The Court: Geelong Magistrates Court
The Lawyer: Ryan Robertson
The Charges:
The Allegations:
The client got into a verbal altercation with a salesman at a plaza, and it was alleged that the altercation ended when the client forcefully head-butted the salesman, causing him to stumble backwards into a wall and sustaining a large bruise to his head.
The client instructed that there was indeed an altercation, due to the salesman’s aggressive and intrusive behaviour towards him. The client also did not deny that there was physical contact and that this physical contact caused the injury to the victim; however, the client instructed that the contact was completely unintentional and was the result of the two accidentally walking into each other.
These instructions were consistent with what the client told police during his recorded interview. The complainant’s evidence was that the client had lost his temper and started swearing before deliberately head-butting him with quite a bit of force. There were a couple of witnesses to the incident. Still, neither of them saw the ‘headbutt’ and instead they simply attested to hearing a “thud” followed by the complainant slumping to the ground against the wall and the client standing over the victim.
The plaza CCTV was reviewed by police upon attendance, however the cameras did not manage to capture the incident, which appeared to have taken place in a blind spot.
Given that there was no CCTV footage, and the two police witnesses did not take the matter any further as neither of them managed to see the critical moment, this became a word-for-word case.
At Court:
The police were very keen to proceed with the charges, stating that there was a considerable height difference between the victim and the accused, rendering it almost impossible for their heads to have made contact if they had simply walked into each other, as the accused had claimed. The client then qualified his instructions by saying that he was leaning in to get a better look at the salesman’s name tag.
By the time the matter reached contest mention, the police were still sceptical about the client’s account of what happened; however they offered to withdraw the injury charge and proceed only with an unlawful assault. This resolution was somewhat incongruous given that we were conceding that an injury took place but denying the assault.
Another significant issue was that the client had three prior convictions for intentionally causing injury, all within the last three years; so the client was at risk of a prison sentence if found guilty, notwithstanding the single charge of unlawful assault.
The Outcome:
Consequently, we kept pushing for a complete withdrawal. The prosecution made enquiries with the complainant and discovered that he had already made plans to move to another country permanently, and would have been gone by even the earliest date the court could give us for a contested hearing.
This meant that the prosecution would not be able to lead the only evidence they had to prove the charges, unless they requested permission from the court for the complainant to appear via video link. Under these circumstances, the prosecution agreed to withdraw all charges.
