Criminal and Traffic Lawyers for Burwood Local Court

Our client is a 24 year old Laotian citizen from Homebush.

He was studying Law at the University of New South Wales.

A friend invited him to a housewarming dinner at an apartment.

The friend’s roommate and girlfriend were present at the dinner.

Two bottles of champagne were consumed by the four during the dinner, and a bottle of red wine was consumed as they played drinking games thereafter.

More alcohol was then purchased and the four kept drinking.

The host’s girlfriend later left the lounge room and made her way to the bedroom.

The host eventually joined his girlfriend, who was asleep on the bed.

The host later awoke to find his girlfriend sleeping on the floor wearing nothing but a towel.

The girlfriend then alleged that our client had entered the room, dragged her from the bed to the floor, sexually assaulted her and left while the boyfriend was asleep nearby.

Our client was in fact sleeping on the couch at the time.

He was confronted by the host and vehemently denied the allegations before leaving the premises.

Police were called and arrested our client a number of days later, then charged our client with two counts of sexual intercourse without consent (sexual assault) and two of assault with act of indecency.

Police had located a doona semen near where the complainant alleged the sexual assault occurred, and semen was found on the complainant’s perianal region.

Our client was refused police bail and his family sought our firm’s assistance.

We immediately made an application for bail in Burwood Local Court supported by lengthy submissions, which was granted.

The Crown relied on a range of material including an alleged DNA match between our client and the semen on the doona and the complainant’s perianal region, the statements of the complainant and host, relevant photos of the locations in the apartment and expert reports.

Our client was adamant that he did not commit the offences.

Our defence team meticulously reviewed the evidence. We engaged a forensic biologist to explain the presence of the DNA and a toxicology expert to comment on the effect of the complainant’s extreme level of intoxication.

The DPP was nevertheless intent on pursuing the case and it ultimately proceeded to a jury trial in Downing Centre District Court.

The extensive cross-examination of the complainant and her boyfriend revealed a range of significant inconsistencies, including discrepancies between their original statements and their evidence at trial.

It also raised scenarios regarding the presence of the DNA.

After some deliberation, the jury was unable to reach a verdict. The judge directed the jury that it could reach a ‘majority verdict’ of 11:1 but the jury was still unable to agree one way or the other. The judge therefore declared a ‘hung jury’ and the jury was discharged.

The matter proceeded to a re-trial in the same court.

In preparation for the re-trial of our client, we carefully reviewed the transcripts from the first trial and pinpointed further weaknesses in the Crown case.

We obtained further expert reports that were able to provide extra evidence about the possibility of DNA inadvertently been transferred through touching the same objects.

Our team was thereby able to raise further doubt regarding the accuracy of the DNA evidence and the complainant’s version of events.

The jury then came to a unanimous verdict of not guilty of all charges.

Our client is a constable in the NSW Police Force.

On a Thursday night, the complainant was ejected by security officers from a hotel in Lidcombe due to his level of intoxication.

Our client and another police officer attended the hotel and gave the complainant a ‘move on direction’, requiring him to leave the vicinity of the premises.

The intoxicated man initially refused to leave, but eventually agreed to a lift from police to his nearby home.

After being dropped off, the drunk man returned to the hotel in breach of the move on direction.

Our client and his partner were once again called to the hotel, and ultimately arrested and placed the man in the back of their police van.

Our client then drove the vehicle along a major road to the local police station.

After receiving a report from our client’s partner officer, police commenced an investigation and approximately 18 months later, charged our client with ‘drive motor vehicle furiously and cause bodily harm’ under section 53 of the Crimes Act, as well as the offences of ‘reckless driving’ and ‘negligent driving’ under the Road Transport Act.

The prosecution alleged that our client drove “furiously and dangerously” during the trip to the police station, intentionally speeding to over 100 km/h and twice coming to a rapid stop, which caused the complainant to hit his head on the side of the van causing a gash.

