No Convictions for Breach of Good Behaviour (x4)

Astor Legal recently appeared at Wollongong Court on behalf of a client who had breached a good behaviour licence with four speeding offences.

Our client was a single mother and primary carer of two young children. She also worked full-time as a HR professional.

Her traffic record was not good. She had accumulated a number of traffic offences, particularly in the last 2 years. This resulted in her facing a demerit point suspension.

Rather than appeal the suspension at that point, she elected to go on a good behaviour licence.

Regrettably, whilst on her good behaviour licence, she incurred four speeding infringements. Each of these would have been a breach of the good behaviour licence had she paid them. This would have led to her facing a 6-month suspension (ie. Double the original suspension).

Her only option was to appeal all four fines to Court and persuade a Magistrate not to record a conviction for all matters.

In the Local Court she was dealt with pursuant to Section 10A of the Crimes (Sentencing Procedure Act) 1999. This meant that the fines were waived but she still incurred the demerit points.

Following this an appeal was lodged to Wollongong District Court.

We undertook significant preparation for the appeal by providing her with our character reference and apology letter guide.

She was able to use this to prepare references and an apology letter clearly setting out her need for a drivers licence as she had sole parental responsibility for her children. She also was required to transport her elderly parents who had a number of health ailments.

She also required her licence to attend face to face meetings and consultations with clients.

The severity appeal proceeded and we called her to give evidence from the witness box. She was able to explain that all four offences occurred within a few days of each other at the same location where she had not been aware of the speed limit.

We also tendered a video of the area where the offences occurred. This showed that there was no signage as to the speed limit.  

We led evidence that since the offences she had downloaded a speed advisor app on her phone to ensure there would not be any re-offending.

We made submissions stressing the extenuating circumstances of the offences and imploring the Court not to record convictions for all offences.

Despite the prosecution vigorously opposing these submissions, we were able to persuade the Presiding Judge to deal with all matters pursuant to a conditional release order without conviction.

As such, our client remains able to drive. She was overjoyed with the result.