Our client who worked as an accountant and a previous partner in a business with the alleged victim had funded entirely the business as well as paid for properties, trades and equipment in it.
Following an argument between our client and the alleged victim in context of money that the alleged victim owed our client, they had a falling out in mid 2021 whereby our client left the business. This resulted in the business going downhill due to the alleged victim being unable to continue meeting expenses.
As a result, the alleged victim made complaints against our client that our client broke into the business shop and broke all equipment therein. The investigation went nowhere.
The alleged victim made further allegations claiming that our client fraudulently forged the wage subsidy payments, and took the payments by deception.
Our client contacted our CDLA city office and spoke to our senior lawyer Ahmad Faraj. After reviewing the police evidence very carefully, significant inconsistencies were identified. This led to our Ahmad drafting detailed legal representations to the police officer to request that the charges be withdrawn due to the weak prosecution case reflected in the brief of evidence. The offer to withdraw the charges came with a claim for legal costs against the police should the police decide not to withdraw in light of the weak evidence, putting police on notice.
The gist of our defence case was that the alleged victim’s allegations were a complete fabrication which were made obvious from the evidence, noting the obvious motive to lie against our client arising from the breakdown in the business relationship.
In the result, the prosecution agreed with our request to withdraw all 6 fraud charges. All charges were thereafter withdrawn and dismissed at the Bankstown Local Court early in the case avoiding a hearing and saving significant legal costs for our client.