Our male client was originally charged with two serious offences of aggravated home burglary and indecent assault on his female next door neighbour. Our client was subsequently charged with breaching a condition of his bail that he not speak with the complainant. The allegation is that our client was speaking directly to the complainant and her husband. As a result of this allegation, our client was remanded in custody. Our application for bail in the Magistrates Court was refused however, we took the matter to the Supreme Court and successfully obtained bail for our client.
Our client pleaded not guilty to the charge of breaching his bail and it was set for trial. The complainant had taken a recording of the incident in which she alleges our client was speaking to her, swearing at her and abusing her. However, the people in the video were speaking in Punjabi and the video was largely inconsistent with what the complainant told police had happened. Our client had given us clear instructions about who he was talking to and what he was saying. He also had footage of the incident which called into question the honesty of the complainant. The prosecution did not bother to have the complainant’s video translated. However, in preparation for trial we arranged for a professional interpreter to translate the video and that translation was consistent with our client’s version of events and entirely inconsistent with the complainant’s evidence.
On the morning of the trial, the prosecutor reviewed the statements of the complainant and her husband, and our recently disclosed transcription and made the decision to discontinue the charge. A judgement of acquittal was entered for our client without the need to proceed to trial and we were awarded costs. With that malicious charge out of the way, our attention will now turn to successfully defending the original charges of aggravated home burglary and commit and indecent assault at trial in the District Court.
