Lawyer X: Chief Commissioner Graham Ashton under spotlight

Victoria’s top cop Graham Ashton will be under the spotlight over the force’s use of ­informers after a revelation that six people, including Lawyer X, breached “obligations of confidentiality” to clients in order to assist police.

Victoria’s top cop Graham Ashton faces intense scrutiny about the force’s use of ­informers after the revelation that six people, including Lawyer X, breached “obligations of confidentiality” to clients in order to assist police.

In a separate revelation, the Herald Sun has been told that a paper trail documenting the use of Lawyer X leads to the Victorian Government Solicitor’s Office.

The Lawyer X royal commission, which begins its hearings next Friday, is expected to scrutinise Mr Ashton’s knowledge of ­informers with confidentiality obligations.

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Victoria Police on Friday declined to answer whether any had been used during his current term as Chief Commissioner.

Victoria Police Chief Commissioner Graham Ashton. Picture: AAP Image/Ellen Smith

Lawyer X’s use by police was described as “reprehensible conduct” by the High Court.

Her police handlers, as well as the head of the police’s legal services department, Findlay McRae, have expressed fears within law and order circles that they will be “scapegoated” as a result of the scandal.

It is also understood that ­investigations may focus on the Office of Public Prosecutions and whether it knew of Lawyer X’s informing.

“Every single thing we did, touched or thought about was written down,” said a well-placed police source.

“There (were) moments in time when you think, ‘Wow, could someone think this is conspiracy to pervert or something else like that?’ and we would go get advice.

“If they think we went rogue somewhere, well, it was all covered. That’s a fact.”

The Herald Sun understands that in 2004-05, Mr Ashton — in his then role with the Office of Police Integrity — asked questions about Lawyer X and her activities soon after the killings of police ­informers Christine and Terry Hodson.

Christine and Terry Hodson.

Lawyer X was Terry Hodson’s lawyer. Investigators later linked her as a go-­between for another client, Carl Williams, and Paul Dale, an allegedly corrupt detective later charged (in an aborted case) over the Hodson deaths.

It is not known whether Mr Ashton was aware at the time that Lawyer X was an informer who had passed information to the anti-gangland Purana taskforce soon after its inception in 2003.

It is understood that the ethical standards department was not informed of Lawyer X’s status in 2004. Nor was the homicide squad, which investigated the murders and interviewed Lawyer X in its probe.

Victoria Police has conceded that a record-keeping oversight meant that Lawyer X’s registration as an official informer in 1995 — a decade earlier than had been stated until this week — had been overlooked.

Neil Comrie.

After an internal review into her use conducted in about 2012 by former chief commissioner Neil Comrie, he warned of a perception that some convictions might be claimed as unsafe because of Lawyer X’s use.

For reasons unknown, the use of other informers with confidentiality obligations to their clients did not surface.

On Friday, former chief commissioner Kel Glare criticised the police decision to use a defence barrister as an informer. “Clearly Lawyer X was in breach of her duty to the law,” he said. “She ought not to have become an informer.

“Police made a mistake in using her and encouraging her, and I think that was bad ­management. I think they ought to have anticipated that at some time the proverbial would hit the fan.”

Kel Glare, former Victorian police commissioner, has criticised the police decision to use a defence barrister as an informer.

Former chief commissioner Simon Overland is considered the architect of Lawyer X’s use. He and Lawyer X are said to have held meetings at Kew Golf Club.

A former director of public prosecutions, John Champion, has said he had no knowledge of Lawyer X until he received an Independent Broad-based Anti-corruption Commission report on the issue in 2015.

The IBAC inquiry was ­triggered by a Herald Sun ­investigation in 2014.

Mr McRae, not a sworn officer, replaced Luke Cornelius as head of the force’s legal services in 2007. Mr Cornelius, now an assistant commissioner, served on two steering committees of operations that used Lawyer X as an informer, alongside Mr Ashton.

On Friday, Premier Daniel Andrews said he had faith in Mr Ashton, who said in ­December that he believed his officers had acted in “good faith”. Mr Ashton later told the Herald Sun he did not ­believe any officers, including himself, had committed any criminal or disciplinary offences.

Victoria Police said it would be inappropriate to comment.

Mr Glare said: “I think ­Graham Ashton in this instance is something of a victim. He has inherited something that he may not have been completely aware of.”

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Originally published as Lawyer X: Chief Commissioner Graham Ashton under spotlight