X

Share This Article

Our 31-year old client was stopped and arrested with a high range drink driving charge by police and managed to avoid full-time prison, getting a sentenced with an Intensive Correction Order for 13-months despite the aggravating features of his case involving a very high reading of 0.258, driving erratically, the number of people who were also in the car at the time and the length of journey he was attempting to travel.

Our experienced team of drink driving lawyers in Sydney guided and thoroughly prepared his case from beginning to end, producing compelling submissions whilst representing our client in court.

Our experience drink driving lawyer, Ms. Tayla Regan prepared strong material to support her compelling submissions in-front of the Magistrate at Wollongong Local Court.

Our client lives with his long term partner and has no dependants.

In total, the couple have 3 mortgages and were in the process of building the home they wish to soon start a family in.

Our client has been working in the same company for approximately 10-years, and has also been held with high regard as a loyal friend and a hard worker. The prepared material reflected a strong subjective case for our client’s good character.

The Offending Conduct

After a day of drinking on a weekend in August, our client got into a disagreement with his long term partner.

He then regrettably got into his vehicle and drove away from the situation.

At that time, he was under the influence of alcohol.

Whilst driving he came under police attention after numerous road users contacted 000 reporting a man swerving across roadways and cutting off vehicles.

Our client had then stopped on a motorway in Wollongong, activated his hazard lights and began to wander away from the road.

While police were on their way to the scene, members of the public approached our client and assisted him into the passenger side of his car. Luckily, there was no collision and no one was hurt on this day.

Police soon arrived at the scene and subjected our client to a breath test.

Our client blew a blood alcohol reading of 0.258 and our clients licence was immediately confiscated.

He was then charged with Driving with High Range PCA (Section 110(5)(a) Road Transport Act 2013). This offence carries a maximum fine of $3,300 and 18 month term of imprisonment.

The offence was particularly aggravated due to the degree of our client’s intoxication (High Range PCA readings range from 0.150 and above), the erratic manner of his driving, the length of his journey and the number of people that were put at risk by his driving.

Approximately 7-years ago he was previously charged and convicted for the same offence.

However, given that the offence did not occur within the last 5 years, the current offence was regarded as a first offence under the law.

A few days after the incident, our client came and saw our team of criminal defence lawyers in Parramatta.

He spoke to our specialist drink driving lawyer, Tayla Regan. She guided him at every step of his case.

On the first court date, a Plea of Guilty was entered to the charge in Wollongong Local Court and the matter was adjourned for a Sentencing Assessment Report to be conducted and prepared by Community Corrections for our client.

The assessment report came back positive, and after the Magistrate reading all the prepared material we have produced on sentencing, our lawyers were able to convince the Magistrate not to send our client to full-time prison. The Magistrate agreed with Ms. Regan’s submissions in court, imposing an intensive corrections order (ICO) for 13-months with further conditions to attend rehabilitation treatment and to be subject to supervision by community corrections.

The Court also agreed with Ms. Regan to instead of imposing the maximum licence disqualification period, imposing the discretionary minimum of 6 months-effectively back-dating the disqualification from the date of being stopped by police. He was however required to participate in the mandatory 24 months thereafter interlock program

In the preparation to getting this exceptional outcome, our Ms. Tayla Regan had prepared and tendered numerous powerful subjective materials to the Court, including a letter of apology, good character reference letters, letter from his employer, Traffic Offenders Program Certificate of Completion, psychologist report and Letter from an Alcohol Counsellor to convince the Magistrate that he will unlikely re-offend.

Our client was able to avoid full time custody and is able to move on with his life in the community. Through the ICO and interlock program for a long duration of time, he was given an opportunity to prove to the court that he will not re-offend, and will likely continue on his path to rehabilitation.

AUTHOR Jimmy Singh

Mr. Jimmy Singh is the Principal Lawyer at Criminal Defence Lawyers Australia - Leading Criminal Lawyers in Sydney, Delivering Exceptional Results in all Australian Criminal Courts.

View all posts by Jimmy Singh