Drive Whilst Disqualified - Charge dismissed – reducing overall disqualification from 5 years to 12 months!

A client came and saw me for a drive whilst disqualified charge. He had been disqualified as a result of being found guilty in his absence for a dangerous driving charge. The client was disqualified for a period of 3 years.

Upon being convicted for the drive whilst disqualified charge, the client would have been disqualified for a further 2 years, seeing him being off the road for a total of 5 years.

The client could not afford to be off the road for so long, as it diminished his capacity to earn an income. He was a single father of three young children.

We advised the client to plead “not guilty” to the drive whilst disqualified charge.

Although the client was disqualified for the dangerous driving offence more than 5 months prior to seeing me, we made a successful Application to annul the penalty and have the matter reheard for sentence. Taking all matters into account, the Magistrate reduced the disqualification period to the minimum of 12 months.

At the hearing of the drive whilst disqualified charge, which was timed to occur after the previous matter was annulled and a lesser penalty imposed, we argued that by law, our client was not disqualified at the time of driving, as the decision to disqualify him had been overturned.

The prosecutor could not follow the argument and the Magistrate admitted that he found it novel and had to adjourn and go to his chambers to consider the case law we relied on and my argument.

His Honour returned to the bench and agreed that the argument was sound and dismissed the charge.

Our client was found “not guilty”.

Before coming to see us, our client was facing a minimum of 5 years off the road.

With a bit of hard work, employing careful tactics and a sound knowledge of the law, we were able to reduce our client’s overall disqualification to just 12 months.

The client was of course extremely grateful.