Middle Range Drink Driving NSW

Charge: Middle Range Drink Driving NSW – first offence

Penalty: Upon conviction, the maximum licence disqualification is 6 months and the interlock program for 12 months.

The Police were conducting stationary breath tests on the off ramp of the Pacific Highway leading into Brunswick Heads. Our client was pulled over and provided a sample of his breath, which returned a reading of 0.095%.

At the time of his arrest, our client made admissions to Police that he had consumed alcohol earlier that evening at his friend’s house. Our client informed Police that he was only in the area to console family members of his friend that had recently died. That same evening, our client received a phone call from his mother advising that his brother had passed away. Our client informed Police that his mother was very distressed about the passing of his brother and she begged him to drive home so that he could drive her to the hospital to see her son.

Our client originally told his mother that he could not drive because he had been drinking and that he would collect his mother in the morning to go to the hospital . Following several distressed phone calls from his mother, our client decided to drive home.

Our client was concerned that if his licence were disqualified for drink driving, he would lose his business which was already struggling to stay afloat because of the impacts Covid-19.  Our client subsequently engaged Ms Garland to try and assist him with keeping his disqualification period to an absolute minimum.

During sentence, Ms Garland made lengthy submissions to the court and successfully convinced the Magistrate to dismiss the charge against our client by releasing him on a conditional release order for a period of eighteen (18) months. This meant that our client’s drivers licence was not disqualified which subsequently meant that our client was also not required to have an interlock installed on his vehicle.

WARNING:

This is a summary of an actual case. Details have been omitted to protect the privacy of our client. We select cases which are informative and no guarantee is provided that similar results are achievable in all cases. Every case is different and you should obtain legal advice specific to your matter and circumstances.