation and possibly discuss any legal representation that we can offer you in your particular case.
I am happy to have a free first telephone consultation with you just to give you an idea of your situation and discuss how best we can prepare a case for you and if you want to get us on board to provide you with quality legal representation then we are happy to have a chat with you, so give us a call on 1300 941 900.
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