Creevey Russell Lawyer’s recently have successfully overturned a conviction in the Court of Appeal. We represented a client who was found guilty after trial of three counts of armed robbery. The focus of the appeal was the inclusion of evidence that our client had cut off his
GPS Tracking Device prior to these alleged robberies included.
We ran the appeal on the basis that this evidence was incapable of proving the Crown’s circumstantial case, and that it would be highly prejudicial to our client. The evidence was not relevant to any fact in issue, and the Jury should not be able to reason that because our client had removed his tracking device that it therefore increased the probability that he was the offender who committed the armed robberies.
The Court of Appeal formed the view that the inclusion of the tracking device evidence was irrelevant and prejudicial and should not have been admitted. They found that a miscarriage of justice occurred, and the matter was listed for retrial.
Creevey Russell Lawyer, Craig van der Hoven, successfully applied for bail to the Supreme Court for one of our client’s charged with a significant number of serious domestic violence offences. Our client was initially denied bail in the Magistrates Court, and we were able to have his Supreme Court application heard the following week.
We proposed a number of stringent conditions and were able to convince the Judge that our client’s ongoing detention was not justified and that the proposed conditions would ameliorate the concerns held by the Court with respect to further offending or failing to appear in Court.
Craig van der Hoven recently travelled to Innisfail in Far North Queensland to represent a client charged with approximately $70k worth of damage to a cane train railway. The client pled guilty to the offence, however there was significant argument over the appropriate sentence and amount of restitution the Court should order. The Prosecution were seeking suspended terms of imprisonment and a restitution order for the entire $70k.
Following oral submissions, the Court placed our client on a 12-month probation order, declined to record a conviction and ordered our client pay $2,000 restitution.