Facing a traffic charge in Beenleigh and need to know how a drink driving, drug driving, dangerous driving or other traffic matter might be heard in Beenleigh Magistrates Court?
Location
The Beenleigh Magistrates Court is located at Corner Kent and James Streets. The court contains Magistrates Courts on the ground level and Magistrates Court and District Courts on the second level.
Contact Details
Corner Kent and James Streets
PO Box 383
Beenleigh Qld 4207
Business hours
8.30am to 4.30pm, Monday and Wednesday to Friday
8.30am to 4.00pm, Tuesday
Phone (07) 3081 2100
Fax (07) 3081 2165
Email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Facilities
Toilets
Meeting rooms
Map
https://goo.gl/maps/pmeamMyxZ9iwH6up7
Types of matters heard at Beenleigh Court
Traffic matters
Parking
There is a public carpark located beside the court and accessible from James Street, the parks generally get quite full and have time limits. There is parking in the side streets. The nearest train station is Beenleigh train station which is just a few minutes walk away.
Magistrates
The current list of Magistrates at Beenleigh are;
Arriving at Court
Beenleigh Magistrates Court has a security entrance and all persons entering the Court will be searched. If you are facing a traffic charge the process in the Magistrates Court then the process would be that you would arrive at Court, go through security and locate the electronic notice board at the entrance which lists which court people have been assigned to.
On any given day usually both 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 https://www.courts.qld.gov.au/__external/CourtsLawList/BeenleighCourt.pdf or otherwise there is a list of all matters in the Court that day as you pass through security.
Example on how a matter might be heard
Let's take the example of a drink driving charge, these can be heard in the Beenleigh Court Monday through to Friday. The Court would allocate a Magistrate to hear traffic matters and 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.
We also have article on how drink driving matters are heard in Magistrate Courts.
Do you appear in Beenleigh Court?
Yes, we act for people charged with offences and appearing in Beenleigh Magistrates Court on an almost weekly basis and have done so since 2010.
Our local office
Loganholme
Level 2, 3972 Pacific Highway, Loganholme
Phone: 0736680683
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.