Join Wiseman Lawyers Traffic Lawyer Andrew Wiseman at Bundaberg Magistrates Court as he represents a client charged with Repeat 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 Bundaberg Magistrates Court, about a four hour drive north of Brisbane. I drove up yesterday. I’m too old to be doing four hour drives at five in the morning, these days. So I drove up yesterday, stayed at a local motel. Met the client this morning. Client was charged with repeat drug driving. There’s two types of drug driving: under the influence of a drug, meaning you’re high and then relevant drug present, meaning the effects have worn off, but the substance is still present in your system. So my client was charged with the lesser of the two, so relevant drug present. Compounding it, he had a previous charge of the exact same type within the last five years. So worst case for second in five, meaning second charge of the same type in five years, is an 18 month disqualification. Mandatory minimum three months.
My job obviously was to try and get it down as low as possible. You can’t get a work licence if you’ve previously lost your licence in the last five years. As I said, he had, because he’d previously been charged with relevant drug present. So as I said, worst case 18 months, best case three months. Got my client to do the reformatory course we get everyone to do. Got him to get character references based on a template we provide all of our clients. As I said, drove up yesterday, prepared my submissions a couple of days ago, met my client at court, we grabbed a conference room, I ran through the procedure. Strangely, Bundaberg, it’s the only court in Queensland that’s laid out the exact opposite of every other court. So literally if you took the floor plan and reversed it, that’s what it is.
So in every other court in Queensland, the prosecutor stands to the right and the defendant stands to the left. Whereas due to poor design, I’m assuming the prosecutor in Bundaberg stands to the left, and the defendant and I stand to the right. So bit of an anomaly and bit of trivia there for you. But any event, in the conference room I ran through the procedure, where he stands, what the prosecutor’s likely to say, what I’m likely to say, what the magistrate’s likely to say. Obviously it’s not… I don’t have a crystal ball, but there’s procedural scripts that are followed by all parties and obviously, there’s 30% of its generic. So the prosecutor goes first, I go second, magistrate speaks towards the end. So I run the client through all of that, just so it’s not a complete mystery.
When he is in there and it’s un… He or she is in there and it’s unfolding, its oh yeah, I knew that because Wiseman ran me through it. Anyway, as I said, my job was try to push this thing down as low as possible. Bundaberg, it’s a regional area, I mean, it’s not Normanton, but it’s still hard to get around. Particularly if you live out of town or if you’re at barman for example. He worked two jobs, so getting to both those jobs without a licence is going to be difficult. So the long and… Plus he shared custody of his kids who are in Brisbane. So without a licence, it’s hard to hold down two jobs and access or spend meaningful time with your children. In any event, I pushed hard for the minimum and I was ultimately successful. So the magistrate was persuaded to give the mandatory minimum three months disqualification and a fine. Obviously the client’s very relieved. So he’ll just get those three months done, renew his licence, and then he’s back on the road. I’m Andrew Wiseman, at Bundaberg Magistrates Court. Thanks for watching.