Not Guilty to Drive While Suspended

Last week Astor Legal appeared at Mount Druitt Local Court defending a client charged with Drive While Suspended.

Our client had initially been stopped for a Random Breath Test which he passed. Subsequent to the test being conducted, police conducted a licence check and discovered that our client’s licence was suspended.

Police questioned him at length about driving on a suspended licence, however our client maintained that he was not aware of it. RMS records showed that our client had been suspended to a period of 3 months and had already served approximately 2 months of that suspension.

After being charged, we made inquiries and were able to ascertain that a housemate of our client had been throwing out mail, which explained why our client had not received a number of infringements as well as the notice of suspension.

This also meant that we could run the defence of ‘honest and reasonable mistake‘ (ie. that our client honestly believed he was not suspended from driving and this belief was reasonable).

At the Hearing our client and two of his housemates gave evidence as to the throwing out of the mail. Ultimately, the Magistrate found that the defence of honest and reasonable mistake had been made out and delivered a verdict of ‘not guilty’.

Our client and his family were overjoyed with the result.