No bail in ex-lawyer drug case

FORMER Gold Coast criminal lawyer Briana Ioannides could spend months behind bars after she was denied bail on fresh drugs charges at Southport Magistrates Court yesterday.

Ioannides was charged with eight new offences while in custody on Sunday after breaching bail last Monday.

The charges included possession and supply of drugs as well as possession of more than $2000 police will allege was from drug trafficking.

The court was told all offences were committed while Ioannides was on bail for other drug-related offences.

Magistrate Dermott Keogh said given Ioannides’s history, he could not be satisfied the defendant would not commit further offences while on bail.

“She has (compiled) ... a substantial record of noncompliance,” he said.

The court was told the 27- year-old Surfers Paradise local was supposed to report to police three times a week between 8am and 8pm but when she did not report on Monday last week, officers went to look for her.

The prosecution alleged nobody answered the door of the home Ioannides shares with her father when police arrived about 11.10pm.

But when they returned shortly after midnight to arrest the woman, Ioannides allegedly told officers she had been prescribed medication by a doctor she had seen about 6 o’clock that night which had knocked her out.

In court yesterday, the prosecution said they had heard from the doctor in question who said he had prescribed a “basic” painkiller at midnight which was unlikely to have knocked Ioannides out.

Regarding two bail breaches, Mr Keogh took into account Ioannides’s seven days in custody and convicted her without further punishment.