Join Wiseman Lawyers Traffic Lawyer Andrew Wiseman at Moranbah Magistrates Court as he represents a client charged with Drink Driving. Watch Andrew explain what happened in the courtroom, along with the outcome which he achieved and how he achieved it.
All right. So I’m Moranbah Magistrates court. It’s about a two hour drive west of Mackay. I flew out to Mackay last night. Did the two hour drive from Mackay to Moore and Bar. This morning, client was charged with repeat drink-driving. This was his third drink-driving offence. He had two previous, one being 0.07 and the other being 0.01. They were outside of the last five years, but they were still there nonetheless. This time it was a lower reading 0.053, and there was no other drink-driving or drug-driving the last five years. Further, to that he hadn’t lost his licence for any other reason, the last five years. So that many was eligible to apply for a drink-driving work licence. There’s a number of eligibility criteria that you need to satisfy if you want to apply for a drink-driving work licence. But basically in summary, you’ve got to be low or mid range. Meaning reading a 0.149 or below. You can’t have lost your licence in the last five years, you must be to be the hold of an open Queensland licence. There’s a few other things I won’t go into Now. My client satisfied all those prerequisites, not withstanding the two previous drink-drivings he’d had outside of the last five years.
And for that reason, he engaged would apply for a work licence, worst case for a low range, which 0.053 is low range with no previous in the last five years is a nine month loss of licence management minimum is one month. My job was A. One of getting the disqualification down as low as possible. And B. Convincing the Magistrate to order a work licence, allowing him to drive during that disqualification for work purposes only. He was self-employed so I drafted about a nine page affidavit up for him to sign talking about his businesses, profit loss, what he does for a living, family situation. Whatever the dang question, what he’s learned from it, et cetera. Got him to get some character references based on a template. We provide all our clients, got him to do a reformatory course, drafted the affidavits about a week ago.
Fired him with the court. Well, in advance, as I said, I flew up to my Mackay last night, drove to Moranbah this morning met the client. We grabbed a “conference room” if you can call it that there’s not really any conference rooms at Moranbah it’s about a two foot by one foot desk. Witnessed all the affidavits, filled out all the… completed all the paperwork, explained what was going to happen. The procedure, what he could expect me to say, what he could expect the police to say, what the Magistrates are likely going to say. So, when he went in the courtroom, he knew exactly what was going to happen before it happened. I don’t like clients going in there blind and seeing it all unfold for the first time. I like people to have the confidence in knowing that things are going, as I told them, they would, before we went in, as I said, went in the courtroom, the affidavits, we spent a lot of time and effort in getting the affidavits tight and comprehensive.
Basically, removing all the reasons to say no, win the affidavits. So by the time the Magistrate’s finished reading it, they’re like, “Wow, well, I guess I’ll give it to them then.” It’s quite a complex argument that you need to make that “I’m a three time drink-driver, but you still should consider be a fit and proper person to be given another chance.” You need to have your affidavits tight. You need to have addressed all the potential traps that come up time and time again in the affidavits, we’ve been doing this for over a decade and in that time we’ve seen it all and we’ve built hazards into our affidavits or we’ve built ways of dealing with hazards before they happen into those affidavits. As I said, by the time the Magistrate reads the affidavit, there’s really no reason to say “No.”
Look, I’m prattling on a bit now long and short of it is I was able to persuade the Magistrate to grant the application, given their profession. I was able to persuade the Magistrate to give 24 hour a day, seven day week work licence. Given personal reasons, which I won’t go to now. I was also, I would’ve persuade the Magistrate to give the management minimum one month to disqualification. And again, for reasons that I won’t get into now, I was also able to notwithstanding the two previous convection’s, persuade the Magistrate to not a record conviction. So, one month disqualification, 24 hour day, seven day week work licence granted, make conviction recorded clients, obviously very happy. I’m Andrew Wiseman, at Moranbah Magistrate’s court. Thanks for watching.