Our client was originally charged with 46 charges related to fraud and possessing stolen identification material. The value of the frauds was tens of thousands of dollars. The client was initially facing a trial in the District Court and a likely sentence of several years imprisonment.

We obtained the disclosure material, which comprised thousands of pages of documents. After a thorough review, we recommended making a plea offer to the DPP which involved downgrading all of the strictly indictable charges to summary charges, and discontinuing several of the charges.

The DPP accepted our submission, and the matter proceeded in the Magistrates Court. In that court, we were unfortunately unsuccessful in having the client placed on to the Drug Court program, despite the client having an entrenched drug addiction, as the Magistrate was of the view that only immediate imprisonment was an appropriate penalty.

We had the matter adjourned before a different Magistrate, and this time requested the client be placed on the Court GCIP Program (General Court Intervention Program). The client was accepted onto the program and performed well on it.

Ultimately, the Magistrate was persuaded to impose a suspended sentence for the client, to allow them to continue with the gains they had already made on the program.

For a client initially facing what appeared to be a hopeless situation, we were happy we were able to turn things around for them and ultimately keep them in the community, where they are clearly best placed to address the causes of their offending.