Tag Archives: criminal defence lawyer

The police called. Your teen has been arrested.

It’s the call that no parent wants: a late-night call from the police. Your teen has been arrested.

Talk to a lawyer before talking to the police

One of the biggest mistakes people who’ve been arrested make is believing that if they just tell their side of the story, everything will be okay. If your teen is arrested, you need to talk to an experienced criminal defence lawyer before talking to the police or making a statement.

Be ready if the police call

You can help your teen today by doing some advance homework yourself. Know who you would call if the police told you they have your child in custody. The stakes are high. You need an experienced criminal defence lawyer in your teen’s corner protecting their rights now and in the days ahead.

An experienced criminal defence lawyer can help alleviate your fears about the unknown and answer your questions at a time when what’s happening may seem overwhelming. He or she will:

  1. Answer your questions about the process in the days ahead
  2. Gather facts
  3. Develop a plan for moving forward

Don’t wait for the phone to ring. Do your research now and decide who you would contact if the call comes in. And hope that it never does.

Call us; we can help you. We are criminal defence lawyers with decades of specialized experience in criminal law.

Spousal assault and “no contact” conditions

As criminal lawyers, we see certain fact patterns over and over. One of them typically happens in spousal assault cases. If you’ve been charged with assault, you need an experienced criminal defence lawyer. Contact us. We can help you.

This is how the story usually goes

A couple—let’s call them Jack and Diane—get into an argument. Things get heated. Things get physical. Let’s say Jack slaps Diane, who calls the cops.

Then Jack:

  • gets arrested,
  • has to move out,
  • gets put on conditions like “no contact” and “no go,” and
  • is charged with spousal assault.

This couple are now part of the life of what the BC Criminal Justice Branch calls a “K” file.

BC Crown Counsel take spousal violence cases seriously. How seriously? There’s a 21-page Practice Bulletin on the topic in the BC Crown Counsel Policy Manual.

In spousal violence, or “K”, files it’s a standard condition for guys like Jack to be subject to a condition that he have no contact with the victim of his alleged assault, in this case Diane, and not go to places where she lives, works, goes to school, etc.

Then things get worse

What often happens though is that Jack and Diane may find it difficult to be apart from one another. One of them texts the other. Before you know it, they’re texting back and forth. But because they’re in a bad relationship to begin with, it isn’t long before things go sour. Diane reports Jack’s breaches of the “no contact” order to the police. Now Jack faces a new charge: breach of undertaking. And the courts take that very seriously.

This chain of events happens all the time in criminal law cases.

So now Jack has two criminal charges. It isn’t unusual for a guy in Jack’s situation to find that a prosecutor will use Jack’s breach of the “no contact” condition with Diane as evidence that Jack can’t—or won’t—follow the conditions of his release, that he’s a loose cannon, that the court needs to be tough on him. We can guess how this story could end for Jack.

My advice: Just block it

As a criminal defence lawyer, I tell my clients to block the number of anybody they are forbidden to have contact with. Simple as that. Just block it. Don’t have contact with them – just disappear from the story—while I deal with your criminal charges.

If you’ve been charged with assault, you need a criminal defence lawyer. Contact us. We can help.

Who you gonna call?

I wouldn’t say I was happy when the police called me at 3 a.m., but I was definitely prepared.

One of my clients had been arrested and needed criminal law advice. I was really glad he called me. I was able to give him the advice he needed to protect him – both in the moment and down the road.

Because my client exercised his right to call me, his criminal defence lawyer, it meant he didn’t make his situation any worse. He didn’t talk to the police. I was able to explain to him that even though he thought he’d done nothing wrong, the police investigate when they think there’s been a crime and they gather evidence against the person they think is responsible. They wanted to talk to my client as part of the evidence gathering process. It wasn’t in my client’s best interest to talk to the police and, following my advice, he didn’t.

Another time I like to hear from clients, and new clients in particular, is right after something bad happens, even if the police aren’t yet involved. If it’s something the police are likely to be interested in, you can bet it’s good to have the advice of an experienced criminal defence lawyer, right away. Even at 3 a.m.

Stuff happens. Who you gonna call?