Armidale Criminal Lawyers

We offer fixed fees. You’ll receive a full, honest and transparent explanation of the fees for our services.

So my role as your lawyer is to fight vigorously for your rights in the courtroom. 

My role is to explain to the court the context or situation that was occurring at the time for you at the time of the alleged offence. 

My role can sometimes also be to tell the court that you’re not guilty of an offence and to raise defences that will convince the court, the judge, the magistrate or jury that you are not guilty of that offence. 

So my role is to protect you in the courtroom at all times and that’s what we do for you.

By law, a court must not sentence an offender to imprisonment unless it is satisfied, having considered all possible alternatives, that no penalty other than imprisonment is appropriate. There are a variety of more moderate penalties that the court can impose as an alternative to a custodial sentence, which can be read about here.

If you are charged with a criminal offence you will be given a Court Attendance Notice (CAN). The CAN will give you the following information:

• The court you will have to attend
• The date and time you will need to attend court
• The offence with which you have been charged

A Police Facts Sheet will usually be attached to the CAN. A Police Facts Sheet outlines the police’s version of the events that have led to your charge. You should read the documents carefully and write down anything that you disagree with. You should then seek legal advice to determine what your best course of action is.

Arguably one of the most important decisions that you will have to make if you have been charged with a criminal offence is whether to plead guilty or not guilty. For more detailed information about entering or changing a plea, click here.

There are three ways to avoid conviction:

• Successfully defending the charge; or
• Getting the charge dismissed; or
• Having the matter dealt with pursuant to section 32 of the Mental Health (Forsensic Provisions) Act.

Our lawyers can advise you on the best course of action.   

The court process in New South Wales is started with a document served on an accused person. That document is called a court attendance notice or sometimes abbreviated to a CAN.

On that document will be a range of information. It’s quite a confusing document.

On that document, it will stipulate the court the person has to attend, the date and the charges or allegations against that person.

Stepping back, sometimes people are notified by the police before they were to receive that court attendance notice.

The police may say we’d like you to come in for an interview. 

We encourage people to contact us before making that decision to give an interview so we can properly advise them as to what their rights are before they go to the police station.

There’s a decision made by the police when they arrest someone as to where they release them on bail or not. 

Some people will be released on bail conditions to attend court. Sometimes the police refuse bail and that person that appears in court from custody. 

We can then be engaged to attend court and fight for bail or release of that person in the interim while it matter is being heard.

It depends on a number of factors, including:

• What stage your matter is up
• Whether you’re bailed and what the conditions of your bail are 
• Whether you’ve got something important on the day of court
• What stage your matter is up to, whether it’s for hearing, whether 
• it’s for mention, whether it’s for sentence.

We can talk about that. 

If you’d like to be there every step of the way, please come and we’ll meet you at court 

early and we’ll explain the process and you can come in and watch us do whatever it is we’re doing that day. Whether it be your appearance your sentence or the hearing.

Generally, you won’t have to speak in court.

That is what you instruct us for, that is our job and that’s what we do every day. 

If you would like to put something before the court, in terms of contrition or remorse or how you’re feeling about the matter, certainly we can arrange for you to do that either by way of written evidence or sometimes oral evidence if appropriate. 

But we will talk to you about that at length before that goes anywhere near the court to make sure that it’s appropriate and something that’s going to assist you in either the defence of your matter or in mitigation if it’s a sentence proceeding.