The Court: County Court of Victoria
The Lawyer: Mike Brown
The Charges:
The Allegations:
This matter involved a client who had been charged and convicted of serious family violence offences involving intentionally causing injury, assaults, threats to kill and drug possession. He was sentenced to 18 months’ imprisonment and a two-year community correction order upon release.
Our client appealed this sentence successfully and was re-sentenced to six months’ imprisonment and a two-year community correction order upon release.
He served his six month prison term and then commenced the correction order in early 2017. Throughout 2017, our client continued to contravene the intervention order put in place to protect the family member with whom he had previous charges relating to. He also began to disengage with the community correction order. By mid-2017, he had accumulated an extensive list of breaches of the intervention order. He was charged, taken to court, and received a sentence of a further three months’ imprisonment in mid-2018.
In late 2018, he was released and charged with breaching his correction order due to further offending and non-compliance with the conditions.
At Court:
In this case, our client was to attend the County Court of Victoria for his correction breach charges. This was because he received this order on an appeal. This process involves the matter being returned directly to the Judge who sentenced the client, allowing for an explanation of why the order and opportunity given to him were contravened.
This matter involved a substantial amount of background work, given that the client’s further offending was severe enough to warrant a prison sentence. Our office gathered medical and other relevant materials, taking into account the client’s circumstances and the events that have occurred since his release from prison on both occasions.
Our solicitor was able to demonstrate to the Judge that our client had several struggles, including being an ongoing victim of unrelated violent crimes, and struggled emotionally through a stressful property settlement involving the family member who had taken out the intervention order. Through the material, we were able to demonstrate that the client had grown in his response to stressful and anger-inducing situations with this family member, as he was no longer breaching the order but instead utilising his lawyers to communicate amicably.
Our solicitor was able to demonstrate that the client’s non-compliance with corrections was made difficult by his personal situation, being released from prison and finding himself homeless, without financial means to support himself or get around to his various appointments.
The Outcome:
Our client entered a guilty plea to the charges. Following lengthy submissions from our solicitor, the Judge found the breaches proven and dismissed the charges without re-sentencing the client. This was an incredible outcome for the client.
