My husband used to run a small catering business in the small…

Thank you for your reply, Mr Rizos,

After receiving good regular inspection results by 19th Oct, none of us thought that the City Council would do this irregular inspection suddenly since they never mentioned as we always complied the requirements in the inspection even though they say they were not satisfied but it was them who inspected and passed us in the every inspection. So it was realy surprising when the Health Officer came on the 23 Oct with the warning but we were still ready to comply all the requirements as usual and passed it at the end, and we were rather relieved it was all done. When the letter over some charges came to us in November, most of us thought we would have verbal warning again in the court to confirm(that is how they were also told by many other people including their lawyer friend). Just in case my husband & I went to talk to the Chinese lawyer(specialized in immigration) and were told this was seriour offence but as the first time he suggested we had better plead guilty for the possible small fine. In fact we were not very happy to follow his suggestion because it seemed unclear if they could make this entry when the shops were all closed and if they could charge us without giving us any warning, but at the time we were going to sell the business after all the chaos(in September when we signed the letter prepared by one of the none-foodcourt shop owners to replace the property manager for the building as everyone had a hard time with her, all the nasty things began to happen to us as the agent did not like to take our opinion. Consequently everyone thought this irregular secret inspection had been all arranged by the agent and the Health Service as the pest control service who called the Health Service was hired by the agent and many other services said they would never contact the Health Service at all. The Health Officer used to tell us she got a lot of pressure from the agent and we were unclear why). Furthermore, at the time we started discussing about the overcharged expenditures by the agent and they tried to stop us to find the fact.) I knew the agent was going to disturb by our lawyer seemed the only way for us. However, we were uncertain if the Health Officer could make this entry on the 19th Oct and if they could charge us without any warning and chance to comply first. We had no knowledge that they were making the false story to make their entry and prosecution lawful and reasonable until we heard in our court hearing. Plus, the female judge was not very thoughtful after the hearing was postponed by 1.5 hours and only got impressed with the photos, no idea to listen to my husband denial of the story and to confirm once again with the lawyer. He was simply forced to plead guilty or not. But pleading not guilty would give us even harder choice with the much higher legal cost when we loose and time and we believed the amount(fine) our lawyer told us that he got it directly from the other lawyer($1,250 for 5 charges). In fact the fines for 7 of us were all so different. Someone who got 6 charges had $1000 in total etc.while the other got $8000 for the same charges. And the content of charges were more or less the same among all of us and we were all obedient in the hearing except the false story the lawyer mentioned because it was too terrible. It was definite the judge got impressed by the story that we complied absolutely nothing and the outcome after the 23rd Oct was never everr mentioned at all. So for her, it was reasonable we got charged for not complying the warning(false) given on the 19th and kept the premises same as before when they reinspected on the 22nd Oct. If the City Council was later admitting about the 19th Oct inspection(no 20-22 Oct), why could they charge over 4 days(19th and 22nd were included in the charges clearly)? I believe the statement was prepared based on the information the City Council provided to the lawyer and signed for agreement. But they already lied to the Corruption & Crime Commission. Is this lawful and fair? Do we always put up with this kind of punishment?

Thank you.

So in this case no matter if the council sued us in the unlawful manner or false story which we all could not expect and catch/understand in the court hearing, we were simply wrong? However, is it still worth writing some authorities re matter to stop the council to target someone like us and sue with the illegal entry and false information?

Thank you again.

The fact I provided all came out after the hearing. Before that there were some big questions to our lawyer: 1. if the Health Officer could made the secret entry when the business was off and the premises was closed with no one, 2. if the Health Service could sue us without giving us any warning and confirming that we have not complied at all. We gave these questions to our lawyer and his answer was 1.yes, they can make an entry, and 2.yes, they can sue us without producing any warning. Then he was more keen to discover what our fine would be and suggested us to plead guilty to avoid $20,000 over cost and a lot of time easily if we were to fight by pleading not guilty. Furthermore, even we were all curious why we were charged over 4 days, how could all we guess that the Health Service made up the story which sounds lawful and fair, over these days? It was for the first time revealed suddenly in the hearing, but the judge did not pay any attention and confirmed that it was not misinterpretation by their lawyer but clearly described in their statement. I think it is the result that they thought they could trick us easily for our language poorness. So even they lied to the Corruption and Crime Commission, as long as the hearing was over, the Health Service and their lawyer are socially acceptable and we always have to give up. Since I chose to live in this country, I met many nice kind people and I tried myself to be a part of the society. But this incident made me so disappointed. Of course it is not if they sued us in lawful and fair manner.

Sorry I needed to add this.

If we knew some conditions, do you think we had some chance to plead not guilty as follows?

1. In Health Act 1911 Section 349 The officer is not allowed to have an entry if the business is not being carried on.

2. If they can sue us unless they meet and give us warning first. Then if we don't comply, they could make decision to sue us.(legally not confirmed yet, but this is how the council made up the story to make it sound very lawful, it not necessary they did not need this story, maybe only with the evidence taken with us)