How to contact and negotiate with police
What representations are, why they are usually a lawyer's job, what a self-represented person can safely ask for in writing, and what to do with the answer.
5.1What representations are, and who usually makes them
Start here
Representations are a formal written request to the police to withdraw a charge, replace it with a lesser charge, or amend the facts sheet. Lawyers send them in a large proportion of Local Court matters. They are made on a legal basis: the letter identifies a weakness in the evidence, a legal reason the charge should not proceed, or a specific error in the facts, and argues it. They are decided by the police prosecutor, sometimes after speaking to the officer in charge, and they succeed when the argument is persuasive enough that the prosecutor sees a risk in running the matter.
Be clear about what that means for a self-represented person. Representations are, more often than not, something lawyers do, because the effective ones rest on legal argument and the ineffective ones can do harm. A letter to police is a document you have signed. If it says something about what happened, it is an admission and it will be in the prosecutor's file. People representing themselves regularly write letters intended to help that end up in the facts sheet. Nothing in this lesson requires you to describe the incident, and if a sentence you are about to write does that, delete it.
There is also a simpler route that self-represented people can use. At court, before your matter is called, you can approach the police prosecutor at the bar table and raise the correction you want. Prosecutors deal with self-represented people all day and will often agree to strike out a plainly wrong line, or note your dispute, on the spot. Keep it to procedure and to the specific paragraph, not to what happened.
5.2A letter protects you in a way a phone call does not
Why writing
Where you do put a request in writing, a letter fixes what you asked for and when. If police agree, you have the agreement to hand to the court. If they refuse, you have evidence you tried, and a reason for an adjournment if a reply is outstanding. A phone call gives you none of that and invites conversation about the facts, which Lesson 3 explained is a risk. Email, so it is time-stamped, and keep the sent copy.
5.3What you can and cannot realistically ask for
The request
Correction of the facts sheet. Plain errors: the wrong date, the wrong weight, a history that is not yours, an admission you did not make. This is the request a self-represented person can safely make, because it can be stated without narrating the incident. State the paragraph, state the correction, give a reason that identifies the error and nothing more.
Withdrawal on the evidence. If the substance was never analysed, if possession is doubtful because the drug was found in a shared space and nobody claimed it, or if there is a real question about the lawfulness of the search, police sometimes withdraw rather than run a hearing they may lose. This is the kind of request that succeeds, and it is a legal argument. Making it well means pointing to the weakness without handing the prosecutor the fix, and that is a lawyer's job. If this is your situation, it is the point at which a consultation pays for itself.
A request that the matter be dealt with by diversion instead. Lesson 1 described the Cannabis Cautioning Scheme and the Early Drug Diversion Initiative. If you would have been eligible, you can ask police to consider withdrawing the charge in favour of a caution or penalty notice. Understand what this is: it is a request, not an argument, and eligibility for a scheme is not a legal ground for withdrawal. Police decline it more often than not. It costs an email, it does no harm if written as below, and it is the one thing a first-time offender with a small quantity can ask for without legal footing.
Withdrawal needs a reason in law
"I have never been in trouble" and "it was only a small amount" are reasons for a lighter sentence, not reasons for the charge to be withdrawn. A withdrawal request built on them will be refused and may be read as an admission. Save those points for Module 3, where they belong.
5.4What a letter of representations looks like
Example only
The example below shows the shape of a letter limited to the two safe requests: a facts sheet correction and a diversion request. It is an example of the form, not a script, and it deliberately contains no account of the incident. If your request is withdrawal on the evidence, do not adapt this letter; get advice instead.
Subject: Representations, H[number], [your full name], [court] Local Court, [date of next mention]
To the Police Prosecutor, [court] Local Court
Copy to: [OIC name and rank], [station]
I am the defendant in the above matter, charged with possess prohibited drug under s 10(1) of the Drug Misuse and Trafficking Act 1985. My next court date is [date]. I am representing myself.
I ask that the facts sheet be amended as follows. Paragraph [X] states [quote]. I do not accept that [I said those words / that description]. I ask that it be [deleted / amended to read: ...]. Paragraph [Y] records [error]. The correct position is [correction].
I also ask that police consider whether this matter can be dealt with by way of [a caution under the Cannabis Cautioning Scheme / a penalty notice under the Early Drug Diversion Initiative] in place of the charge. The alleged quantity is [X grams]. I have no prior convictions [or: no prior drug-related history]. I understand this is a matter for police discretion.
I would be grateful for a written response before [date, at least a week before court]. If either request is refused, I ask that the reasons be provided.
Yours faithfully
[Name]
[Phone, email]
Before you send it
Read it once more and remove any sentence that explains what you were doing, why you had the drug, or who else was there. If a sentence would help the prosecutor prove possession, it does not belong in any letter you sign. If you are unsure whether a sentence does that, that is the signal to have someone read it first.
5.5Follow up and get it in writing
Timing
Send it at least three weeks before your next court date. If you have heard nothing after ten days, send a short follow-up quoting the H number. If you have heard nothing by the court date, attend, and ask for an adjournment on the basis that representations are outstanding.
Your Honour, I sent written representations to the prosecutor on [date] and have not yet received a response. I ask that the matter be adjourned for [three or four] weeks to allow that to be dealt with.
If police agree to anything, get it in writing before court and bring the email. If they agree to amend the facts sheet, ask for the amended sheet and check the change was made.
5.6If the answer is no
Next
A refusal is the most common outcome. You have lost nothing, you have a record that you sought a correction or diversion, and you proceed to the decision every person on this charge has to make: guilty or not guilty. Lesson 11 takes you through it. If you plead guilty, the work you did on the facts sheet carries straight into Lesson 4.4 and into your sentence preparation in Module 3.
Decide which of the two safe requests, if either, applies to you. If your real issue is the evidence, book the consultation before you write anything.
If your request is withdrawal on the evidence
A request to withdraw because the search was unlawful, the substance was not analysed, or possession cannot be proved is a legal argument, and a letter that makes it badly can tell the prosecutor exactly how to fix their case. That is what lawyers do when they negotiate with police, and it is what a consultation with the lawyers who built Standard is for. Book it before you send anything.
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