Waverley Court Drink Driving Lawyers – Section 10 Bond – 10/2014 from Sydney Traffic Lawyers
Welcome to SydneyDrinkDriving.com.au Today, I was in at Waverley Local Court and I was there on a Middle Range PCA charge. It was quite a serious Middle Range PCA charge since the blood alcohol rating was 0.130.
Now, my client came to me just after the incident occurred in June this year, and he was extremely concerned and stressed out because he basically had a real need to retain his driver’s license, otherwise, he would sadly be terminated from his employment position.
Middle Range DUI Facts
So, he came to me and we basically put a strategy and a plan in place to do the very best we could to try and maintain his ability to stay mobile and keep his driver’s license. So there was quite a long period of time between when the incident occurred in June through to October and today when his matter was finally heard at Waverley Local Court. In relation to my client’s matter, he was lucky in the sense that the matter was not exacerbated or aggravated by a number of features that surrounded his incident. And when I say aggravated, there were no aggravating features involved. He was the sole occupant of the vehicle. He was driving late at night so there was a minimum traffic on the road. The road that he did take was through across city tunnel in Sydney. So, there was a reduced risk of injury to pedestrians on the road because most of his route was through the tunnel. He wasn’t charged with any other offences. He wasn’t speeding or driving erratically. And certainly, he was very cooperative and polite with the police.
No police suspension at time of arrest
Now, usually for a Middle Range PCA offence, the police will suspend a person’s license at the time of arrest. However, given his situation, that he has a wife who is pregnant and set to give birth next month, the police were quite lenient with my client on this occasion and they allowed him to retain his license. This is an issue that is completely up to the arresting police officers and my client does considered himself lucky that he was able to maintain his driver’s license until the Court did make a determination on this matter, which was before the Court today. So, he has had the ability since the incident occurred right through to the matter was in Court today to maintain his driver’s license for the purpose of looking after his family and retain his employment.
South Sydney Traffic Offenders Intervention Program
One important thing that he did do during this period, this long adjournment that we sought was he successfully completed the fully approved 6-week traffic offender’s program at South Sydney. And this was a program where he got to meet police, paramedics, and real-life victims of trauma and listen to the presentations that they had to give and it really gave him a good insight into how dangerous his actions were on the night of the offence. He learned a great deal from this traffic offender’s program and certainly, he instructed me to tell the Court that young people should have to go through this course prior to obtaining their license rather than people who are considered offenders after breaking the law like he did. So, it obviously had a great impact on him.
Drink Driving Case Plan & Strategy
The way we handled this case was we put this plan and strategy in place. We adjourned to the matter for a significant period of time so he could do the traffic offender’s program and we could get a number of documents and evidence in place to support his claim to try to retain his driver’s license. We were able to get a statement and letter from his pregnant wife. We were also able to get a reference from his employer just to show that driving is a critical aspect of his job and to show that he travels up to 2000 kkilometres a month. And simply without a driver’s license, he will sadly be terminated from his position. We were also able to get another reference from a friend of his, who was able to attest his good character. We got evidence from his wife’s physician and obstetrician to say and confirm that she was pregnant and when she was due to give birth to their second child. Furthermore, we were able to sit down with my client and put together a very well-prepared statement on his behalf just to express to the Court exactly what he had learned from the traffic offender’s program and give a bit more of an insight to his personal situation in relation to his job and what actually happened on the night the incident took place.
I was then able to also extract some information from my client which formed the basis of some crafty and strategic oral submissions I was able to present to the Court today. The one thing that I did want to press before the Court was that there were some significant extenuating features surrounding this incident which led my client to making the poor decision that he did on the night.
Oral submissions to Waverly Court
I was able to explain to the Court that he had absolutely no intention of drink driving on the night. On the night his wife actually called him to come home because her and their one-year old son was not feeling well and that their son was burning up with a fever. He called for a taxi. He knew he’d been drinking. The taxi never came. He then got a call from his wife saying that their child’s fever was getting increasingly worse. My client was in a state of distress and becoming more and more worried. Eventually he made the very poor decision to get into his car and drive since the taxi had not turned up.
