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When you are charged with an offence, the police will normally interview you. Sometimes it can happen without you knowing, such as being caught speeding - an officer will ask why you were speeding.

You may think this is just conversational, but in reality the officer is looking for an admission that makes for a stronger case in prosecuting you in court.

Answering "no comment"

At the same time people often think that by saying "no comment" to the police, it will make them look guilty and can be used against them later. This is in fact not true and police rely on an accused's ignorance in taking advantage of this.

Your right to silence

Accused persons have a right to silence, and providing answers of "no comment" to all questions in an interview is asserting that right. This is founded on the principle that police need to prove the charge against you and you are not obliged to help them do it. Courts are also not allowed to draw an adverse inference from a no comment interview.

So once a police officer starts questioning you, you can make an assumption that it is for a good reason, and that reason is to get a confession.

It is good practice to just say "no comment" to anything they ask you other than what you lawfully must tell them, such as your name and address.

Where police place a person under arrest or have formed a belief that a person has committed an offence, they are obliged to inform you of your rights prior to questioning you.

In these instances, it is always advisable to say "no comment" and seek legal advice immediately after.

MyDefence lawyers are often surprised at how many of our clients have made admissions without knowing that what they said was going to be used against them. In many cases the admission is the only evidence police have against a client.

There is an old saying, it takes one slap to get someone to talk and 10 slaps to shut them up. Police know this technique works in police interviews.

So if you are ever interacting with the police because they are charging you with an offence, to be safe, it always advisable to say "no comment".

MyDefence lawyers work hard to either get charges withdrawn or lowered. Sometimes this happens in a plea deal with the prosecutor where our client agrees to plead guilty to lesser or fewer charges in order to get the more serious charges withdrawn.

We will only recommend this if we advise that the evidence that the prosecutor has will prove an offence. A plea of guilty also gets a sentencing discount of around 25% less than if a client ran a case to trial.

Pleading guilty - discretion of Magistrate

Even though a client may plead guilty, that does not mean our job is done. The magistrate or judge has wide discretion as to what penalty to impose at sentence such as whether:

• the offence is recorded with or without conviction on your criminal record;
• a good behaviour bond, corrections order or jail sentence should be imposed;
• the maximum penalty or a very small penalty such as a fine versus a jail sentence should be imposed;
• to defer a sentence to see how the accused person behaves over a period of time before imposing the sentence.

The Plea Hearing

For the court to make this decision, a Plea Hearing is held. We get an opportunity to inform the court about the circumstances of the offence and the background of our client. Factors that the court looks for are:

• Where the client acknowledges and admits their wrongdoing;
• Is apologetic and remorseful;
• A client's prior criminal history;
• Takes steps to make amends such as undertaking courses that provides insight to the offending, e.g. drug rehabilitation, anger management;
• Character references from employers, family, colleagues;
• Support from family and friends.

MyDefence lawyers have pleas down to a fine art. We connect our clients with services and character reference templates to get all the information aimed at securing the most minimum penalty.