Representing yourself in a criminal case in the Magistrates’ Court
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You should seek legal advice if you are charged with a criminal offence. People charged with a criminal offence who cannot afford a lawyer are usually eligible for at least initial free advice from a legal service. Sometimes, duty lawyers at court may be able to assist you on the day of your hearing, but always try to get advice before your court day (see ‘Who are duty lawyers’ in Chapter 2.3: Legal services that can help).
It is important to remember that all court hearings are open to the public and recorded, so anything you say during the hearing can be retained on the court record.
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Sometimes it might be in your best interest to get non-legal support. For example, you might be struggling with homelessness or mental health issues, or you might benefit from engaging in family violence counselling. The Magistrates’ Court of Victoria has services called Court Integration Services Program (CISP) and Navigation and Triage (NAT) that can help you with non-legal issues in your life. It can also refer you for support if you are experiencing or said to have used family violence. Please contact the court if you are interested in being referred to these services.
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Court procedures are different depending on whether a case is a ‘summary’ or ‘indictable’ case.
Indictable cases
Indictable cases involve serious charges that may be transferred to a higher court. Free representation is often available for people who have been charged with an indictable offence and cannot afford a lawyer.
An indictable case that the prosecution seeks to be heard in a higher court starts with a ‘filing hearing’. If you are facing a filing hearing, it is important to seek legal help.
Summary cases
The rest of this section deals with summary cases. Summary cases are heard and finished in the Magistrates’ Court. Victoria Police is responsible for prosecuting summary offences (i.e. police officers present the case against you to the court). While the Magistrates’ Court can deal with quite serious charges, the most serious criminal cases are heard in higher courts. Some criminal charges are classified as ‘indictable charges that can be heard summarily’. This means that although they are more serious charges, they are often heard in the Magistrates’ Court, if the prosecution and the accused person agree to that (see below, ‘Pleading guilty to a criminal charge’).
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You will need a copy of the ‘preliminary brief’, which summarises what the police say happened and what evidence they plan to use to prove their case against you. This will help you to decide whether to plead guilty or not guilty. While police often provide this document automatically, you have a right to request the preliminary brief under section 35 of the Criminal Procedure Act 2009 (Vic) (‘CP Act’).
Police will most often give you either a summons or a charge sheet along with the preliminary brief. Both documents show the charges against you and the date of your court hearing. Both documents also contain the contact details of the ‘informant’, who is the police officer who charged you.
If you need to, you can ask for a copy of the preliminary brief by emailing the informant. You can also request a copy of the evidence that they rely on, for example your police interview or footage – this is called ‘disclosure’. Always be calm and polite when speaking or writing to police officers. Keep detailed notes of any conversations with the informant and save copies of any correspondence.
To prove a crime was committed, the police need to prove each ‘element’ of the offence. This usually involves proving that the physical actions occurred and that you had a certain state of mind at the time of the offending (e.g. you physically injured the victim and you intended to injure that person).
There are many situations where you may have done certain actions but you did not have the required state of mind for a crime to have occurred. On the other hand, your actions and intentions may mean that you have committed a crime even though you think you did nothing wrong.
Being unaware that something is against the law is never a defence. Therefore, you can commit a crime without knowing you have broken the law. This is why it is important to seek legal advice early in a criminal case when deciding to plead guilty or not guilty.
Summary case conference
A summary case conference is an out-of-court discussion (which is often conducted via email) with a police prosecutor who can negotiate about the charges or about what is said in the summary of facts about a case. They can change or withdraw charges if you both agree.
A summary case conference is supposed to help both sides narrow down the issues in dispute and to help you decide early on whether you will plead guilty or not guilty to some or all the charges. Ideally, you should try to have a summary case conference before your court date, but you can also have it at court on the day.
If you are self-representing, it is important to seek legal advice before engaging in a summary case conference with the police. A lawyer can advise you on how to negotiate with the police and the importance of not making concessions or admissions about certain issues, to protect your interests.
If you conduct a summary case conference via email, it is a good idea to write ‘Without prejudice’ at the start of your email. This is a way of ensuring that your out-of-court negotiations cannot be used against you in court.
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If you decide to plead guilty, the process is:
After your name is called, the court clerk will direct you to come to the front of the court.
The prosecutor applies for ‘summary jurisdiction’ if the charge is an indictable offence that can be heard summarily. The magistrate must then tell you that you can choose to have your case decided by a judge and jury in the County Court and ask whether you consent to the charge being dealt with in the Magistrates’ Court (see Chapter 3.7: Which court for which crime?).
When making this decision, the things to consider are the longer delays, greater cost and enhanced complexity involved in having a case transferred to be heard by a judge and jury. Otherwise, you can ask to have the magistrate hear the charge there and then.
If you choose to go before a judge and jury in the County Court, the magistrate will ‘adjourn’ (i.e. put off until a later date) the hearing. If you choose to have the charge dealt with by the magistrate, the hearing will proceed.
