Episode 30 of Boorman Lawyers Court Reports, we look at our Unlicensed Driving Lawyer Brisbane who was able to have the matter struck out of the Court.
Recently we attended the Brisbane Magistrates Court in the Brisbane CBD on a charge of Unlicensed Driving.
We had a very successful outcome for our clients matter. Our client was initially charged with driving unlicensed and this came about due to unpaid speeding fines.
Facts leading to the unlicensed driving
When we got some instructions from our client and dug a bit deeper, it came to light that the initial infringement which attracted the fine was the speeding infringement, which was actually committed by her husband.
It was on the same day that they were relocating from the Gold Coast to Brisbane and moving house, the husband took the wife’s car who at the time of the initial speeding offence was driving up the highway and was caught in a speed trap on the side of the highway.
Subsequently, at the time he was not pulled over as it was detection made by a speed camera on the side of the road. So the infringement was later sent out to their Gold Coast address and, obviously, the fine went unpaid. As too, did a number of follow-up notices, that went unpaid and the issue simply wasn’t brought to our client’s attention.
Therefore, our client wasn’t the one who’s speeding at the time. She wasn’t aware that her husband had been caught speeding. The husband wasn’t even aware he’d been caught speeding because the infringement and notices to pay the fine were not brought to their attention. It was sent to their old address.
Charged with unlicensed driving
It only came to light that the infringement actually existed and that my client’s driver’s license was suspended when randomly pulled over by police detection.
We appeared at court initially to adjourn the matter and also sort to conduct case conferencing with the prosecutions.
Case conferencing with Police & legal defence
Case conferencing is simply where you can enter into negotiations to ask that the police withdraw the charge due to the fact that they had limited prospects of successfully prosecuting the case.
We submitted written representations to the prosecutions about the strength of our case and the background to the offence. We relied on the honest and reasonable mistake of fact defence in the criminal code of Queensland. This is a defence where if a person honestly and reasonably believes that they are not committing an offence at the time, then that is a defence to the criminal act.
The police wrote back to us and indicated that they were going to discontinue the prosecution as they had no evidence to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that our client was aware that her license was suspended at the time of driving.
At Court the prosecution sort to offer no evidence and as such the Magistrates struck out the charges today. We had a very happy client on our hands.
As a result, it does pay to do a bit of investigation, get some proper instructions, do some good work and enter into some case conferencing when there’s a realistic issue there that there is a strong defence to rely upon as there was in this case.
Effectively, our client walks away from court today with the charges completely struck out; the prosecution case discontinued and no penalties at all. So a very happy client.
Contact our Brisbane Traffic Lawyers
If you found yourself bank charged with a traffic or criminal offence in Queensland. We operate in Brisbane and Gold Coast and pretty much all around the Southeast Queensland region.
Feel free to give me a call on 1300 941 900. Happy to have a chat to you about your issue, your case, or any charges you may have. Also happy to discuss what may be involved, what penalties, what laws are involved.
Speak to our Unlicensed Driving Lawyer Brisbane Court Ph: 1300 941 900
Our DUI Lawyers can be contacted at:
Boorman Lawyers NSW & QLD Solicitors