Our client was a young man who was woken by police one morning, under arrest on suspicion of a slew of traffic offences – failing to stop and dangerous driving to escape police, driving without a license and failing to give information identifying the driver of a vehicle. The offences were allegedly committed 10 weeks earlier. A distinctive jacket worn by the driver of the motorbike was found in our client’s bedroom and the motorbike allegedly used in the offences was in the backyard. The owner of the license plates registered to the motorbike nominated our client as the driver. The motorbike was observed in close vicinity to our client’s place of employment. Cell tower tracking mobile phone number allegedly connected to our client traced the journey of the motorbike from the incident location to the vicinity of our client’s home address.
We were engaged to act 4 weeks out from trial. After reviewing the disclosure material, we formed the view that the prosecution would not be able to prove beyond reasonable doubt that our client was riding the motorbike at the time of the offences. We provided the prosecution with a submission to discontinue all charges, addressing the deficiencies in the circumstantial case against our client and the inadmissibility of some evidence the investigating police had disclosed with a view to connecting our client to the offences. Two days before trial, the prosecution agreed to discontinue 3 of the 4 charges against our client. We urged them to discontinue the remaining charge, however, they insisted on proceeding to trial. On the trial date, we obtained a costs award following the discontinuance of the 3 charges. While waiting for the commencement of the trial on the remaining charge, the prosecution applied to adjourn the matter to consider its merits. At the next court date, the prosecution discontinued the charge, and we obtained a further costs award.