The magistrate will ask what your plea is to the charge: guilty or not guilty. You must answer this question. If you have not made a decision, the hearing will be paused and might be adjourned.
If you plead guilty, the prosecutor will read to the court the summary of facts relating to the charge against you. You will be asked if this is true and correct. For the case to go ahead as a guilty plea, you must agree with the summary read out to the court. Remember, if you disagree with the summary of facts, this needs to be discussed during a summary case conference, ideally before the day of the court hearing.
The magistrate will announce that they find the charges against you proven, if they are satisfied that the summary of facts establishes the charges.
If you plead guilty, the magistrate will ask if you have any prior criminal history (i.e. if you have previously been to court and been found guilty of an offence). If you are in court for a traffic offence, the magistrate will ask for your driving history. This information is required to be included with the preliminary brief or full brief of evidence, so you should have had a chance to read this before court and raise any issues with the prosecutor.
You are then asked to agree or disagree that your prior criminal history is correct. If you disagree, the hearing is likely to stop while the prosecutor investigates. If you agree, the record will be accepted and shown to the magistrate and the hearing will continue. It is important to make sure that any record is accurate, because it will influence the magistrate’s sentencing.
The magistrate will ask you to explain yourself to help them determine an appropriate penalty. If you hear a phrase like, ‘What do you want to say?’, stay calm and speak clearly and briefly. The magistrate may ask you lots of specific questions or they may let you speak freely. The topics the magistrate will be most concerned to hear about are:
a. reasons for the offending that explain why it happened, as well as your understanding of why it happened, which could help to reassure the magistrate that you can prevent it reoccurring;
b. whether you are remorseful (i.e. sorry for what happened) and if you have apologised or made amends in any way; for example, by paying for damaged items to be repaired;
c. anything you have done since the offence to ensure it does not happen again;
d. personal details such as:
- your age, occupation and financial circumstances;
- your family situation, including any caring responsibilities and who lives with you and who supports you, whether or not you have stable housing;
- any medical or mental health issues that impacted you at the time of the offending (or that are currently impacting you) and any treatment you were or are undergoing and any support you have in place;
- why you need your driver licence (if you are in danger of losing it);
- how the recording of a conviction may affect you in the future; for example, how it may affect your employment or your ability to obtain a Working With Children Check;
The magistrate will sentence you. (See Chapter 1.3: Sentencing in the Magistrates’ Court.)
You have the right to consider appealing the magistrate’s sentence if you do not agree with it or you think it is too harsh. Seek legal advice about this; there are strict time limits for lodging an appeal.
If you are at risk of imprisonment, the magistrate will ask whether you have had legal advice, and advise you of your right to do so, before sentencing you. If the magistrate is not convinced that you have had adequate legal advice, they might pause or adjourn the case to give you a chance to do this.
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If the case does not ‘resolve’ – which means you disagree with the police’s version of what happened and could not reach an agreement during the summary case conference – the court will likely adjourn your case to a ‘contest mention’.
A contest mention is a brief hearing where parties must say which issues are disputed, which prosecution witnesses need to attend a hearing to be cross-examined, and any other things that need to be done to prepare the evidence for a ‘contested hearing’. At a contested hearing, a magistrate hears all the evidence and decides whether the charges have been proven beyond reasonable doubt.
Once your case is booked into a contest mention, you should request a full brief under section 39 of the CP Act at the earliest opportunity. The full brief includes the evidence (e.g. documents, images and recordings) that the police prosecutor will rely on to prove the charge against you in court. A full brief is more detailed than a preliminary brief.
Having this detailed brief is essential if you are going to contest the charge as you need to plan how you will challenge the evidence, which witnesses you will cross-examine, what questions you will ask the witnesses, and whether you need to call your own witnesses.
You can request a full brief from the informant via email. Make sure you save all your correspondence with the informant, in case any issues arise in relation to slow or incomplete disclosure of evidence.
It is strongly advised that you seek further legal advice at this point – on the merit and likely outcome of your case as well as on strategy and court procedures. In a criminal matter, there are many opportunities to try again to negotiate with the other party. You can also change your plea at different points in the process, although there are limitations and potential adverse implications involved in this.
If you contest a matter and are found guilty, the penalty imposed on you could be more severe than if you had pleaded ‘guilty’ at an earlier point in the process. This is because the law says that if you plead guilty from the start, you must get a less severe penalty than you would if you contested the case and were found guilty.
Representing yourself in a criminal case in the Magistrates’ Court
Chapter: 2.2: Representing yourself in court
Contributor: Alice Meredith, Senior Lawyer, Victoria Legal Aid, and Thea Casey, Barrister
Current as of: 1 September 2024
Law Handbook Page: 63
Next Section: Representing yourself in a civil case
