The Situation: We represented a mature man who was charged with assault occasioning bodily harm as a result of a road rage incident that resulted in bodily harm to the complainant. Our client had criminal history and had received the benefit of no conviction recorded on two prior occasions.

Charges of this nature do commonly result in a community-based order and a conviction being recorded, and in some cases a period of imprisonment is imposed.

The court accepted our arguments that this offence was highly out of character for our client, and there were a number of stressful circumstances occurring in his life at the time of the offence.

Further, the recording of a conviction would have been crippling for our client, as he regularly travelled overseas for business and this would result in visa issues for him.

The Result: A win for our client. We successfully argued for a fine to be imposed and no conviction recorded, as well as no action being taken upon the client’s licence.

As every case is different, the cases reported here cannot be taken as an indication of a similar outcome being likely in your case, and these reports are not to be taken as legal advice about your particular situation.