Lawyer X on $2.9m payout: ‘There must be some very serious concern high up’
Lawyer X, in an extraordinary interview with the Herald Sun in 2014, says she won a $2.9m taxpayer-funded payoutfrom Victoria Police because senior officers were “very worried” she would reveal how they had used her.
Crime in Focus
Don't miss out on the headlines from Crime in Focus. Followed categories will be added to My News.
Lawyer X won a $2.9 million taxpayer-funded payout from Victoria Police because senior officers were “very worried” that she would reveal how they had used her.
The secret payout deal Lawyer X said she negotiated in 2010 also included an agreement from then deputy commissioner Simon Overland not to force her to be a witness in any future prosecution.
Lawyer X would subsequently be withdrawn as a witness in the prosecution of former officer Paul Dale, who had been charged with lying to the Australian Crime Commission.
LAWYER X PT 3: THE MAN IN THE GOLDEN COFFIN
LAWYER X PT 2: THE BETRAYAL OF THE HODSONS
MURDERED DEFENCE LAWYER ALSO TALKED TO PURANA
In an extraordinary interview with the Herald Sun in April 2014 — which the paper has been legally banned from publishing until now — the high-profile gangland barrister was asked how she was able to negotiate the lucrative payout.
“There must be some very serious concern high up … there must be some people that are very worried,” she said.
Asked if Mr Overland had signed off on the deal promising that she would never be called in a criminal trial, Lawyer X said: “Well, I’m not going to reveal the confidential content of the settlement but I wouldn’t argue with that proposition.”
Lawyer X also complained then that she was being harassed by police not to talk about the scandal, saying: “I don’t want anything to do with police … as of a couple of years ago, to be honest.”
Asked whether she would publicly reveal “how police treated” her “at the top echelon”, she said: “I would have a lot to say and I am talking to my lawyers at the moment about when the right time is to do that and in which forum.
“I’ve got a daughter … and they (children) take priority. You cannot control things you cannot control.”
The interview with Lawyer X was conducted days after the Herald Sun firstexposed the scandal.
But it could not be published at the time after Victoria Police engaged lawyers to stop the revelation of significant details, citing concerns for Lawyer X’s safety.
Despite the unprecedented censorship, the Herald Sun’s revelations nevertheless prompted the Independent Broad-based Anti-Corruption Commission to launch an inquiry into the police force’s handling of Lawyer X.
In another conversation with the Herald Sun, which took place during the IBAC investigation, Lawyer X made the incredible claim that she had been sent bullets inside an envelope which bore the address of the police centre.
She speculated that it had been delivered by someone from within the police force, in an attempt to frighten her into silence.
During that period, Lawyer X said she was called to the police HQ one day to deal with what she thought would be a routine matter and was met by a very senior ranking officer.
She claimed she was told she had been categorised as being at the highest level of danger, and that unless she accepted police protection they would seek to put her child in care. But she still refused.
Lawyer X’s fraught informer relationship with police unravelled completely in 2009, after she wore a wire in a sting operation against former police officer Paul Dale, who was suspected of ordering the 2004 murder of drug dealer and police informer Terence Hodson and his wife Christine.
Lawyer X was then deregistered as an informer so she could give evidence against Dale, despite the concerns of the Source Development Unit that the secret scheme would be exposed, risking her safety.
Lawyer X said that when she was named in open court as a witness she feared for her life, and changed her mind.
The case against Dale collapsed after Carl Williams — who had claimed he helped the former police officer to arrange the Hodson killing — was himself bludgeoned to death in jail in 2010.
Dale was then charged with lying to the Australian Crime Commission, on the grounds that his recorded conversation with Lawyer X contradicted his statements to the ACC. She feared her role as a secret informer would be exposed if she had to give evidence against Dale on the ACC charges.
In 2009, she had demanded $20 million to testify in the murder trial against Dale.
She then sued Victoria Police for that sum for ruining her career, because she had been outed for wearing a wire to record Dale.
In a confidential settlement, Lawyer X ultimately received a $2.9 million payout.
Many charges against Dale had been dropped after Lawyer X was withdrawn as a witness against him, and the former officer was later acquitted of lying to the ACC.
In her first 2014 interview with the Herald Sun about the 2010 saga, Lawyer X claimed that police had taken “short cuts” in their handling of her, and there had been concerns expressed at the “highest level” of Victoria Police about the situation.
Lawyer X also claimed to the Herald Sun in early 2014 that she had had a sexual relationship with a key police figure who had had oversight of the informer handler unit.
The senior officer, who had suddenly left the force in 2013, vehemently denied any affair.
IBAC’s February 2015 findings that police “negligence” and “failings” in its informer program “had the potential to have adversely affected the administration of justice in Victoria” led the state’s then Director of Public Prosecutions to review criminal cases involving people who had been represented by Lawyer X.
The following year, the DPP sought to alert criminals that their cases might have been tainted.
This prompting police command to launch a secret battle — which went all the way to the High Court — to prevent those letters from going out.
But on Monday, when the High Court decision to allow at least 20 such letters to be sent to convicted criminals was made public — along with its scathing ruling that the police force’s use of a lawyer to inform on her clients was “atrocious” and “reprehensible” — the full scale of the Lawyer X scandal could finally be revealed.
The stunning development also led the Andrews Government to establish a $7.5 million royal commission to examine what has been described as one of the biggest legal scandals in Australia’s legal history.
Drug lords Tony Mokbel and Rob Karam and killer Faruk Orman are among those who have already lodged appeals against their jail sentences, and several others are lining up to follow suit.
On Tuesday last week, days before the High Court ruling was revealed, Lawyer X attended a picnic at a kindergarten in which she has been involved.
PT 1: HOW LAWYER X SHAPED MELBOURNE’S GANGLAND WAR
HOW TIME VALIDATED GANGLAND LAWYER’S HUNCH
OVERLAND CRUSHED LAWYER X CRITICS — POLICE INSIDERS
INSIDERS: LAWYER X WAS ‘MANIPULATIVE MASTERMIND’
MAFIA BOSS’S LAST BID TO OVERTURN ECSTASY CONVICTION
ROBERTA: LAWYER X TOLD CARL TO FLEE OVERSEAS
ROBERTA’S LAST-MINUTE BID TO SAVE CARL’S HOUSE
FAT TONY’S BIG BASH: LAST DRINKS BEFORE ARRESTS
TONY MOKBEL: I WAS URGED TO FLEE
SECRET FILES ‘KEPT FROM IBAC SCRUTINY’
DRUG LORD LEADS CHARGE FOR RELEASE OVER SCANDAL
ESCAPING ‘MOKBEL CARTEL’ DROVE LAWYER X TO TURN SNITCH
Originally published as Lawyer X on $2.9m payout: ‘There must be some very serious concern high up’
Shock link between UK child killer and Aussie bishop stabbing
The teen who murdered three little girls at a Taylor Swift-themed dance class in England had searched for material on the stabbing of a Sydney bishop.
New law to block legal challenge to AN0M sting
New laws will prevent any legal challenge to one of Australia’s most successful covert stings in organised crime using the encrypted AN0M application.