Defence practitioners have sometimes found all their efforts to cast doubt on the occurrence of an offence washed away in a contest by s 55 of the Magistrates’ Court Act 1989. This provision allowed a Court, if not satisfied of the indictable offence charged, to find in the alternative an offence of attempting to commit that same indictable offence.

The provision has been reenacted in the new Criminal Procedure Act 2009, and is now tucked away in Division 8, at s 76.