#141 Southport Drug Driving

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

All right, so I'm at Southport Magistrates Court, client charged with drug driving. There's two types of drug driving. More serious is what's called drive under the influence of a drug, meaning you're high on drugs. The lesser charge is called drive whilst relevant drug present, meaning you've consumed it at some point, the effects have worn off, you're no longer higher under the influence, but there's still traces of it present in your system. Worst case for that is nine months disqualification, manage your minimums one month. If you haven't lost your licence in the last five years, and you were the hold of a open Queensland licence on the day you were intercepted, you can apply for what's called a drug driving work licence. Simple eligibility doesn't equate to success, but as a starting point, you are eligible to apply, but my client held an international licence, so not a open Queensland licence, meaning that they were not eligible to apply for a drug driving work licence.

So my job was obviously one of getting the disqualification down as low as possible, again, as opposed to applying for a drug driving work licence. But as I said, he's on an international licence, meaning he's here on a 457 visa, and he will be seeking to apply for permanent residency citizenship in due course. And for that reason, in addition to the loss of a licence, which was a great concern, was the recording of a conviction, drug driving, it's not a criminal offence, it's a traffic offence, but not withstanding the recording of drug driving convictions can cause difficulties in a number of areas of life. One of them on occasion being seeking certain visas. So again, for that reason, he held as much a concern about the recording of a conviction as he did the loss of his licence.

As far as preparing for today goes, I've got him to complete a reformatory course, we get all of our clients to do. Got to get him some references. I actually drafted written submissions on the point of the recording of a conviction, summarising the legislation in certain case law, in support of my argument, that it would be appropriate for the administrator not to record a conviction in this instance. Met the client at court this morning, ran through my submissions of the procedure, what he could expect the prosecutor to say, me to say, the magistrate, et cetera. There was a little bit of dancing around on my part, particularly on the recording of the conviction submission, but ultimately it was successful on both points. A with regard to the licence, persuading the magistrate to give my client the management of one month disqualification. So he's off the road for one month from today. And two, I was able persuade the magistrate not record a conviction. So one month disqualification, no conviction recorded, modest fine. Client's obviously very happy.

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