#148 Townsville Drink Driving

Join Wiseman Lawyers Traffic Lawyer Andrew Wiseman at Townsville 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. So I'm at Townsville Magistrates Court. I had two clients today. Both were charged with high range drink driving. The first one had a reading .178. He had two previous, the previous being .161 and .180, although the two previous were outside of the last five years. The other client was a first time offender reading a .190. Worst case for both is a lifetime loss of licence. But when you're a repeat offender, you're looking at the potential of jail or some kind of probation or suspended term imprisonment.

So for the first client, the first time offender with .190, she was looking at a disqualification of fine only. It was all about getting this qualification down. Whereas with the client who was a repeat offender, there was the potential for imprisonment. So as part of my preparations, I needed to address that issue as well and ensure that it was a disqualification of fine only. With regard to the first client, she was from the States and intended to make Australia her home at some point, so she had concerns about the recording of a conviction. It's a traffic conviction, not a criminal conviction, but it can cause difficulties nonetheless. Whereas given the client that had previous, I wasn't going to make that... The other client with the two previous offences, I wasn't going to make that submission on his behalf.

Got both clients to do the course that we get everyone to do, got them to get references based on the template we provided both of their... All of their clients. Look, as I said, worst case for both, disqualification wise, was a lifetime loss of licence. With the first client with a .190, no history, I was able to convince the magistrate to keep it to nine months and given her concerns about the recording of a traffic conviction, I prepared [inaudible] submissions and spoke at length on my feet, and was able to persuade the magistrate not record a conviction for her.

With regard to the other client, as I said, a .178 and previous .161 and a .180, I got him a disqualification of fine only. So a 10 month disqualification and fine. A conviction was recorded for him. Given he's a repeat offender, I wasn't going to waste the magistrate's time pushing for no conviction recorded there, but so... Yeah, the first client, .190, 9 months no conviction recorded and a fine. Second client .178 with previous .161 and .180, 10 months and a fine, conviction recorded. Both clients are obviously very happy.

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