This is a case study on a bail application for charges of rape and false imprisonment.
What is alleged to have occurred?
Our client was a rideshare driver and was alleged to have picked up a young female outside a nightclub, before engaging in non-consensual sexual intercourse with her in his car, in a secluded street nearby.
Our client was arrested and remanded due to the conduct that was alleged by police to be an abuse of his position of trust as a rideshare driver with the incident involving a young, vulnerable woman.
What happened at court?
We applied for bail on behalf of our client at the Melbourne Magistrates’ Court.
We needed to show to the Court that compelling reasons existed to justify the granting of bail and that he was not an unacceptable risk to the community.
We engaged in extensive preparation in the lead up to the bail application. A surety was arranged by an individual who is a leader in the community and was in a position to offer our client ongoing employment in hospitality. We also arranged stable accommodation, an important part of any bail application.
Police claimed that our client was an unacceptable risk in the community and posed a danger to the safety and welfare of community members due to the alleged offending. We were able to persuade the Magistrate that this was an unfounded claim through our client’s lack of prior criminal record for over a decade since migrating to Australia. In addition, we liaised with the prosecution before court to ensure that an intervention order preventing our client from having any contact with the complainant at any time was in place at the bail application hearing to mitigate any perceived risk.
Despite our client arriving in Australia over a decade ago as a refugee, we were able to demonstrate that our client had sufficient ties to the jurisdiction and was not a flight risk. This was shown through his community involvement and the difficulties he would now ultimately face in fleeing the jurisdiction.
Significantly, we persuaded the Magistrate that there were issues with the strength of the prosecution case that a jury would need to determine at trial. This was one of various compelling reasons relied upon to demonstrate why the ongoing detention of our client was not warranted.
What was the result?
Our client was ultimately granted bail. Strict bail conditions including a nightly curfew, regular reporting to a local police station and compliance with a full intervention order were imposed.
This was an excellent outcome for a bail application for rape and false imprisonment that appropriately enables our client to remain in the community whilst awaiting trial for serious indictable offences.
Lachie Davine
Lachie is experienced in a broad range of criminal matters including serious indictable crimes. He has extensive exposure to the County Court’s specialist lists including Koori Court, Drug & Alcohol Treatment Court, and bail services including the Court Integrated Services Program (CISP).Lachie strongly believes that rehabilitative interventions as part of criminal proceedings should be holistic in nature.
View Lachie Davine's profile.
DISCLAIMER: This is a real case study of an actual case from our files. Details pertaining to the client have been changed to protect their privacy. The sentence imposed and the charge have not been altered. These case studies are published to demonstrate real outcomes and give an indication of possible tariffs in Court. We do not guarantee a similar case on these charges will get the same result. Please note that we post results at our discretion, therefore while many case studies are average results, others are notable for their exceptional outcomes. PUBLISHED 29/10/2024
