Your submissions

14.1Structure

The submission follows s 10(3) in order, then addresses the guideline caution for driving offences, then makes the ask and the fallback. Under (a): antecedents, the program, the plea. Under (b): presence not impairment, the time since consumption if known, absence of aggravating features. Under (c): any extenuating circumstance, used sparingly. Under (d): the disproportion argument with the evidence bundle. Then: "This is not a high-range matter; the factors the guideline identifies are absent." Then the ask, specific as to order and period, and the fallback.

14.2The ask

A conditional release order without conviction under s 9 for a period the client can comply with, commonly twelve months, with the standard conditions. The practitioner does not ask for a s 10(1)(a) dismissal unless the matter is genuinely trivial in a way that would make a CRO unnecessary; Judges are more willing to make a CRO than a bare dismissal for a driving offence, and the CRO gives the court something to hold the offender to.

14.3The fallback

If the court records a conviction, the submission on disqualification length is made immediately and separately: the minimum period, for the reasons already given on disproportion. The practitioner does not wait to be asked. A submission that addresses only s 10 and falls silent on conviction leaves the period to default to the automatic.

14.4Questions from the bench

The usual questions: "How long before driving did you take it?", "Do you understand that being unaffected is not the point?", "Has the program been completed?", "What is the licence used for?". Each has an answer in the folder. The client is rehearsed on all four.