Dribbin & Brown Criminal Lawyers are a specialist team of criminal and traffic lawyers servicing the Asian Community in Melbourne and Victoria.
Our staff includes a Mandarin speaking lawyer, with significant experience in both criminal and traffic law as well as Asian speaking support staff .
If you have been charged with any criminal or traffic offence, or have to attend court in relation to an intervention order, then you should contact our offices as soon as possible, as the importance of engaging a competent criminal lawyer at the earliest opportunity, cannot be over stated.
The following is an example of a case we recently handled out of our Ringwood office. It involved two charges;
- Recklessly causing injury, section 18 of the Crimes Act
- Unlawful Assault, section 23 of the Summary Offences Act.
The matter proceeded at the Ringwood Magistrates Court.
The Facts:
- An altercation between our client and his long-term partner occurred in the early hours of the morning.
- The neighbours of our client overhear the verbal argument and contacted the police advising them that they could hear a young woman screaming “help” from the address.
- The police attended the address and prior to entering, heard an altercation taking place. They eventually knocked on the door, entered the premises, and spoke to our client and his partner.
- The police spoke to our client’s partner but did not take a formal statement from her. They also photographed her injuries.
- The photographs revealed bruising to the left side of her face, scratches and bruising to her left side of neck, left shoulder and upper arm.
- The police formed a view that an assault occurred, perpetrated by our client. The allegations were that our client had strangled his partner and had pushed her to the ground and kicked her to the side of the head, clearly, extremely serious allegations.
- Our client was arrested and issued with a safety notice, precluding him from entering his home and having any contact with his partner.
- These charges can lead to an immediate term of imprisonment, even for first time offenders.
Result:
Our client arranged and attended an appointment the following day. The first thing that was noticeable was that our client had bruising to his face and a black eye. Photographs of our client’s injuries were not taken by the police.
We advised our client to take photographs of his injuries.
Our client advised that he had conducted a record of interview with the police which we viewed prior to giving him advice.
Our client’s instructions were, that after a verbal altercation had taken place, he had awoken to find the victim assaulting him (which was consistent with his physical injury to the face) and that he had defended himself during this altercation. His instructions were consistent with his record of interview.
We advised our client that in our view, his version of self- defence seemed plausible and that it could constitute a valid defence to the charge. This was quite apart from the remaining obligation on the prosecution to first prove the elements of the alleged offences, beyond reasonable doubt.
Following negotiations with the prosecution it became clear that the victim (our client’s partner) had not provided a statement to the police and had in fact refused to do so. The police had persisted with the criminal charges along with the application for an intervention order without any complaint evidence.
The case against our client was based on the following:
- The evidence of the Informant and his corroborator and their observations,
- Evidence of what the neighbour heard, and
- Photographic evidence of injuries to the victim taken at the home address.
In our view the evidence was insufficient to convict our client. Further it was clear the police had taken a biased view by not also taking pictures of our client’s injuries.
Following our negotiations, the criminal charges were withdrawn against our client at a very early stage of proceedings.
Given the serious nature of the allegations, our client was fortunate to have sought our assistance at the earliest opportunity in order to achieve the best possible outcome, being a withdrawal of the charges.
This is just one example of hundreds of cases we do every month.
If you have been charged with any offence or are facing an intervention order, you should immediately call Dribbin & Brown Criminal Lawyers.
