Check out how we had all charges against our client dropped and the police had to pay our costs

Summary

Charge

• 2 counts common assault
• 2 counts stalk/intimidate

Result

• All charges withdrawn and an order for costs

Detailed Overview

My client’s defacto partner had attended the Police Station to obtain help in locating him as she was uncertain as to his whereabouts. Whilst at the Police Station, my client’s defacto partner got talking with Police and the Police acted on the information she provided.

As a result of this complaint to Police, my client was charged with 2 counts of common assault and 2 counts of stalk/intimidate with respect to his defacto partner. The Police had also made an application for a provisional Apprehended Violence Order on his defacto partner’s behalf; one of the conditions of the provisional AVO was that my client was prohibited from residing in the jointly owned home.

When the matter first came before the Court, attempts were made to have the 4 charges dismissed and the AVO withdrawn. Unfortunately the Court was not prepared to dismiss the charges however they did revoke the provisional AVO and no interim AVO was ordered so my client was now able to return to the home he shared with his defacto partner. Pleas of “Not Guilty” were entered to all 4 charges and brief orders were made, meaning that a date was set for my client to return to Court for reply to brief.

In the interim representations were made to the Police supporting our position that the charges should be dismissed and the final AVO withdrawn. About a week after serving these representations on the Police, I received a telephone call from the Commanding Officer to advise me that he agreed that the charges should be dismissed and the AVO and he would be making this recommendation to the Prosecutor before the matter returned to Court so that the matter would conclude on the next Court date.

Unfortunately the Prosecutor refused to dismiss the charges and withdraw the AVO as they indicated that they required more time to consider our representations and so the matter was adjourned for a period of 2 weeks. Upon returning to Court 2 weeks later, the Prosecutor sought a further adjournment, (this was despite the information which had been previously been provided to me by the Commanding Officer) the matter was then set down for hearing, the hearing date being allocated some 4 months later.

The day before the hearing, I was notified that the Prosecution would be withdrawing the charges and the final AVO. I was instructed to make an application for costs against the Prosecution for the manner in which they had conducted themselves in this case.

The next day at Court the charges and AVO were withdrawn and I was successful in obtaining a costs order against the Prosecution. The Magistrate commented upon the fact that the Prosecution should have been aware that this matter lacked merit and it was wrong that they let it proceed to having it set down for hearing. 

Even though this matter concluding approximately 6 months after the first Court date, my client was satisfied with the results as firstly, no AVO was made by the Court, secondly, all charges were dismissed and thirdly, he recovered some of his legal costs from the Prosecution.