Police officers involved in ‘criminal enterprise’ in Lawyer X scandal unmasked

Two police officers found by a court to be part of a “joint criminal enterprise” with Lawyer X to manipulate the justice system and put drug kingpin Tony Mokbel behind bars have lost a legal battle to keep their identities secret.

Former Purana taskforce squad boss Jim O’Brien, a key police officer involved in taking down Mokbel’s criminal empire, and Inspector Dale Flynn can be revealed as the two officers who fought to suppress the release of their names through the Court of Appeal.

Former Purana taskforce chief detective Jim O’Brien outside court in 2012.Credit: Angela Wylie

The Age was part of a group of media organisations that fought to have the officers’ identities revealed after they were found to have engaged in potentially criminal activity by Victoria’s Supreme Court last year.

The decision comes as the Director of Public Prosecutions said it would appeal some parts of a damning finding delivered by Justice Elizabeth Fullerton last November which found the officers had been involved in a “joint criminal enterprise” to pervert the course of justice when they used barrister-turned-informer Nicola Gobbo to bring down Mokbel.

Fullerton’s findings form part of the material being reviewed by the Court of Appeal as Mokbel attempts to have his final conviction overturned. His case is expected to be heard later this year.

The findings relate to a meeting at the St Kilda Road police station between Gobbo, four police officers, and a man known as Mr Cooper, who had been a drug cook for Mokbel’s syndicate.

In her judgment, Fullerton found that, on the balance of probabilities, the four officers had attempted to pervert the course of justice during the meeting with Gobbo and Mr Cooper.

Former lawyer and police informer Nicola Gobbo.Credit: ABC

An account of the encounter, during which O’Brien delivered a late-night pizza to the 14th-floor boardroom of the then-police headquarters to soften up Mr Cooper, was given in the findings of the Royal Commission into the Management of Police Informants.

The detectives, armed with confidential information provided by Gobbo, put the drug cook in touch with the barrister-turned-informant on the day of his arrest and persuaded him to turn on Mokbel, according to the commission’s findings.

No one is expected to be charged over the conduct, after former director of public prosecutions Kerri Judd, KC, found there was insufficient evidence to bring criminal charges against any police involved in the Gobbo matter.

Mr Cooper, who pleaded guilty to serious drug offences and served a lengthy stint in jail, provided more than 40 sworn statements to police about Mokbel, his associates and other gangland figures to become one of the most prolific criminal witnesses in the state’s history.

The officers unsuccessfully fought to have their identities suppressed last year, on the basis they had been deprived of procedural fairness as no one put to them during court proceedings in a preliminary appeal hearing for Mokbel allegations they had broken the law.

Their names were temporarily suppressed while they considered whether to take their fight to the High Court.

The Court of Appeal heard on Tuesday morning that the officers would not pursue a challenge in the High Court but wanted their identities to remain secret until a decision on the appeal launched by the Director of Public Prosecutions is made.

The appeal application focuses on three grounds, including that Fullerton erred in her finding that there was a joint criminal enterprise because the officers had been denied procedural fairness, and that there was no evidence to find that the officers had entered an agreement that Mr Cooper would be denied independent legal advice upon his arrest.

The officers’ lawyer, Renée Enbom, KC, argued the release of their identities would cause them damage “so severe that it cannot be undone” and destroy their reputations completely in circumstances where Fullerton’s findings may be overturned on appeal.

Enbom said the Director of Public Prosecutions had formed the view there was a reasonable prospect the appeal would succeed.

“It’s not hard to see why the director has formed the view that the director has formed,” she said.

However, lawyer Marcus Hoyne, representing The Age and other news outlets, argued damaging facts about a person’s reputation often came to light during legal proceedings and said the principle of open justice trumped the need to protect the officers.

Chief Justice Richard Niall and Court of Appeal President Justice Karin Emerton agreed with Hoyne’s submissions and denied the suppression order.

The Lawyer X case is the strongest indication yet that Mokbel, who was released on bail on April 4 after serving 18 years of a 30-year prison sentence behind bars, could succeed in having his convictions quashed.

Fullerton – a NSW judge who heard the case to avoid conflict-of-interest concerns in a scandal that has plagued the entire Victorian justice system for more than 15 years – described Gobbo’s role in the Lawyer X scandal as “a fundamental and deliberate breach of her ethical and [professional] obligations as a lawyer”.

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