Not Guilty of High Range Drink Driving due to ‘home safe’ rule and Police Ordered to Pay Costs

Our client is a 42-year old stock broker who had two prior drink driving convictions.

On a Friday night he attended a work function where he consumed several glasses of wine over a number of hours.

He then decided to drive home. Police noticed his vehicle when he was a short distance from his house.
Our client pulled into his driveway. Police would later give evidence that they believed our client was attempting to avoid detection.

Police arrested our client and subjected him to a breath test on the street.

We immediately recognised that this was because Police are not allowed to breath test a person on a property they own or occupy pursuant to Schedule 3, Clause 2 of the Road Transport Act 2013 (NSW). This is known as the ‘home safe’ rule.

A positive reading was registered, and our client was taken to the Police Station where a reading of 0.275 was recorded. He was then charged with high range drink driving.

Our client spoke to five different lawyers who all believed that he had to plead guilty.

We took a different view.

Unbeknownst to Police, our client’s neighbour had security cameras running at night. These cameras captured the entire incident and clearly showed that our client was well and truly in his driveway when stopped by Police.

Our client retained us, and the matter proceeded to a defended hearing.

Police statements set out that our client was stopped on the street. At the hearing, we expertly cross-examined the officers and challenged them with the security camera footage.

Police were left stunned and were forced to accept that our client was in fact on his property.
The prosecution case quickly fell to pieces and the charge was dismissed.

We then sought an order that police pay our client’s legal costs, which was granted.