Our client was a young man who held a P2 provisional licence. He was charged with mid-range PCA and responsible person not disclose driver details.
The police facts alleged that a passing motorist alerted police to a collision site where a vehicle had collided into a fence. Police attended the scene to find our client intoxicated at the site. After questioning him, our client stated that he was not the driver of the vehicle. Our client instructed that he was asleep in the backseat of the vehicle when the car crashed, that his friend was the driver and that his friend had fled the scene shortly after the collision. No witnesses reported seeing a second person at the collision site.
Police formed the view that our client was the driver during the collision and breath-tested him. Our client returned a BAC of 0.114. Due to our client’s denials about being the driver, he was asked to disclose the details of the alleged driver which he refused to do so.
We appeared before Wyong Local Court and were able to convince the prosecution to withdraw the mid-range PCA offence. We negotiated with the prosecution by arguing that they could not establish beyond a reasonable doubt, the identity of the driver at the time of the collision. We argued that despite our client being found to be intoxicated at the scene shortly after the collision, they could not prove that he was the driver at the time of the collision. The prosecution subsequently withdrew the mid-range PCA offence and our client plead guilty to responsible person not disclose driver details.
Our client received a $500 fine for not disclosing driver details and was very happy with the result.