Bail granted for trafficking drugs and guns, while on parole for trafficking

Alan Phillips of our office applied for bail successfully for his client, who was charged with 3 offences of trafficking. Two of them related to trafficking different types of weapons, and one of them was an allegation of trafficking in dangerous drugs.

Our client was on parole for trafficking drugs at the time of the alleged offences. He was serving a sentence of 8 years imprisonment for trafficking drugs, and supply of weapons. He had 27 pages of not for production criminal history.

The allegations were that our client was behind a Threema handle who was alleged to have supplied drugs and guns. A phone was seized from another offender in Acacia Ridge by police in an unrelated matter. Police alleged that our client had sold drugs and guns to that person.

The Crown case was challenged on the basis of who was actually was behind the Threema handle. Police said they could prove that it was our client as he had sent 'selfies' to the other user, as well as provided his girlfriend's phone number to the other user. Police also said they could match up pictures on the phone with the furniture in his house.

Submissions were made to the Magistrate about how rife identity fraud is, how poor the image quality was of the selfies, and how they couldn't reliably identify our client as the user of the Threema handle.

The Magistrate was persuaded the case was weak, and granted bail on strict conditions despite his lengthy relevant, serious history.