Glamorous lawyer is charged after allegedly lying to cops after her Land Rover was involved in police chase
A young lawyer has been charged in relation to 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 seen driving erratically in the tunnel, which runs under the city’s Yarra River, on February 26.
The grey Land Rover SUV is alleged to have failed to stop and fled police at the Burnley exit at 1pm on that date, the Herald Sun reported.
The 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 that time.
He was arrested in April and is accused of saying he was driving, before later admitting he had not been.
The man told the police he had been asked to say he was the driver by a 25-year-old Lalor woman who police will allege is Badour-Taha.
‘Investigators will allege the 25-year-old Lalor woman recruited the 23-year-old Reservoir man to nominate himself for a driving offence 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 allegedly seen driving dangerously on February 26
The alleged driver of the car on the day has been identified by highway patrol as a 31-year-old man from Wheelers Hill.
Officers from the VIPER Taskforce carried out warrants on properties in Lalor, Reservoir, Blackburn and Bayswater North as part of their investigations.
The 22-year-old Box Hill woman and the 31-year-old Wheelers Hill man have been charged with attempting to pervert 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 at Melbourne Magistrates Court on Thursday on an unrelated matter.
They are alleged to have submitted false documents to a court asserting that a client was in hospital when they should have been appearing before a magistrate.
A man told the police he had been asked to say he was the driver by a 25-year-old Lalor woman who police will allege is Badour-Taha (pictured)
They sought an adjournment of that case to December while police prepare a brief of evidence, the Herald Sun reported.
Prosecutor Anne-Marie Stephanides said computers belonging to the legal firm were still being investigated.
‘There are a significant number of documents in the computer analysis that may become relevant,’ she told the court.
