Join Wiseman Lawyers Traffic Lawyer Andrew Wiseman at Toowoomba Magistrates Court as he represents a client charged with Drug Driving. Watch Andrew explain what happened in the courtroom, along with the outcome which he achieved and how he achieved it.
All right. Today, I’m at Toowoomba Magistrates Court. Client was charged with repeat drug driving. There was two drugs found in their system, cannabis and methamphetamine. And it was a repeat, as I said, drug driving offence. There’s two types of drug driving. The more serious is what’s called drive under the influence of a drug, meaning you’ve consumed it. You’re still a high and you’re still under the influence of that drug. The lesser charge is what’s called drive whilst relevant drug present, meaning you’ve had it at some point, the effects have worn off, but there’s still traces of it in your system.
My client was charged with the lesser of the two, but there was traces of two different drugs found in his system, cannabis and methamphetamine ice. He had a previous within the last five years, late last year of the same charge of drive whilst relevant drug present.
Basically, if you’ve got a previous in the last five years, the penalty range is increased. So if it’s a first offence of relevant drug present, or there’s no history in the last five years, worst case is a nine month loss of licence. Mandatory minimum is one month. But if you’ve got previous, it depends on how much previous as to how much it goes up. But if you’ve got one previous, which my client does have, the maximum bumps up to 18 months. The mandatory minimum becomes three months.
And because you’ve got previous in the last five years, and as a consequence of that, you’ve lost your licence in the last five years, you cannot get a drug driving work licence. With a drug driving work licence, basically, if you get charged with drive whilst relevant drug present, and you haven’t lost your licence in the last five years, and you’re the holder of an open Queensland licence, and you satisfy a number of other prerequisites, you can apply for a drug driving work licence.
And the what that is, is basically you still get a disqualification, but the magistrate can, if you properly apply and argue the application correctly, make an order overlapping the disqualification allowing you to continue driving for work purposes only. So you’re disqualified, but during the hours of, for example, 6:00 AM to 6:00 PM. Monday to Friday, you can continue driving for work purposes only.
But my client was not eligible to apply today because of that previous. So worst case today was an 18 month disqualification, mandatory minimum three months, no work licence eligibility. So my job was one of getting it down as low as possible. And as I’ve already stressed, the lowest possible disqualification was three months. With regards to preparing, I’ve got my client to complete a reformatory course. We get all of our clients to do it. It can be done online. I asked him to get some character references based on a template we would provide each of our clients, guiding the referee as to who it needs to be addressed to and the key points that need to be addressed.
There’s no point going to court with a reference addressed to whom it may concern and talking about how fantastic the person is, yet it makes no reference to the fact that they’re aware of the charge or at the very least that they’re aware that it’s being tendered in court. You might as well head up a shopping list. The magistrate will literally push it to the side if it does not clearly indicate that it’s been written for that purpose.
I got instructions prior to today, prepared my submissions prior to today, drove up from Brisbane this morning. Met the client in a conference room. I ran through the procedure, who stands where, what he can expect the prosecutor to say. I went through my submissions, basically I’m trying to convince the magistrate that he’s a good person, notwithstanding.
Discuss the underlying issues that have led to this ongoing offending, et cetera. I spoke about what he learned at the course and all the rest of it. I spoke on my feet for a moderate amount of time, not a lengthy period. The short version is, though, that I was able to persuade the magistrate to give the mandatory minimum of three months. So three months disqualification, modest fine. Client’s very happy given it was literally the best possible outcome. He just obviously doesn’t drive the next three months, renews his licence at the end of it, and then he’s back on the road as per normal in three months time.
So as I said, worst case 18 months. Mandatory minimum three months, I got him three months and a modest fine. He’s very happy. I’m Andrew Wiseman at Toowoomba Magistrates Court. Thanks for watching.