#131 Cairns Drink Driving

Join Wiseman Lawyers Traffic Lawyer Andrew Wiseman at Cairns 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.

All right. Today I'm at Cairns Magistrates Court. Client was charged with mid range drink driving. A reading of 0.126. Worst case, a 12 month loss of licence. Mandatory minimum is three months. Technically the client was eligible to apply for a work licence given they hadn't lost their licence in the last five years, and they were a holder of an open Queensland licence, but because they worked in government, it was unlikely that they were going to lose their job if they lost their licence.

But that said, given they were in government, they had a great concern about the recording of a conviction. With drink driving, it's not a criminal matter, so there was never going to be a criminal conviction. There was only ever going to be a traffic conviction, but that said, even recorded traffic convictions can cause difficulties for certain persons in certain government roles.

So as I said, worst case 12 months, mandatory minimum three months. I got my client to complete a reformatory course, which can be done online, got them to get references based on a template we provide all of their clients. Drafted my submissions prior to today, flew up last night, met the client in court. We grabbed a conference room, ran through my submissions again, what they could expect the prosecutor say, me to say, the magistrate say.

I guided the magistrate through my client as a person. Who they are, their current work situation, the difficulties they'll suffer, A, with a recorded conviction, and B, with a lengthy disqualification. The long and short of it is I was successful in persuading the magistrate not to record a conviction. So there was no conviction recorded, but that said, I was also able to persuade the magistrate to stick to the mandatory minimum of three months.

So a three month disqualification, a modest fine. And most importantly for my client, no conviction recorded. I'm Andrew Wiseman at Cairns. Thanks for watching.