Road Rage Incident – Non Conviction Fine

This is a case study on assault and driving offences resulting in a financial penalty without conviction.

What is alleged to have occured?

Police alleged that this was a road rage matter where our client tailgated the L plate driver of a another vehicle. It was alleged that he hit the rear of her car and then assaulted her 15 year old boyfriend at the scene.

In traffic matters involving accompanying violence, often described as Road Rage, it can be extremely difficult to convince Magistrates to impose without conviction dispositions. The police prosecutors made strenuous submissions that a conviction should be recorded.

Our client was charged with the following:

• Unlawful assault
• Recklessly cause injury
• Fail to provide details at accident
• Fail to keep safe distance behind vehicle

What happened at court?

We represented the client at the Dandenong Magistrates’ Court.

In negotiations, the charges of Recklessly cause injury and Fail to provide details at accident were withdrawn and amendments to the police summary were made.

On a plea for the charges of of Unlawful assault and Failing to keep a safe distance behind a vehicle, we made submissions to the Court that revealed that there was much more to the circumstances of the offending in that there had been considerable bad prior behaviour from the other drivers and that they had approached and screamed at him through the window of his car before he got out. It was made clear that the physical altercation stopped immediately after our client was informed of the age of the victim.

We were able to argue that a non-conviction disposition was appropriate because of our clients age, previous good character, long work history and productive life.

What was the result?

We convinced the Court to impose a fine without conviction.