The right lawyer makes all the difference – Affray and assault charges dismissed and costs ordered against Police while all co-accused convicted

Our client is a 19-year-old man who had attended licensed premises with 2 friends.

He had consumed a number of alcoholic beverages throughout the night. In the early hours of the morning a group of males began a verbal argument with our client and his friends. This argument escalated to a melee involving 8 people.

Security separated the parties and Police arrived, charging all 8 persons with Affray. Our client was also charged with Assault Occasioning Actual Bodily Harm and Common Assault.

Our client’s friends hired other lawyers and were advised to plead guilty. They did so and received criminal convictions.

Our client instructed us that he had been defending himself and his friends at all times throughout the incident.

We immediately began formulating a strategy to have our client found ‘not guilty’.

We subpoenaed the building for CCTV which had recorded most of the incident.

At the Hearing, we expertly cross-examined the witnesses and were able to elicit that our client was not the aggressor and his actions were only in defence of himself and his friends.

The magistrate dismissed all of the charges against our client and ordered Police to pay our costs due to their failure to adequately investigate the CCTV footage.