#167 Millmerran Drink Driving

Join Wiseman Lawyers Traffic Lawyer Andrew Wiseman at Millmerran Magistrates Court as he represents two clients charges 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 Millmerran Magistrates Court. It's probably about 50 minutes west of Toowoomba. So now with that Toowoomba bypass, it's about a two and a half hour drive west of Brisbane. Two clients today. One was charged with their first drink driving offence, reading a 0.073 and the other guy was charged with a repeat offence 0.142. He had a fair bit of history, yeah, there was a high range and a couple other bits of pieces, but it was all outside of the last five years.

So the first gent, 0.073 was looking at a worse case of nine months, mandatory minimum one month. He was eligible to apply for a work licence given he hadn't lost his licence for any reason in the last five years. But he, for his own reasons chose not to, primarily child access. Because a work licence will help you get to work, but it won't help you access your child for shared custody arrangements. And generally when you apply for a work licence, they well, they've got the discretion to double the disqualification and they don't always do it, but we tell our clients to expect it. And obviously if you're doubling what you'd otherwise get, you're doubling your inability to access your child if you're in a shared custody arrangement.

The other gent, because his previous was outside of the last five years, he was looking at a worst case of, with a reading of 0.142, 12 months, minimum three. But again, the minimum three cuts in at 0.100 and high range, which is a minimum six month kicks in at 0.150. So with the reading 0.142, he was just a smidgen shy of the minimum six months that comes with 0.150 and above. And as I said, he had previous, but outside of the last five years.

So my job for both was to try and get the disqualification down as low as possible. I've already sort of touched on the needs of the gent with the reading of 0.073 with regard to accessing his child, et cetera. But the other gent had severe medical issues, which required ongoing travel to medical providers, which is obviously difficult in a location like Millmerran when you're without a licence. So again, my job was to try and get the disqualifications down as low as possible. With regard to the first gent 0.073, I'm not going to talk about what industry he was in, but I had reasons to push for a conviction recorded. Drink driving's never a criminal conviction, it's only ever a traffic conviction but in certain occasions and instances it's appropriate to push for no conviction recorded.

What that allows you to do is if you apply for a job or insurance or something like that, and you're asked, have you ever been convicted to drink driving? You can literally put your hand on your heart and say, I've not been convicted to drink driving, if there was no conviction recorded. If you get asked if you've been charged, that's a different question, but no conviction recorded means you were not convicted for the sake of external to the justice department's purposes. So I was pushing hard for no conviction recorded on that gentleman. I got both clients to complete the reformatory course that we get all of their clients to do. We got both of them to get references based on the template that we provide all of our clients. I drafted my submissions for both client well in advance. I drove up. I don't like driving if a location is more than two hours away, I'm just too old to be driving up the morning of and getting stuck in traffic. I don't need that stress.

So if it's more than two hours away, I'll drive up the night before and stay at a hotel. And that's what I did. Or motel I should say. And while I'm at Millmerran Motel, very comfortable beds, very friendly staff and I really like it. So if ever in Millmerran stay at the Millmerran Motel. But in any event, drove up yesterday, stayed at the Millmerran Motel, met the clients this morning, gave them a full sort of heads up on what to expect going in. For both clients, I guided the magistrate on the person's back round upbringing, work, difficulties they have suffered and difficulties they will continue to suffer without a licence.

Look the long and short of it is with regard to the first gent the 0.073, I was able to persuade the magistrate to give the minimum of one month. So he was looking at a maximum of nine months, I got him the minimum one months, sorry, one month singular. And I was ultimately able to persuade him to not record a conviction. So for the first gent with 0.073 one month disqualification, no conviction recorded.

With regard to the other gent, as I said, with a reading a 0.142 you're well past the 0.100 that normally gets you in mandatory minimum three months territory. And he also had previous, including a high range all being outside the last five years. So I pushed as hard as I could to get the minimum three months on him, but he was ultimately able to get the magistrate to go down into four months. So 0.142 with previous, including a high range, four month disqualification and with regard to the recording of a conviction, I normally do...

If I've got more than one client, we try to only have one client a day, but in locations like this sometimes it's unavoidable, but I normally stagger it in order of least severe to more severe matters. So I'll do the lower range first and then do the higher range one. And given I'd just got no conviction recorded for the earlier gent, I felt like I was on a bit of a roll and on my feet. So I thought I'd have a bit of a [inaudible] crack at getting it for the second client and I was ultimately successful in getting no conviction recorded for him as well. So the second gent reading a 0.142 with previous, four month disqualification, no conviction recorded and just rehashing the first gent, 0.073 one month disqualification no conviction recorded. Now obviously both clients are very happy. I'm Andrew Weisman, Millmerran Magistrates Court. Thanks for watching.