Facing a traffic charge in Maroochydore Court and need to know how a drink driving, drug driving, dangerous driving or other traffic matter might be heard in Maroochydore Magistrates Court?
Location
The Maroochydore Magistrates Court is located in Cornmeal Parade and contains both a Magistrates Court on the first level and a District Court on second level.
Contact Details
Address
Cornmeal Parade
PO Box 732
Maroochydore Qld 4558
Business hours
8.30am to 4.30pm, Monday to Friday
Phone: (07) 5376 5100
Fax: (07) 5376 5124
Email: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Facilities
Toilets
Baby Changing Station
Meeting rooms
Map
https://goo.gl/maps/EEi9KtZo79LY5XDHA
Types of matters heard at Maroochydore Court
Traffic matters
Parking
Parking in Maroochydore Magistrates Court is difficult. There is a public carpark located in front of the Court however this is generally quite full and parks that are available tend to be a maximum of 2 hours. Parking inspectors regularly go through the carpark checking cars. The best tip is to take a taxi. Uber or public transport. There is a bus station located near the Sunshine Plaza shopping centre.
Magistrates
The current list of Magistrates at Maroochydore are;
Magistrate Rodney Madsen
Magistrate Matthew McLaughlin
Magistrate Maxine Baldwin
Magistrate Haydn Stjernqvist
Arriving at Court
Maroochydore Magistrates Court has a security entrance and all persons entering the Court will be searched. If you're facing a traffic charge that has not been committed to the District Court and in most cases this is the case, the process in the Magistrates Court then the process would be that you would arrive at Court, go through security and proceed to the first level. The first level contains four Courts numbered 1 through to 4.
On any given day usually three Courts are operating and might be assigned to hear criminal and/or traffic matters, trials, civil disputes, DVO or children’s Court matters. The Court publishes a calendar each year that sets out when they hear matters. That can be accessed through this link www.Courts.qld.gov.au/daily-law-lists/Court-calendars In addition to the Court calendar each day there is a list of made of each person appearing in Court and what Court room they have been assigned. This is known as the daily law list and can be accessed online using this link www.Courts.qld.gov.au/__external/CourtsLawList/MaroochydoreCourt.pdf or otherwise there is a list of all matters in the Court that day on the first level as you walk up the stairs.
Once you go upstairs and find out what Court you are in you can approach a group known as Friends at Court. This is a volunteer service with people (usually retired persons) will help people in a non-legal way access either the duty lawyer if that is a possibility or pointing a person in the right direction as to where they should go for that matter.
Example on how a matter might be heard
Let's take the example of a drink driving charge, these can be heard in the Maroochydore Court Monday through to Friday though not on a Tuesday. The Court would allocate a Magistrate to hear traffic matters or criminal matters that day and if you were charged with an offence you would proceed to the nominated Court room at the Court there is a police prosecutor who prosecutes the matter on behalf of the police service, this will not be the arresting officer that you were charged by but an independent police prosecutor. The prosecutor will provide you with what is known as be Police Prosecutors Court Brief (everyone calls it a QP9), we have a dedicated article on that and that can be read at
The QP9 sets out what the police say occurred in regard to the drink driving charge and will have attached to it;
- The breath or blood analyst certificate
- Any traffic history
- Any criminal history
The police prosecutor will then ask the person what they want to do. There are three options that is;
- Plead guilty
- Plead not guilty
- Seek to adjourn the matter to a different date possibly to obtain legal advice
If the defendant notices any factual inaccuracies in the QP9 after they looked through it then they would need to alert the police prosecutor. In most cases unless the inaccuracy is minor the matter would need to be adjourned so that the prosecutor can look into the issue.
If the defendant decides the QP9 is correct then they will take a seat in the Court, generally what happens is matters are heard in the order of adjournments with lawyers, guilty pleas with lawyers, unrepresented adjournments and then guilty plea for unrepresented people.
The Court eventually get to the defendant’s matter and they will be called to the bar table which is the long table in the middle of Court with the police prosecutor the right hand side and the defendant at the left-hand side. The Magistrate will read out the charge and ask the person to plead guilty, not guilty or ask if they are seeking an adjournment. In this example of a guilty plea to a drink driving charge the defendant would enter a guilty plea and ultimately they would sit down and the police prosecutor will read out from the QP9 and tell the Magistrate what happened and the hand up any traffic or criminal history the defendant may have. The Magistrate will then invite the defendant to make comments about the facts and to give them some idea of their situation so they can set a penalty for drink-driving charge. It might be factors such as what a person does for a living how the loss of license will impact them. The Magistrate may require a defendant to address the previous history especially if it is lengthy or has similar offences on it. Once the Magistrate is convinced to have all the necessary information, they will then seek to impose a penalty. It is important to note the Court does have a duty lawyer service but for drinking drug driving charges and other traffic matters where the risk of imprisonment is not high the duty lawyer will not be able to represent a person.
Do you appear in Maroochydore Court?
Yes, we act for people charged with offences and appearing in Maroochydore Magistrates Court on an almost weekly basis and have done so since 2010. The main office for Clarity Law has been at Maroochydore for almost a decade.
Our local office
We have an office located at level 3, 14 Duporth Avenue, Maroochydore.
How do I get more information or engage Clarity Law to act for me?
If you want to engage us or just need further information or advice then you can either;
- Use our contact us form and we will contact you by email or phone at a time that suits you
- Visit our website at www.drivinglaw.com.au
- Call us on 1300 952 255 seven days a week, 7am to 7pm
- Email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
