Wounding or grievous bodily harm with intent

If you agree that you have committed the offence and the police are able to prove all the elements of the offence, it is best to plead guilty at an early opportunity to receive the maximum discount. Currently the maximum discount available for an early plea of guilty is 25% of the sentence.

Furthermore, the early guilty plea shows the Court that you have remorse and contrition for your actions.

Our Lawyers at National Criminal Lawyers work closely with you to ensure that we obtain all necessary paper work at increasing the chances of obtaining a non-conviction or section 10.

Stalk-Intimidate can be punished with a prison sentence of up to 5 years imprisonment and/or a fine of $ 5500. Please note that the penalties mentioned are reserved for the worse case offending and are unlikely to be the penalty you receive.

If you decide to plead not guilty you will need to prepare to go to a Defended Hearing.

A defended hearing is where all the witnesses of that case are called to give evidence. The witnesses are both examined by the prosecution and tested by your defence lawyers.

National Criminal Lawyers have defended thousands of people charged with Stalk-Intimidate and are experts at these hearings.

Some of the possible defences available for those charged with affray can include:

• Duress-If you were compelled to act in a certain way due to the circumstances, or the threats of another you may be able to argue “Duress”
• Necessity – If your actions were necessary to prevent a greater harm from occurring, you may have the defence of-Necessity; or
• Self-defence – If you were defending yourself or another OR yours or another’s property you may have a Defence of “Self-Defence” even in situations where “Pre-Emptive Force” is used. Moreover, at times there “No duties or need to retreat”..

The Courts are not bound by statistics however there must be reasonable consistency in sentences. A Magistrate or Judge should have regard to what has been done in other cases. In Green [2011] HCA 45, the plurity judgement of French CJ, Kiefel and Creennan JJ stated:

“Equal Justice” embodies the norm expressed in the terms “equality before the law”. It is an aspect of the rule of law.

For Stalk-Intimidate offenders 15% of offenders received a full-time prison sentence whereas 51% received a good behaviour bond.

In NSW, a court can impose any of the following penalties for a Stalk-Intimidate charge.

• Prison sentence
• Home Detention
• Intensive correction order (previously periodic detention)
• Suspended sentence
• Community service order (CSO)
• Good behaviour bond
• Fine
• Section 10

However, from the 24 September 2018 new penalty’s will be replacing the above. They are as follows:

• • Full time Imprisonment
  • New ICO (ICO) with a home detention condition available
  • New Community Correction Order (CCO)
  • Fine
  • New Conditional release Order (CRO)

Our client was charged with stalk/intimidate against a neighbour. In Court we argued that the neighbour had provoked the incident and had been the threatening party during the course of the interaction. Our client’s case was heard before the Local Court over 1 day. The court was not satisfied beyond reasonable doubt that the alleged events had in fact occurred given the large number of inconsistencies between the witnesses during cross-examination. Our client was therefore acquitted of all charges.