Last Minute Legal Help For A Case Today
We had a call last week from a gentleman who rang for some free initial advice regarding his motoring matter. He told me a story about an accident he’d had at speed on a dual carriageway. He was due to appear before magistrates in relation to a charge of Driving Without Due Care and Attention.
In 90 minutes time.
He needed last minute legal help.
As the story unravelled it became apparent that not only was his court hearing in 90 minutes time, it wasn’t the first hearing, he had pleaded guilty by post at an earlier hearing and he was due to be sentenced.
I listened to his story and determined that he had two courses of action available to him – I could write him a letter of mitigation to take into the court with him to be taken into consideration by the magistrates during sentencing, or I could arrange for a Barrister to represent him at the hearing and present the mitigation in person. I explained to the caller that the manner of his driving could be considered as bordering on dangerous and therefore he was at real risk of being disqualified for this offence.
The caller was a professional man, embarrassed at having left it so late to do something about it, and also intimidated at the thought of attending court alone for the first time. He had never been in trouble with the law before and had been burying his head in the sand, refusing to face it. He was terrified of the possibility of being disqualified from driving as he relied on his driving licence to carry out his business as a self-employed Health & Safety Advisor.
He instructed us to send a barrister and then the race was on. We contacted the court and persuaded them to push the hearing back a couple of hours to give us some breathing space, and then managed to secure one of our barristers to attend the hearing with this new client.
We were able to avoid a driving ban for our client by persuading the magistrates to deal with the case by way of penalty points.
Our client was massively relieved to have kept his driving licence, and the Forrest Williams team were delighted to have been able to help this client at such short notice.
If you are due to appear before court for any offence, don’t bury your head in the sand, talk to us and see how we can help. You will save yourself a lot of stress by talking to us early, we can literally help prevent sleepless nights. But if you do need last minute legal help, it’s never too late.
