Street Racing Charge - Succesfully defended - Charge dismissed!

Represented one of two defendants who were charged with street racing.

Our client was a Canadian resident and moved back to Canada after he was charged. A disqualification period was not going to affect him, as he was not going to continue living in our jurisdiction.

What concerned my client was that he wanted to become a “Mountie”, just like other members of his family. He instructed me that a conviction for a serious driving offence could jeopardise his chances of being accepted into the force.

The matter was that important to him that he liaised with me over email and flew back to Australia just for the hearing of his matter, which he and his co-accused defended.

The incident was all caught on police video and showed my client and the co-accused speed off from the lights. My client was shown to accelerate harshly and even lift his front wheel off the ground, twice.

After careful review of the video footage, we noticed a “heads up display” appear on the bottom of the windscreen. We confirmed with the police officer on the morning of the hearing that this was a digital display of the speed limit of the police car.

One of the main areas we cross-examined one of the police officers on was the speeds that they police insisted the accused were travelling at for some time before the police caught up with them.

The police claimed that the accused both travelled at more than 120km/h for a period before police caught up with them.

The digital speed on the police car just reached just under 120km/h as it caught up to the accused and before there was any sign of braking from the motorbikes. The police car caught up to the motorbikes extremely quickly and was therefore always travelling at a speed quicker than the motorbikes. Hence, it was clear that the police exaggerated the speeds in their evidence to try and assist their case.

In any event, successful submissions were made that his Honour could not find beyond reasonable doubt that there was an agreement between the two accused to race.

Both were found “not guilty” and the charge was dismissed.

The client was able to fly back home and continue the family tradition of becoming a Mountie!