You may also be brought to the court on a “Notice to Appear” and be given a “Preliminary Brief”. This is a fairly recent new way of police starting criminal proceedings at court.
If your documents do not state “notice to appear” on them press “no”.
A preliminary brief is one that has a summary of what the Police say occurred and a list of potential statements. The traditional brief has been one which includes an actual copy of all the statements on which the police seek to rely.
The Notice to appear is given to an accused at the time of the alleged offending. It will nominate a date in the future that the accused will have to turn up at Court. It may turn out that the charges are not proceeded with but the accused will have to appear (unless notified otherwise), or else they risk having a warrant issued for their arrest and detention.
We can attend Court for you on the court date on the Notice to Appear to try to sort out what is going on and find out if you are actually facing charges.
