Criminal lawyers on the Gold Coast

Read the court name on your paperwork before anything else

People assume a Gold Coast charge means Southport. It does not always. The court is decided by where police laid the charge, not by where you live, and it is printed on the notice to appear or the bail undertaking they gave you.

If the paperwork is confusing, ring the registry on 1300 516 700 and ask them to confirm the court and the date. Turning up at the wrong courthouse is treated the same as not turning up at all.

The charges the Gold Coast produces

Two of Queensland’s fifteen declared safe night precincts are on the Gold Coast: Surfers Paradise CBD and Broadbeach CBD. They exist under the Liquor Act 1992 (Qld), they allow approved venues to trade liquor later than elsewhere, and licensees in them run networked identification scanners that check patrons against lists of people banned by venues, police and the courts.

What that means in practice is a concentration of charges in a small geographic area on Friday and Saturday nights, and a police presence that is set up to lay them quickly.

• Public nuisance under section 6 of the Summary Offences Act 2005 (Qld). The most common charge out of Surfers Paradise. The prosecution must prove the behaviour was disorderly, offensive, threatening or violent and that it interfered, or was likely to interfere, with the peaceful passage or enjoyment of a public place. The second limb is contested more often than people realise.
• Assault occasioning bodily harm under section 339 of the Criminal Code Act 1899 (Qld), usually a one punch matter outside a venue, usually with CCTV.
• Obstruct or assault police under section 790 of the Police Powers and Responsibilities Act 2000 (Qld) and section 340 of the Criminal Code, frequently laid alongside a public nuisance charge.
• Possessing a dangerous drug under section 9 of the Drugs Misuse Act 1986 (Qld), including at festivals and in nightclub queues.
• Stealing under section 391 of the Criminal Code, including shop stealing from the large centres at Pacific Fair, Robina and Harbour Town.

A charge inside a safe night precinct can also attract a police banning notice, which stops you entering the precinct at all. That is a separate consequence to the criminal charge and it is worth raising early.

Schoolies, visitors and defendants who do not live here

A large share of Gold Coast defendants are not Gold Coast residents. Schoolies week in November produces a spike in public nuisance, drug possession and minor assault charges involving seventeen and eighteen year olds from interstate. Tourists get charged. So do people from Tweed Heads who crossed a border they barely noticed.

For most simple offences a solicitor can appear at a mention on your behalf, so you do not always have to fly back for every date. That is not true of every listing. If the court wants you personally present, or the matter is being sentenced, you need to be there or appear by video link where the court permits it.

The risk of ignoring a Queensland charge because you live somewhere else is real. Under the Justices Act 1886 (Qld) a Magistrates Court can deal with a simple offence in your absence or issue a warrant for your arrest. A warrant does not expire because you went home.

What actually happens between the first mention and the end

1. First mention. Short. The court checks the state of the matter, you or your solicitor ask for the QP9 and the brief, and the matter is adjourned. Nothing is decided. Our Southport court guide walks through the day.
2. Disclosure. Police provide the QP9 court brief, then the full brief of evidence if the matter is contested. CCTV from a licensed venue has to be requested promptly because it does not sit on a server forever.
3. Negotiation. A great many Gold Coast matters resolve because a charge is downgraded or particulars are amended after a written submission to the police prosecutor. This is where most of the value is, and it happens without a hearing.
4. Plea or hearing. If you plead guilty, the court sentences you, and an early plea is taken into account under section 13 of the Penalties and Sentences Act 1992 (Qld). If you plead not guilty the matter is set down for a summary trial.
5. Committal, if the charge is serious enough. Indictable offences that cannot be dealt with summarily under sections 552A and 552B of the Criminal Code go up to the Southport District Court.

The other decision that gets made along the way is whether a conviction is recorded. Section 12 of the Penalties and Sentences Act 1992 (Qld) gives a Queensland court a discretion not to record one, and requires it to consider the nature of the offence, your character and age, and the effect a conviction would have on your economic or social wellbeing or your chances of finding work. On the Gold Coast that argument is regularly run for people who hold a blue card, a security licence, a marine licence or an RSA.

What we do differently on a Gold Coast file

We are on Davenport Street, on the same street as the courthouse. That is not a slogan, it is a cost structure. We are not billing you travel to get to your mention, and we can chase a prosecutor at the registry counter in ten minutes instead of ten days.

The fee is fixed and agreed in writing before we start, and you are told what it does not cover.

The most useful thing a criminal lawyer does on a Gold Coast summary matter usually happens in writing to the prosecutor, weeks before anyone stands up in court.