The Accused was a 22-year-old university student from Sydney. He attended a nightclub in Sydney CBD where he met a female on the dancefloor. While dancing the pair kissed. Unfortunately for our client, the female’s boyfriend was in the nightclub and became aware of what happened.

Later in the night the female’s boyfriend confronted our client along with a friend of his. A fight ensued which resulted in security guards stepping in and separating the parties. Police attended a short time later where the female claimed that our client had, without consent, put his hands inside her jeans and underwear and sexually assaulted her while they were dancing. The female, her boyfriend and two of their friends also told police that our client had assaulted them by throwing punches before security separated the parties. He was charged with sexual assault and assault occasioning actual bodily harm. In total there were four witnesses supporting the complainant and two security guards.

Mr Avinash Singh carefully analysed the statements of each of the witnesses and were able to identify inconsistencies in their versions. We also identified a failure by police to interview or even speak to the security guards – let alone obtain statements from them.

He then commenced planning the defence strategy over a number of months. Significant preparation was undertaken highlighting areas of cross-examination and setting traps in designed to show the evidence of the witnesses and complainant was implausible or impossible.

The cross-examination of the complainant was able to meticulously draw out inconsistencies between her evidence and what she had written in her police statement. The cross-examination of the other witnesses was able to identify further inconsistencies between their evidence and that of the complainant. The matter spanned a number of days and after the cross-examination of two of the female’s friends, the fourth refused to give evidence.

In the result, not only were the charges dismissed with the Court finding that there were significant doubts about the reliability of the witnesses, but costs were also ordered against police based on their failure to interview or speak to the security guards.

Avinash Singh represented a client who was facing serious fraud charges totalling over $1 million.

The client was the director of a home building corporation at the time of the offences. In the course of her job, the corporation was required to obtain building certificates before commencing work.

Unfortunately, the client was overwhelmed and unable to obtain the certificates within the timeframe required. Following this, she panicked and falsified the building certificates. She did this for three jobs in 2014, 2016 and 2017.

Eventually her offending was discovered by NSW Fair Trading. They conducted an interview with her where she confessed and made full admissions. When asked what she thought would be the punishment, she said, “going to jail”.

Ultimately she was charged with 16 fraud charges under the Crimes Act 1900 and the Home Building Act 1989. Mr Singh was able to negotiate with prosecutors which resulted in her only pleading guilty to 8 counts.

The preparation of the client’s subjective case included a psychologist report as well as evidence of numerous awards she had received as a surf life saver. This – in combination with persuasive advocacy – ultimately resulted in our client avoiding a term of full-time imprisonment.

She was sentenced to an Intensive Corrections Order (ICO) for 16 months. This was an exceptional result as generally fraud offences totalling over $100,000 result in full-time imprisonment.

Mr Singh defended a client facing 14 charges of Drug Supply and Deal with Proceeds of Crime.

On the day of the incident, the accused was seated in his vehicle in a carpark. He was approached by an old acquaintance who started a conversation.

A short time later police drove past and made eye contact with the accused’s acquaintance. Police claimed that the acquaintance appeared startled when he made eye contact with police and then began running away.

The accused drove out of the carpark after this. Police followed him for a short time before stopping him. They claimed the purpose of the stop was for a random breath test (RBT). Plainly, this was not the case. Mr Singh argued that police had used the RBT as a guise to stop the vehicle due to their suspicions and that there was in fact nothing ‘random’ about the stop.