A young lawyer has been charged in connection with a police chase that started in Melbourne’s Domain Tunnel.
Rachelle Badour-Taha, 25, has been charged by the VIPER Taskforce over the attempted interception of a car allegedly driving erratically in the tunnel, which runs under the city’s Yarra River, on February 26.
The gray Land Rover SUV is said to have failed to stop at 1pm on that date and fled police at the Burnley exit. Herald Sun reported.
Victorian police will allege the vehicle’s owner, a 22-year-old woman from Box Hill, later said a 23-year-old Reservoir man was driving the car at the time.
He was arrested in April and is accused of driving, before later admitting he wasn’t.
The man told police he had been asked to say he was the driver of a 25-year-old woman from Lalor, who police allege is Badour-Taha.
“Investigators will allege that the 25-year-old Lalor woman recruited the 23-year-old Reservoir man to present himself for a driving offense committed by another person,” Victoria Police said in a statement.
Badour-Taha is one of four people charged with attempting to pervert the course of justice in the case.
Rachelle Badour-Taha (pictured) has been charged by the VIPER Taskforce over the attempted interception of a car that was allegedly driving dangerously on February 26.
The alleged driver of the car that day has been identified by highway patrol as a 31-year-old man from Wheelers Hill.
Officers from the VIPER Taskforce executed search warrants on properties in Lalor, Reservoir, Blackburn and Bayswater North as part of their investigation.
The 22-year-old Box Hill woman and 31-year-old Wheelers Hill man have been charged with attempted perverting the course of justice and dangerous driving while pursued by police.
The new charges come as Badour-Taha and her ZD Legal colleague Zoe Davis appeared in the Melbourne Magistrates Court on Thursday on an unrelated matter.
They allegedly submitted false documents to the court claiming that a client was in hospital when he should have appeared before the magistrate.
A man told police he was asked to say he was the driver by a 25-year-old woman from Lalor, who police claim is Badour-Taha (pictured)
They asked for the case to be postponed until December while police prepared a summary of evidence Herald Sun reported.
Prosecutor Anne-Marie Stephanides said the law firm’s computers were still being investigated.
“There are a significant number of documents in the computer analysis that could become relevant,” she told the court.