Suspended Sentence (Section 12 Bond)

Our client and his friend were both charged with robbery armed with an offensive weapon. They robbed pizza delivery driver. Our client instructed us that at no stage during the robbery was an offensive weapon, namely a knife used.

Our dedicated solicitor entered into extensive negotiations with the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) offering a plea of guilty to robbery in company and asked that reference to a knife used in the robbery be deleted from the facts. After two months of negotiations, the DPP agreed to amend the charge to a robbery in company which carries a lesser penalty.

Our client was sentenced at Parramatta District Court to 2 years imprisonment. Our team was able to successfully argue that the term of imprisonment could be suspended under section 12 because the seriousness of the offence was towards the lower end of the scale. The Judge agreed and suspended the sentence.

This was an excellent result for our client.

Our client appeared at the Downing Centre Local Court in July 2012. He was charged with Drive Whilst Disqualified and Use/Provide false name.

This offence was his 4th offence of Drive Whilst Disqualified, having previously received a bonds, fines and community service orders in the recent past. He is currently disqualified until 2024. He was in grave danger of receiving a full time gaol sentence.

At the early stages of the case, it was clear to us that our client suffered from a psychological impairment. We arranged for a psychologists report to be done in preparation for sentence.

He was diagnosed as suffering from PTSD and depression as a result of an serious assault upon him 3 years ago, none which would have been detected if not for the diagnosis.

The magistrate found that a jail term was appropriate, however that jail term should be suspended, to allow our client the freedom to continue treatment for his condition.Our client continues treatment in the community, and is last reported to be doing very well.

Our client was charged with her fifth driving while disqualified charge in only 3 years. She had a lengthy record for driving whilst disqualified and drink driving.

Usually in these circumstances the courts deal with these matters by way of a full time custodial sentence.

In exploring reasons why our client developed a problem with alcohol, leading to her original disqualification, our firm instructed a psychologist to prepare a report for court.

The psychologists report outlined how our client’s personal circumstances and death in the family had impaired our client’s decision making capacity.

The court accepted the medical evidence and dealt with this matter by imposing a term of imprisonment but suspended on a good behavior bond pursuant to Section 12.

Our client was charged with the possession of pistol. The offence carries a maximum penalty of 14 years and carries a standard non-parole period of 3 years.

Our client instructed us that he had purchased the firearms because he feared for his personal safety.

Our dedicated team represented him in Sydney District Court sentence proceedings before Judge Tupman. During the proceedings our client gave evidence as to the reasons why he purchased the firearm.

Evidence was adduced that threats were made against our client’s life. We obtained reports made by our client about these threats.

The Judge accepted that our client’s moral culpability was reduced and the seriousness of the offence fell towards the lower end of the scale.

The Judge accepted that this offence could be dealt with by of a suspended sentence rather than full time custody, and accordingly sentenced our client to two years imprisonment, but suspended under s.12 of the Crimes (Sentencing and Procedure) Act.

Our team of criminal lawyers fought the DPP for 2 years to keep our client of jail, and succeded

Our client and his friend were both charged with robbery armed with a knife of a pizza delivery driver. Our client instructed us that at no stage did he use a knife.

Our dedicated Criminal Lawyers entered into extensive negotiations with the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP), offering a plea of guilty to robbery in company, without being armed .

After two months of negotiations, the DPP agreed to amend the charge to a robbery in company, which carries a lesser penalty.

Our client was sentenced at Parramatta District Court before Judge Sides. The judge sentenced our client to a term of imprisonment of 2 years, to reflect the seriousness of the offence.

Our team was able to successfully argue that the term of imprisonment could be suspended, because the seriousness of the offence was towards the lower end of the scale.

The Judge agreed and suspended the sentence on a good behavior bond.

Our client was placed on a suspended sentence for a period of 7 months for offences of fraud. The conditions of the suspended sentence were; to comply with the conditions of forum sentencing.

Our client was called before the court for a breach of his suspended sentence by failing to comply with the conditions of forum sentencing. By law the court must revoke a suspended sentence unless the offence is trivial or there are good reasons to excuse the offender’s failure to comply with the conditions of the bond.

The matter proceeded at the downing center local court and it was conceded by our solicitor that our client had breached the conditions. Our solicitor argued that our client demonstrates rehabilitation had taken place because the client had not committed any further options in over two years since the suspended sentence was imposed. Further it was submitted that most of the conditions had been complied with and the reason for the non-compliance of some of the conditions was because our client was working full-time.

The Magistrate decided there was good reasons to excuse our client’s failure to comply with the conditions and accordingly did not take any action on the bond. This meant our client would not have to serve any time in goal.

Fourth DWD- Severity appeal to Parramatta District Court

Our client was sentenced at Liverpool Local Court in early 2014 for her 4th Drive Whilst Disqualified charge.

She was sentenced to 6 months imprisonment in the Local Court.

She then hired Adam from LY Lawyers to lodge a severity appeal at Parramatta District Court, in an attempt to keep her out of jail.

Our client was 5 months pregnant, had a good job, and was a productive member of our community.

The case appeared before Parramatta District Court before Delaney J. in early April 2014. After preparing an entirely new case for our client, the Judge agreed with us and allowed the appeal, handing our client a suspended sentence, in lieu of a sentence of full time jail.

A deserved sentence.

Our client was charged with using a carriage service to groom a child under 16 years of age for sex, contrary to Section 474.27(1) of the Criminal Code Act 1995 (Cth).

This is a serious offence which carries a maximum penalty of 12 years imprisonment.

