Serious Indictable Offences

Collins Chambers conducts the defence of the most serious indictable matters in Victoria: homicide, attempted murder, offences involving serious injury, culpable driving causing death, and commercial drug importation, trafficking, and cultivation.

These matters are heard in the Supreme Court and County Court of Victoria and are typically prosecuted by the Office of Public Prosecutions or the Commonwealth Director of Public Prosecutions.

Serious indictable work is won or lost in preparation. The firm’s approach begins with a complete command of the prosecution case — the brief of evidence, the forensic material, the telecommunications and financial records, the witness statements and their inconsistencies — before any strategic decision is made. Committal proceedings, pre-trial applications, disclosure disputes, and the admissibility of evidence are treated as substantive stages of the defence, not procedural formalities.

Counsel is briefed early and deliberately. The firm maintains close working relationships with the senior criminal bar, and the selection of counsel is made for the matter, not from habit. Where expert evidence is required — forensic pathology, toxicology, digital forensics, accounting — the firm engages experts of standing and integrates their work into the defence from the outset.

The partners of the firm have conducted numerous matters of significant public profile, including murder trials, large-scale drug prosecutions, and matters attracting sustained media attention. Where a matter is likely to attract publicity, the firm advises on the management of that dimension as part of the defence, not separately from it. Every serious indictable matter at Collins Chambers is conducted personally by a partner. Prospective clients, or their advisers, may contact the firm directly. Matters of this kind benefit from engagement at the earliest