The Court: Werribee Magistrates Court
The Lawyer: Dylan Morris
The Charges:
The Allegations:
The client was involved in an argument with his girlfriend (the complainant). Amid the argument, the complainant approached the client’s computer to dislodge the graphics card. The client took action by pulling the complainant by her arm away from the computer and towards the bed. The client then pinned the complainant down on the bed and repeatedly told her to ‘calm down’.
The complainant attempted to strike the client with her car keys and connected multiple times. The client continued to pin her down by what he instructed was an action of pushing her shoulder blades to the bed to protect himself.
The complainant’s version included allegations that the client had placed his hands around her neck, applying pressure until she was unable to breathe. The complainant alleged that she could not breathe for 20 seconds due to being strangled.
The complainant subsequently left the property and reported the matter to police by providing a statement. A few days later, the client was arrested and charged.
In the record of interview, the client corroborated the statement by the complainant, however denied that any strangulation ever took place.
At Court:
This case was a factual dispute over whether the strangulation ever occurred and whether the client was acting in self-defence when holding the complainant down on the bed.
The test for self-defence is whether the accused believed upon reasonable grounds that it was necessary to do what he or she did to defend themselves.
There are two elements to this test:
- The accused must have believed at the time that he/she committed the relevant act that what he/she was doing was necessary (known as the “subjective element”) and
- That belief must have been based on reasonable grounds (the “objective element”).
Upon receiving the brief of evidence, our solicitor reviewed the material and could not see any tangible evidence of any marks on the complainant’s neck in the images provided.
Our angle was that the strangulation never occurred, and therefore, the first charge should be withdrawn. With the second charge, we believed that the client acted reasonably in defending himself from being hurt by the complainant’s car keys by pinning her down on the bed, making out a defence to the charge of assault.
The Outcome:
At the contest mention stage of the matter, the charges were withdrawn as the prosecution was convinced they did not have a case they could proceed with and prove at a contested hearing. This was an excellent result for the client, who was facing some very serious charges.
