Barrister
Criminal defence
Mātai Chambers, Auckland
Not because we want people to avoid responsibility, but because we understand their lasting impact. Whether this is your first charge or your two-hundredth, a conviction has consequences that extend far beyond the courtroom.
At every stage, we work for an outcome without a conviction, wherever the case allows one. This is how we go about it.
We start with the evidence, and whether the prosecutor can actually prove the charge. Where they cannot, charges can be withdrawn, dismissed by the Court, or amended to something less serious.
Where the charges remain, the weaknesses we find are the basis for negotiation with the prosecutor.
If negotiation does not resolve it, the charges go to trial. Trials carry risk, and no lawyer can promise an outcome. Whether to defend the charges is your decision.
Before you make it, we tell you your prospects, the strengths and weaknesses of the case, and whether the case is better tried by a Judge alone or by a jury. If you decide to defend, we prepare the trial in full.
Where pleading guilty is the right course, we look first at the outcomes that leave you without a conviction: police diversion, and a discharge without conviction.
Accepting responsibility and protecting your future can go together.
If you are convicted, we tell you honestly whether an appeal has real prospects. Where there are genuine grounds, we pursue them.
We speak to police on your behalf, and advise you before an interview, a search, or an arrest.
Getting you out of custody: opposed bail, electronic monitoring bail, and bail appeals. We know how much it matters to be home while the case runs.
Judge alone or jury, District Court or High Court. Every trial is prepared in full, for one result: an acquittal.
Reports, references, and submissions for the lowest sentence available, served in the community rather than in prison.
Appeals against conviction and sentence, to have a conviction set aside or a sentence reduced.
Barrister · Mātai Chambers
Gowan has been lead counsel in more than 30 jury trials, and junior or co-counsel in eight homicide trials, since coming to the criminal bar in 2017. His results include acquittals as lead and junior counsel and discharges without conviction for clients whose careers depended on them, and he assisted on a Supreme Court appeal that set aside murder and aggravated robbery convictions.
About Gowan
Barrister · Mātai Chambers
Fred appears in the District Court and the High Court, and with Gowan on the larger trials. His results include a sentence cut by 20 months on appeal, bail granted on appeal, home detention where prison was expected, and discharges without conviction.
About Fred
We practise from Mātai Chambers on Wyndham Street. Our articles on the law, and notes on recent cases, are on the chambers website.
Short answers to the questions people ask on the first call.
Call us before you go in, not after. You do not have to answer questions, and you have the right to speak to a lawyer before you do. Police will tell you about those rights, but by then most people have already started talking.
If you are arrested, say that you want to speak to a lawyer and say nothing else about what happened. If police ask for your phone or its passcode, ask what power they are using and call us straight away. You can stay polite and still say nothing.
Call us. Tell us their full name, date of birth, which station they are at, and the charge if you know it. We can speak to them at the station or in the cells at court, and we can visit them in custody afterwards.
The most useful thing you can do is find an address where they can live on bail and someone who will vouch for it. The Judge will want to know both before granting bail.
For most charges the starting point is that you should be bailed. For some charges, or where there is a history, the starting point reverses and you have to show why you should be. Either way the questions are the same: will you turn up, will you offend while on bail, and will you interfere with witnesses.
We come to court with answers to them: an address, conditions that meet the concern, and electronic monitoring where it helps. If bail is refused, it can be applied for again when something changes, or appealed to the High Court.
It depends on the charge, what actually happened, and your history. The maximum penalty in the statute is rarely what anyone actually receives. We tell you the realistic range early, and we revise it as the disclosure arrives and the case takes shape. The range runs from no conviction at all, through community-based sentences, to prison.
Sometimes. Police diversion is available for some first offences. A discharge without conviction is available where the consequences of a conviction would be out of all proportion to the gravity of the offence. Charges can be withdrawn where the evidence does not hold up, dismissed by the Court, or amended to something less serious. If the charge is defended, an acquittal at trial leaves you with no conviction.
Each one is an application or a negotiation that has to be prepared, and the earlier the work starts, the better the chances.
Not before you know what the prosecution can prove. A guilty plea earns a discount, and the discount is larger the earlier the plea, but early means soon after we have read the evidence, not at the first appearance.
We tell you the strengths and the weaknesses of the case, and what each course is likely to lead to. The decision is yours. We will not push you either way. We will tell you if the prosecution cannot prove what you are being asked to plead to.
Courts are open, and the starting point is that your name can be published. Suppression is an order the Court has to be persuaded to make, and the test is high: publication has to be likely to cause extreme hardship, or one of a short list of other harms.
Where the grounds exist we apply at the first opportunity, because once a name has been published, it cannot be taken back.
The first conversation costs nothing. After it we give you a written fee proposal for the work ahead: an hourly rate, a fixed fee for a defined stage, or a payment plan. You decide whether to go ahead once you know the cost.
Legal aid depends on your income and assets and on the seriousness of the charge. We act on legal aid on charges carrying 14 years’ imprisonment or more, and can talk it through with you.
You can call us directly. Barristers usually take instructions through a solicitor, but criminal matters are the exception, so you can speak directly to the barrister who will appear for you. Solicitors are welcome to refer as well.
Usually longer than people expect. A straightforward charge that resolves by plea can be over in a few months. A case that goes to a jury trial usually takes a year or more from charge to verdict, and bail conditions run for the whole of it.
We tell you the likely timetable in the first conversation and again at every court date, so you always know what the next step is and roughly when.
Everything you tell us is confidential, and the first call is free. You will get a straight answer on where you stand, and what we can do about it.