Preserving Community-Based Sentence Following Further Family Violence Offending
Case Overview
Abbey represented a client who was charged with driving while unlicensed and contravening a final Family Violence Intervention Order (FVIO) after collecting his daughter from hospital.
The conditions of the FVIO did not permit him to collect his daughter from hospital, and he was intercepted by police driving with his daughter in the car.
At the time, the client's licence had been cancelled by the Court for six months and he was disqualified from obtaining a new licence. He made admissions to knowing he was unlicensed and knowing he was prohibited from being within five metres of his daughter.
The offending occurred while the client was serving an 18-month Community Correction Order (CCO). He had been placed on the order after serving six months' imprisonment for similar offending against family members.
By re-offending during the period of the CCO, the client fell to be re-sentenced for the original offending and the new offending. He was at risk of receiving a term of imprisonment greater than six months, given this had been the length of his sentence only a year earlier.
Defence Strategy
Abbey negotiated with Corrections, who were ultimately supportive of the client having a further chance at completing his order.
This meant that it was open to the Court to order the client to continue on his current CCO rather than cancel it.
Counsel argued that the client should be afforded an opportunity to continue with his 18-month CCO because it was providing him with treatment and support in the community.
Result
The Magistrate agreed that the client should continue on his existing 18-month CCO, but added 100 hours of unpaid work to his order as a penalty.
No further orders were made against the client's licence, which was crucial to his employment.
The outcome allowed the client to continue with the treatment and support provided through his existing CCO while avoiding a further term of imprisonment. The result also protected his ability to maintain his employment by avoiding any further orders against his licence.
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