I'm interested in some thoughts on how I should proceed....
Last night I was travelling home on a train from a work function. I had been drinking.
At Sydney Central train station around 11:30PM I was approached by two police officers and asked for my train ticket. I was with a friend and I believe that they approached us because they believed we were trying to push through a ticket barrier without a valid ticket - we both had valid tickets and were not trying to push through a ticket barrier. I provided my ticket to the officer when asked and when I asked for it back the officer who held the ticket refused. He then proceeded to ask me further questions and I continued to ask for my ticket back. Eventually I swore in frustration saying that ticket I gave you is worth $400 f****** dollars can you please return it. At this point I was physically restrained and asked for my name and address. I continued to refuse to answer them until they returned my ticket. In absolute frustration I broke free from how I was being held and was then thrown to the ground and handcuffed. I was taken back to the police station and detained for 3 hours whilst they processed the charges listed: Resisting a police officer, offensive language and not providing name or address
The ticket has not been returned to me still. There is CCTV footage that I haven't yet seen.
So today I've spoken to a few different criminal lawyers. From what I can gather I'm going to be up for a couple of grand in fees if I plead guilty or 4+ thousand in fees if I plead not guilty.
To me this seems like a pretty silly situation. How do you believe the magistrate will view the situation? Would I be foolish to try to represent myself? Am I likely to get a criminal record?
Last night I was travelling home on a train from a work function. I had been drinking.
At Sydney Central train station around 11:30PM I was approached by two police officers and asked for my train ticket. I was with a friend and I believe that they approached us because they believed we were trying to push through a ticket barrier without a valid ticket - we both had valid tickets and were not trying to push through a ticket barrier. I provided my ticket to the officer when asked and when I asked for it back the officer who held the ticket refused. He then proceeded to ask me further questions and I continued to ask for my ticket back. Eventually I swore in frustration saying that ticket I gave you is worth $400 f****** dollars can you please return it. At this point I was physically restrained and asked for my name and address. I continued to refuse to answer them until they returned my ticket. In absolute frustration I broke free from how I was being held and was then thrown to the ground and handcuffed. I was taken back to the police station and detained for 3 hours whilst they processed the charges listed: Resisting a police officer, offensive language and not providing name or address
The ticket has not been returned to me still. There is CCTV footage that I haven't yet seen.
So today I've spoken to a few different criminal lawyers. From what I can gather I'm going to be up for a couple of grand in fees if I plead guilty or 4+ thousand in fees if I plead not guilty.
To me this seems like a pretty silly situation. How do you believe the magistrate will view the situation? Would I be foolish to try to represent myself? Am I likely to get a criminal record?
