Our client was a young French national recently arrived in Perth on a holiday visa. He and his friends were on the dancefloor at a popular Northbridge venue when a patron (the complainant) deliberately threw the contents of his glass towards a female, with most of the liquid spilling onto our client. Rather than apologise, the complainant laughed at our client. Instinctively, our client spilled the contents of his glass into the complainant’s face and walked towards the bathroom to dry himself off. After our client turned his back, the complainant struck him to the back of his head. Our client retaliated in self-defence, punching the complainant to the head area twice, knocking him to the ground. As the complainant fell he was still holding his own glass and reached out to a barrel, causing the glasses on it to fall on top of him. He sustained minor a wound to near his right eye.
Our client was charged with unlawful wounding, the prosecution alleging that his glass in our client’s hand, not just the liquid, made contact with the complainant’s face. We advised our client to plead not guilty and take the matter to trial. In the interim, we commissioned an expert report to examine the CCTV footage and ascertain whether the glass did/did not make contact. We wrote to the prosecution urging them to discontinue the charge on the basis that it could not prove that our client caused the injury and that at all times, he had a lawful justification to assault the complainant. We encouraged the prosecution to review our submission early or risk an adverse and substantial costs award. The prosecution insisted that it would succeed at trial, but offered to downgrade the charge to common assault and not oppose an application for a spent conviction. We were confident that we would secure an acquittal after trial and so rejected the prosecution’s proposal. Three days before trial, the prosecution advised that it would be discontinuing the charge of unlawful wounding. Our client was awarded every cent of the application for costs.