Now, this was an unusual event and an event which would usually not occur. Because my client had a very good traffic history for a significant period of time, we were able to show the Court this was not the way my client usually acts, and it was because of these unusual and extenuating features that my client did make a very poor decision on this night and it was certainly a decision that was very much out of his character.
Basically, we were able to paint the picture before the Court that my client was extremely remorseful contrite over his decision to drive and appeared before the Court very apologetic to the Court and the community over his actions. The evidence that we put before the Court in relation to the statements from his employer, his wife, all attested to the fact that he was a person of good character and he really did have a very real need to maintain his driver’s license.
Persuading the Court to give a Section 10 Bond
All these issues were presented before the Court, however the major thing that was going against my client was the fact that his blood alcohol rating was quite high. It was getting up there towards the higher end of the middle range category at 0.130. I urged the Magistrate at Waverley Court to balance out the fact that there was a high reading with the fact that there were no significant aggravating features. My client had a very real need to maintain his driver’s license in order to keep his employment and also, the fact that his wife is pregnant. She is set to give birth to their second child early next month, and he’s simply the sole breadwinner for the family. So, it was really a balancing act with these issues and we were able to present these issues in a way which persuaded the Magistrate to see my client’s point of view and the heartache and hardship that would be suffered if he was unable to drive.
The Magistrate at Waverley agreed and was very receptive to a lot of the submissions and evidence we put forward and even commented that it was a very well prepared case and put together. She agreed with the submissions that I presented and dealt with my client under Section 10(1)(b) of the Crimes (Sentencing Procedure) Act 1999.
Now, what this meant was that my client is that he would be placed under a Good Behaviour bond for 12 months and it would also mean that he would not lose his driver’s license. He would receive a No Conviction and he would not be fined by the Court. Certainly, this was the absolute best outcome my client could have hoped for. What it does mean is that he’s able to maintain his employment and be able to continue to provide for his family. But it will also mean that he has a good behaviour bond hanging over his head for the next 12 months. So it means that if he puts a foot out of place and breaks the law in any way, he could be called back before the Court in breach of that good behaviour bond and re-sentenced on this existing matter today.
My client was extremely relieved. He was ever so thankful for the plan and strategies that we were able to execute and obviously the positive results that we did receive for him in Court today at Waverley Local Court.
Contact our expert Waverley Drink Driving Lawyers
If you have been involved in a drink driving incident or an alcohol related traffic offence, the best thing you can do is get some advice. You can call us here at the office on 1300 941 900, or you can visit our website, which is SydneyDrinkDriving.com.au
You might want to visit our website as a first port of call. There’s plenty of pages, articles, videos there outlining information on offences, laws, penalties, traffic offender programs, and various other issues and options that you should inform yourself with if you have been charged with the drink driving offence. You should know that there is help out there and we’re happy to have a FREE 1st Telephone consult with you on the phone to give you a bit of an idea of the situation that you may be in and the general process that will be expected of you going through the Court system.
This example that we had today in Waverley Local Court is a perfect example to show that well-prepared and strategic case can certainly yield very good positive results for you if you have been charged with the drink driving offence.
Certainly, we’re experienced in putting a well-prepared case together and presenting them to the Court in a persuasive and very positive way to help you get the best result possible for your matter when it comes before the Court.
Rest assure we don’t just visit Waverley Local Court. We visit all the Courts, the Local Courts and District Courts in and around Sydney. We attend these Courts every single week on a daily basis. So, we know only too well the police prosecutors and Magistrates and their general attitudes towards these types of offences at the various Courts around Sydney. So, again, please feel free to give us a call for FREE 1st Telephone consultation to have a chat about your matter on 1300 941 900, or, again, visit our website if you haven’t already been there and have a rate out on a lot of the information that we’ve got there at SydneyDrinkDriving.com.au
Speak to our DUI Lawyers – Josh Boorman Ph: 1300 941 900
Our DUI Lawyers can be contacted at:
Sydney Drink Driving Lawyers | DUI Solicitors NSW
Email: jboorman@boormanlawyers.com.au
