Our client was facing jail time after breaching a suspended imprisonment order 4 months into an 18 month period of suspension. That order had been imposed in the context of an earlier community order which was breached by re-offending. Compliance with the other obligations of the order was otherwise positive. Despite the odds against us, we were determined to do the work necessary to be in a position to persuade the sentencing Magistrate that it would be unjust to require our client to serve the period of imprisonment which had been suspended. It did not help matters that our client’s criminal record was described as one of the lengthiest the Magistrate had ever seen. We successfully negotiated, by discontinuance and downgrading, several of the charges and carefully reviewed search warrant footage we requested from police. This placed us both in a position to refute submissions advanced by the prosecution which sought to elevate our client’s culpability for the offences which allegedly breached the order, and to support our client’s explanation for the circumstances which lead to the further charges. We were ultimately successful in persuading the magistrate not to activate the suspended period of imprisonment but instead to impose a further period of suspended imprisonment, with the breaching offences attracting fines only as a penalty.