Last week, Jones + Associates were successful in securing a rare ‘permanent stay’ in the Cairns District Court.
The result ensures that our client cannot by prosecuted by the state for the alleged offending that had been before the courts since his arrest in 2018.
Our client was originally charged with three counts of Fraud, after the Director of a large electrical contracting company Mr Graeme King, was found to have been stealing significant sims of money. Mr King then implicated our client in his own offending, which led to our client being charged.
After originally proceeding to trial in 2023, our client was found not guilty of two of the three offences, with the jury being unable to come to a decision in relation to the third offence.
The crown sought to conduct a second trial in relation to the remaining offence, which was listed to commence in early 2024. Due to significant errors of the crown, including a failure to disclose relevant material that had been subject of repeated requests by Jones + Associates and not serving a subpoena on their ‘star’ witness, the trial was abandoned.
As a result of the crown’s multiple failures, an application was made to prevent the crown proceeding further against our client unless they compensated him for the costs he wasted as a result of the crown’s conduct. A rare order was then made that the proceedings be temporarily stayed until the crown paid our client the sum of $50,000.00.
Since that time, the crown refused to either pay that cost or discontinue the single charge against our client.
An application to prevent the crown from ever proceeding against our client was then made by Alex Jones and Mr Mitch Rawlings of counsel, before the Cairns District Court on 18 March 2025.
The court granted that permanent stay and in doing so commented that the conduct of the crown was “an abuse of process” of the justice system.
We are proud of our offices continuing commitment to securing fairness and justice for our clients and this result serves as a timely reminder that a defence lawyer’s role is critical in achieving that justice.
Should you or anyone close to you require any legal assistance or are facing unfairness in our justice system, you should contact our team on (07) 3229 3166.