Community Corrections Order for Trafficking and Possession of Drugs

This is a case study on trafficking and possession of drugs at the Melbourne Magistrates’ Court, where the trafficking charge was withdrawn and the client received a therapeutic community corrections order without conviction.

What is alleged to have occured?

Our client was a female in her mid 40’s with no prior criminal history. She was charged with a consolidation of charges that include trafficking methamphetamine, possession of various drugs, and dishonesty matters including shop-thefts and fraudulent use of a credit card. The offending period spanned over about a year. The client accepted that she was responsible for most of the charges but denied the trafficking allegation.

What happened at court?

Kristina Kothrakis represented the client at the Melbourne Magistrates’ Court on the charges of Trafficking and Possession of Drug of Dependence.

In order to have the trafficking charge withdrawn, Kristina negotiated with the prosecution and set out the detail of how our client came to be a drug user in her mid-40’s for the first time, and explained the reason why the client had the amount of drugs she had on her. The offending was eventually placed into proper context and the prosecution accepted that the drugs were in our client’s possession for her personal use, and not for the purpose of sale. Once the trafficking charge was resolved, we were able to proceed with a plea on the remaining charges.

Our client’s life story was quite incredible. She had done an extraordinary amount of achievements in her life but had also faced a devastating number of challenges and obstacles. Despite her resilience, she went from living in a nice house in Camberwell, with a wonderful job, to being homeless and living in rooming houses in St. Kilda. In this environment, where she had to fight to survive, our client unfortunately became a product of her environment and started using drugs.

We sourced a great deal of evidence to support the submissions we made and a documentation that clearly sets them all out was presented to the magistrate. This provided the magistrate an understanding of how it is that our client’s life took the turn that it did.

What was the result?

Ultimately, no conviction was recorded and our client was sentenced to a therapeutic-only Community Corrections Order for trafficking and possession of drugs. This was to take effect for a period of 6 months and, during this time, our client is required to be under supervision, be assessed and treated for drug and alcohol issues, and to participate in any programs which might reduce her risk of re-offending.