The victim and our client had known each other through family friends and the victim had sent a ‘friend request’ to our client through Facebook. After many friendly conversations, our client and the victim began discussing each other’s appearance and complementing each other. Our client, on one occasion, made a suggestion that he and the victim should meet to touch each other. A situation that never eventuated. However, nevertheless constituted a serious offence.

Our client pleaded guilty and was committed for sentence in the District Court before Her Honour Judge Flannery.

Fortunately, our solicitors had organised a psychologist, who we recommend highly to prepare a psychological report which assessed our client as being of a very low risk of re-offending. This greatly assisted our client as the full pre-sentence report prepared by probation and parole, using what our barrister highlighted as being an unreliable forensic test, measured our client risk as being moderate to high.

Our solicitor assisted our client to start undertaking rehabilitation in the form of counselling which was recommended by the forensic psychologist who prepared his report. This greatly assisted our client’s case as it gave Her Honour proof that our client was proactive in his rehabilitation and had strong prospects of rehabilitation.

Our client was sentenced under the Crimes Act 1914 (Cth) and received a suspended sentence for a period of 12 months upon entering a 2 year recognizance period which required him to be of good behaviour. He was required to accept the supervision of Probation and Parole and attend such forensic psychological services as directed by Probation and Parole.

Our client was charged with 27 counts of obtain benefit by deception, more commonly known as fraud. This offence carries a maximum term of imprisonment of 10 years.

The fraud involved taking money from his employer by issuing false receipts and using the money to fund his gambling habit. Our lawyer found him an excellent counselling service and referred our client to seek professional treatment.

Our lawyer appeared before Local Court Magistrate Goodwin at Downing Centre Local Court. Her Honour’s first question to our lawyer was, “Why shouldn’t I send your client to gaol right now?” Our lawyer made extensive submissions about the unsophisticated nature of the fraud, his efforts at rehabilitation, his low risk of re-offending which was supported by the report provided by his counsellor, his prior good character and his willingness to repay his former employer.

Her Honour ultimately dealt with the matter by way of a Section 12 suspended sentence and an order to pay compensation. The client and his family were extremely thankful that he avoided full-time custody.

Our client was charged with high range drink driving with a BAC reading of 0.22. Further our client was involved in a car collision resulting in his vehicle being torn in half after crashing into a transmission pole.

This was our clients third drink driving charge within 7 years, with his most recent offence in 2010 being a high range drink driving offence also involving our client crashing his car into a building. The high range drink driving guideline judgment stipulates that in these circumstances for this current offence a sentence of anything less than full time imprisonment is inappropriate.

Our solicitor advise our client to enter fulltime rehabilitation to treat his ongoing battle with alcohol. On the first mention date we successfully argued for a six months adjournment to allow our client to undergo rehabilitation.

The matter then proceed for sentence before Magistrate Rabbage at Campbelltown Local Court. Our solicitor tendered evidence that our client successfully completed six month full time rehabilitation. Further medical evidence was tendered regarding our client’s medical conditions including severe heart condition requiring ongoing treatment.

Our solicitor successfully argued that any term of imprisonment on this occasion could be suspended given our clients successful rehabilitation, ongoing medical conditions and remorse.

Our client was given a suspended sentence for a period of 8 months. our client escaped a jail sentence.

Our client was charged with using a carriage service to groom a child under 16 years of age for sex contrary to section 474.27(1) of the Criminal Code Act (Cth) 1995.

This is a serious offence which carries a maximum penalty of 12 years imprisonment.

The victim and our client had known each other through family friends and the victim had sent a ‘friend request’ to our client through Facebook. After many friendly conversations, our client and the victim began discussing each other’s appearance and complementing each other. Our client on one occasion made a suggestion that he and the victim should meet to touch each other. A situation that never eventuated. However, nevertheless constituted a serious offence.

Our client pleaded guilty and was committed for sentence in the District Court before Her Honour Judge Flannery.

Fortunately our solicitors had organised a psychologist, who we recommend highly to prepare a psychological report which assessed our client as being of a very low risk of re-offending.

This greatly assisted our client as the full pre-sentence report prepared by probation and parole, using what our barrister highlighted as being an unreliable forensic test, measured our client risk as being moderate to high.

Our solicitor assisted our client to start undertaking rehabilitation in the form of counselling which was recommended by the forensic psychologist who prepared his report. This greatly assisted our client’s case as it gave Her Honour proof that our client was proactive in his rehabilitation and had strong prospects of rehabilitation.

Our client was sentenced under the Crimes Act 1914 (Cth) and received a suspended sentence for a period of 12 months upon entering a 2 year recognizance period which required him to be of good behaviour. He was required to accept the supervision of Probation and Parole and attend such forensic psychological services as directed by Probation and Parole.

Our client had been sentenced to 12 months imprisonment for Assault Occasioning Actual Bodily Harm. Our solicitors decided to appeal the severity of the sentence so the case was referred to the Broken Hill District court in May 2015 to be heard by Justice Norrish.

Our solicitor argued that the local sentence was too severe and pointed to the fact that our client had completed drug and alcohol counselling as well as anger management courses.

As a result our client obtained very good reports from both of these courses, showing that he had made a determined effort to amend for past mistakes.

Justice Norrish upon hearing all of the submissions from the solicitor determined that we had presented an entirely new case and agreed with our contention that the initial sentence was too severe, and proceeded to place our client on a s 12 suspended sentence for 18 months.

Our client was able to avoid imprisonment completely, the best possible outcome.