The Court: Ringwood Magistrates Court
The Lawyer: Michelle Pavlica
The Charges:
- Recklessly Cause Injury
- Common Assault
- Criminal Damage
- Persistent Breach of a Family Violence Intervention Order
- Breach of a Family Violence Intervention Order
The Allegations:
Our client was a 47-year-old male at the time of the offence. The offences for which he was charged involved physically assaulting his ex-partner, cutting her phone charger cord and breaching an intervention order 32 times.
Our client was arrested and interviewed, where he made admissions to breaching the family violence intervention order by sending text messages to the victim. He also admitted to cutting the cord of her phone charger after an argument about her refusing to let him use it. He, however, vehemently denied any assault against the victim, despite admitting to grabbing her by the throat and squeezing for a short period. He stated that he was acting in self-defence.
Police charged him based on the evidence available, which included pictures of the victim’s injuries, her statement and our client’s admissions in the recorded interview.
With a long history of prior assaults, criminal damage and burglaries in the past, our client had previously been subject to numerous correctional orders and suspended sentences.
He sought to defend the charges in court and instructed our solicitor to negotiate with the prosecution to have some charges withdrawn.
At Court:
Our client attended court in relation to the charges with our solicitor. Our solicitor sought to negotiate the charges with the police prosecution, in line with our client’s instructions.
In relation to the assaults, our solicitor argued that the alleged assaults were committed whilst the victim was attacking our client. Our client had been sleeping in his bed and had put a chest of drawers in front of the door to stop the victim from coming in. The victim, who was heavily intoxicated at the time, had barged into the room and immediately started hitting our client. Our client woke up and instantly reacted in self-defence. Crucially, his actions did not go beyond stopping the assault.
For a self-defence argument to be successful, one’s actions must be necessary and not go beyond what is a reasonable response in the circumstances. Upon review of the evidence, the prosecutor was eventually persuaded to see our point of view and decided to withdraw the unlawful assault and recklessly causing injury charges.
Regarding the property damage, there was little discussion to be had, as our client had readily admitted to the conduct during the interview.
In relation to breaching the intervention order, our solicitor reminded the prosecutor that:
- The breaches consisted of sending text messages.
- The texts were not threatening, and
- The victim had been replying throughout.
The prosecution agreed with this and withdrew the individual breach offences, instead rolling them up into the persistent breach charges.
As a result of the negotiations and detailed analysis of the evidence (and despite our client’s admissions), the most serious charges, along with 34 of the 37 charges, were withdrawn. Following the negotiations, the entire landscape of our client’s situation had changed.
A plea of guilty was entered to the remaining three charges. Our solicitor made submissions, and it was highlighted by our solicitor, again, that the nature of the persistent breaches was a series of non-threatening text messages.
With the property damage, our solicitor highlighted our client’s remorse and that he had replaced the charger the next day. The charge, although carrying a heavy maximum penalty and family violence-related, was a significant de-escalation of the offences our client had committed in the past.
The Outcome:
In the end, the Magistrate agreed with the submissions made by our solicitor and was persuaded to impose a $500 fine with conviction.
This was a fantastic result for our client as his situation had changed dramatically following professional and strong negotiations with the police prosecution. Our client initially thought that his options were limited, given his charges. If we had not successfully argued that he was acting in self-defence to the assault charges, our client would have been likely to be put in prison that day. Instead, he walked out of the court with a fine.
