#178 Beaudesert Drink Driving

Join Wiseman Lawyers Traffic Lawyer Andrew Wiseman at Beaudesert Magistrates Court as he represents a client charged with Drink Driving. Watch Andrew explain what happened in the courtroom, along with the outcome which he achieved and how he achieved it.

Today I'm at Beaudesert Magistrates Court. Client was charged with a repeat drink driving/drug driving offence. Today it was drink driving. A reading of 0.122 that's mid range. Basically low range starts at 0.050 goes up to 0.099. Mid range kicks in at 0.100 goes to 0.149. So mid range for a first offence is minimum three months, maximum twelve but if you've got a previous low or mid range DUI or a what's called a relevant drug presence, a drug driving, but not a case of where you've been high on drugs but you've been found with traces of a drug in your system previously within five years, the minimum ironically stays at three months but the maximum goes up to eighteen months. As I said, it was repeat because basically the legislation ... there's not drink driving laws and drug driving laws. It's basically the one section of legislation that covers both drink driving and drug driving and they sort of splinter off based on what the substance or type of alcohol, whatever it is that was in your system is. If you've got a drink driving offence with a previous drug driving, it's seen as repeat, even though it might be your first drink driving offence, which it was the case from a client. As I said, he had that previous relevant drug present in the last five years so max eighteen months, minimum three.

He can't get a work licence because to be able to apply for a work licence, you can't have lost your licence for any reason in the last five years and as I've already said, he had that previous relevant drug present, which led to a loss of licence within the last five years. He was also charged with possessed dangerous drug being cannabis and possessed utensils like your bowls and your scissors and whatnot that you use to cut up your cannabis.

My job was one of getting the disqualification down as low as possible and trying to get a fine only for the drug offending.

With regard to preparing for the matter we got him to do the reform course. We get all our clients to do. Got him to get character references based on the template we provide all of our clients. We got him to fill out the online form that we get our clients to fill out, that prompts clients to give us the information we need. Everyone's got their own story but we know what the magistrate needs to know about and our online forms have been built to prompt you to give us the information we need. If you go to court and start talking about all this stuff the magistrate isn't legally required to consider they'll just start getting very frustrated because they're very busy courts and you'll end up getting a outcome that's not what you want. because you've just agitated them.

You go to McDonald's and it takes you 40 minutes to order a big Mac even the nicest guy's going to get agitated, simplistic sort of terms but it's as simple as that. Busy courts, they're flat out, they're struggling to knock off at a reasonable timeframe. If you start talking about a bunch of stuff that's not relevant, it's not going to help you get the outcome you want.

Our online form prompts you to give us the information we need. Once we've got that from you, we've got the police brief we prepare our submissions.

Met the client at court this morning, ran through those submissions with him, explained what was going to happen procedurally, where to stand, what the prosecutor's likely to say, what I'm going to say and what the magistrate's likely to say.

I had to be reasonably forceful given that previous and the coupling of drug charges with the offence but the long and short of it is after a bit of forceful persuasion, I was able to persuade the magistrate to stick to the minimum three months, notwithstanding that he's got that previous and that it's mid range 0.122 and the drug defence is coupled with it. So three months disqualification and fines and I was able to get no convictions recorded on the drug offences. You're never going to get, well rarely are you going to get no conviction recorded on a repeat drug/drink driving offence but given he had no history of drug criminal, it's not really criminal, but there's drug traffic offences like drug driving and there's then drug quasi criminal offences, the possession and all that kind of stuff. So no conviction recorded for the drug offences three months disqualification for the drink driving, fines and nothing else beyond that. Obviously he just serves three months, renews his licence after the three months then he's back on the road and gets on with his life.

I'm Andrew Wiseman at Beaudesert Magistrates Court. Thanks for watching.