Perverting the course of justice

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.

Perverting the course of justice can be punished with a prison sentence of up to 14 years.

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 numerous people charged with Participating in a criminal group and are experts at these hearings.

Some of the possible defences available for those charged with perverting the course of justice can include:

• You did not know that there were judicial proceedings on foot or that they were imminent or might occur;
• That you had no intent to pervert the course of justice in acting the way you did, or in omitting what you did;
• 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 and/or
• Self-defence – If you were defending yourself or another OR yours or another’s property you may have a Defence of Self-Defence

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 Perverting the course of justice 75% of offenders received a full-time prison sentence whereas 25% received a suspended prison sentence.

In NSW, a court can impose any of the following penalties for a Participating in a criminal group 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 in possession of a fishing spear-gun and accidentally shot himself. Police and ambulance were called to the scene, where the client told them that he had been shot with a spear-gun by an unknown person. He then signed a sworn statement to this effect, which triggered a police investigation. Eventually it was revealed that there was no shooter and the client had fabricated the story. He was charged with perverting the course of justice. After lengthy negotiations with the Prosecution, a plea deal was struck whereby the client would plead guilty to making a false report to police and the prosecution withdrew the more serious perverting course of justice charge.