R v Abdul SAKHA

R v Mattew LEABEATER

R v Crawford Leslie DAGGER

Recently won a case in the District Court with Counsel Mr Tony Strik whereby multiple historical sexual assaults were alleged between a husband and wife.

We came into the matter after previous solicitors had been sacked post committal.

We note that the matter was complicated by the fact that the client through his previous solicitor had made the case against himself stronger through representations and disclosure of materials that should not have been disclosed for a strategic purpose.

We were able to circumvent the above issue and win the trial through not relying on an alibi defence as was previously suggested by the client and the prior solicitor.

We also were able to liaise with the Family Court of Australia to obtain and use affidavits filed by the complainant/wife in a prior unsuccessful application for divorce via a Harman direction.

We were able so subpoena Police records which did not substantiate the complainants timeline and severely affected her credibility.

Outcome Overall the combination of the above strategies and applications ensured that we secured not guilty verdicts on all charges

In this matter our client was charged with and had pleaded not guilty to an offence of supply a prohibited drug being 1kg of cocaine, an amount not less than the commercial quantity for that drug. We successfully applied for a judge alone trial. The trial proceeded by way of hand-up brief and Stephen Odgers SC addressed the court in both written and oral submissions. The argument related to whether the conversations of our client together with an undercover NSW Police Officer (UCO) amounted to an offer to supply the 1kg of cocaine. It was our argument that our client never intimated a readiness on request to deliver, furnish or make available a kilo of the drug cocaine and that the conversation only intimated a readiness to negotiate regarding the possible delivery of the drugs.

The court found that the conversations between our client and the UCO did not amount to an offer to supply under the legislation.

We have had much success in the preparation and implementation of s14 applications and other applications under the Mental Health and Cognitive Impairment Forensic Provisions Act 2020. We have had success in obtaining these orders for a range of offences including assault occasioning actual bodily harm, sexual touching and obscene exposure are just some.