Resist arrest or hinder police

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.

Resist Arrest or hinder police can be punished with a prison sentence of up to 1 year or a fine of $1110.

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 Resist Arrest or hinder police and are experts at these hearings.

Some of the possible defences available for those charged with Resist Arrest or hinder police can include:

• To deny that you did the act that police say constituted the offence;
• To argue that the person was not a police officer in the NSW Police Force;
• To argue that they were not working at the time, or that what they did was outside their duties as a police officer;
• To argue that police were acting illegally; or
• 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.

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 Resist Arrest or hinder police 41% of offenders received a s9 Good behaviour bond whereas 28% received a fine.

In NSW, a court can impose any of the following penalties for a Resist Arrest or hinder police 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).

Police were called to a situation wherein our client was verbally abusing a bus driver. One of the police officers obtained our clients driver’s licence and began to record his details. Our client demanded his licence back and attempted to physically retake his licence. He was then arrested by police to which he continued to struggle. He was charged with hinder police/resist arrest. We represented the client in his sentencing hearing where we tendered psychiatric evidence that showed that there was no risk of his reoffending. The Magistrate took this into consideration and a Section 10 non-conviction order was made in relation to the charge.