Our client is a 53 year old man who lives in a unit complex in Western Sydney.
He had been having trouble with a neighbour for some time due to that person regularly conducting parties during which loud music was played late into the night.
He reported incidents to police but the neighbour refused to change his conduct.
At around 1.20am on the subject morning, our client knock on his neighbour’s door to ask him to turn his music down.
The neighbour told him to ‘fuck off’ and an argument ensued, which escalated into a physical altercation.
The pair struck each other a number of times and the neighbour was eventually knocked to the ground.
Police were called and our client was charged with assault occasioning actual bodily harm based upon a number of witness statements to the effect that he started the physical altercation and kicked his neighbour at least three times whilst the man was incapacitated on the floor of his apartment.
Our client contended that the neighbour ‘threw the first punch’ and vehemently denied ever kicking his neighbour.
He pleaded not guilty to the charge and opposed the associated apprehended personal violence order.
Our defence team obtained statements from two of our client’s neighbour’s regarding the complainant’s prior aggressive conduct.
We identified significant inconsistencies in the statements of the prosecution witnesses, all of whom were the complainant’s friends and were drinking alcohol that night.
We wrote extensive ‘representations’ to police to the effect that the charge and APVO were unsustainable, and that we would be seeking an order for our client’s legal costs in the event that the case proceeded to a defended hearing and the charge and APVO were dismissed.
After some negotiations, police withdrew both the charge and the application for an APVO.