Our client, a 40-something father of four, was living separately to his partner/mother of his young children. He was becoming increasingly concerned about the side-effects of weight-loss medication his partner was taking after the birth of their new born. He was particularly worried about his partner driving the children without sleeping for days and whilst under the influence of the medication. One particular evening, he arrived at her house and noticed something was not quite right with her, and decided to confront her about the medication. The argument became heated, voices were raised and rather than deal with the issue, his partner ran next door, prompting the neighbour to telephone police. When police arrive at the house, our client is placed under arrest while nursing his new born.
He was charged with assault, damage and threatening to kill his partner on the basis of an exaggerated and false narrative of what transpired during the argument with his partner.
We were first contacted by our client’s family a few weeks out from his trial date, he had by that time been in custody for three months and lost his job as a result. His partner had taken a restraining order out which also prevented him from having contact with his children during his time on remand. We quickly started our preparation and were confident we would succeed in undermining the partners account and credibility at trial.
On the morning of the trial, the prosecutor offered no evidence on all charges, explaining that the partner was not present at Court and there was no prospect of securing conviction. Despite being acquitted on all charges and our application for costs awarded in full, it was a bittersweet resolution after spending 4 months in custody.