Our client was suspended from employment pending the outcome of the criminal proceedings.

He maintained his innocence throughout the course of the case, vehemently denying that he drove in the manner alleged.

He instructed that his colleague had an ulterior motive and had fabricated the allegations. According to our client, he had been privy to certain misconduct by his colleague and intended to make a formal complaint.

He further instructed that the intoxicated man had been violent and aggressive throughout the course of the night and had likely sustained the injury as a result.

As part of its case, the prosecution presented statements by the attending officer (who made the initial report), the intoxicated man (who initially refused to give a statement and only did so at a later stage after being ‘spoken to’ by police), as well as a number of senior officers including an Inspector who was tasked with conducting the investigation.

The material appeared on first glance to support the prosecution case.

However, upon obtaining data from the police van’s computer and GPS tracking data, it became evident that the van had not been driven as alleged, and that the colleague had therefore been untruthful.

We systematically dismantled the prosecution case during extensive cross-examination of the attending officer and complainant during the defended hearing in Burwood Local court using our instructions regarding the pending complaint and computer data.

The presiding magistrate ultimately found our client not guilty of all 3 charges, noting that the evidence of the partner officer and complainant were “unreliable”.

Our client is expected to make a prompt return to the police force.

In Burwood Local Court, each of our Senior Lawyers represented 3 clients who were caught possessing drugs at the Stereosonic Music Festival.

Our clients were from various social, economic and cultural backgrounds and worked in a range of fields - from retail, to accountant, to company executive, to business owner.

Three of our clients were also students.

Most were caught for possessing MDMA tablets, also known as 'ecstacy' - ranging from 2 to 9 pills. One of our clients had two 'drug possession' charges against him for possessing 7 ecstacy tablets and just over 1 gram of cocaine.

All of our clients' cases were thoroughly prepared and persuasively presented in court.

This resulted in the Magistrate allowing all of them to avoid criminal records by granting them 'Section 10s'.

Section 10 means that, even though a person is guilty, a criminal conviction is not recorded against their name.

Our clients are free to get on with their lives without the burden of a criminal record.

The Magistrate in Burwood Local Court found our 27 year old client from Blacktown 'not guilty' of 'steal property as clerk / servant' charges and then ordered police to pay our client's legal costs.

Our client was the Manager of a Factory Outlet Centre in Homebush Bay.

Police alleged that she defrauded her employer of more than $46,000 over a 15 month period by transferring monies into false bank accounts and claiming that they were customer refunds.

They alleged that the refunds were clearly fraudulent because no garments were actually returned.

The defence argued that there was insufficient evidence to prove that our client created the fake bank accounts or benefited from the transactions.

The Magistrate accepted our argument, finding that the prosecution could not disprove that other employees may have created the accounts and received the funds.

The Magistrate dismissed the case against our client and then ordered police to pay her legal costs on the basis they did not properly investigate the possibility that the accounts may have been created by other employees.

The Magistrate in Burwood Local Court made a section 10 order (which means no conviction recorded) in favour of our 28 year old client from Toongabbie who pleaded guilty to 'dishonestly obtain financial advantage by deception'.

Our client sold Apple IPhones on Ebay and received the funds into a fake bank account, but he did not send the phones to the purchasers. He says that he was in a desperate financial situation but admits there was no excuse for what he did.

He pleaded guilty on the first court date and participated in the Forum Sentencing program. He also entered into an instalment plan to repay the funds defrauded.

Sydney Criminal Lawyers® made lengthy verbal submissions in court and persuaded the Magistrate to keep our client conviction-free.

Over the past two-weeks, Sydney Criminal Lawyers® won all 7 of its Assault and AVO cases in various Local Courts.

Some cases involved charges of Assault Police, Assault Occasioning Actual Bodily Harm and Stalk / Intimidate.

They were successfully defended by our team in Downing Centre Local Court, Burwood Local Court, Parramatta Local Court and Waverley Local Court.