Lawyer X commission warns Victoria Police it could be charged for failing to disclose 1000 documents
A frustrated royal commissioner has warned Victoria Police it could be charged after failing to disclose 1000 documents relevant to the Lawyer X hearing.
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Victoria Police has been warned it could be charged with an offence after failing to disclose documents relevant to the Lawyer X royal commission.
Royal Commissioner Margaret McMurdo said it was most “unsatisfactory” police had only now revealed they had discovered 1000 documents relevant to today’s witness, despite being issued a notice to produce them by January.
Ms McMurdo, who previously expressed her frustration with delays in police providing documents, told the force’s legal team it can be charged for not complying with the notice.
“Can I suggest that you — and those instructing you — remind your clients of this notice to produce?,” Ms McMurdo told Victoria Police’s barrister Justin Hannebery QC.
“And their obligations under it, which are ongoing, that it is an offence not to comply with it and that an agency of the crown can, under the inquiries act, be charged with the commission of an offence.”
It is an offence punishable by up to two years’ prison for failing to comply with a production to produce documents to an inquiry.
The Royal Commission said if a charge was issued it would be laid against Victoria Police but served on the chief commissioner’s office.
Chief commissioner Graham Ashton would not be charged personally.
Former drug squad detective Paul Dale had been in the witness box for four days when police revealed they had found the 1000 documents that related to Gobbo’s transition from a secret informer to a police witness against the former officer.
Gobbo was to give evidence against Mr Dale in his murder trial of police informer Terry Hodson and his wife Christine.
But the charges against the former officer were withdrawn after drug baron Carl Williams was killed in jail in 2010. Williams had implicated Mr Dale in the 2004 murders.
The commission was shown a transcript of a conversation Gobbo secretly recorded of Mr Dale after he was hauled before the Australian Crime Commission in 2008.
Mr Dale was charged with murder a few months after his conversation with Gobbo and the covert recording was in the brief of evidence.
But Mr Dale said the conversation was “legally privileged” as he sought Gobbo in her capacity as a high-profile barrister about the serious criminal matters the ACC quizzed him on.
He admitted he was initially unsure if he could speak to Gobbo about the ACC hearing, as divulging a witness appearance before the federal crime body was an offence.
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“She was aware she was wearing a wire and aware that she had been directed to gather as much information and evidence against me as she possibly can,” Mr Dale told the inquiry.
“I’m sitting there like a dead duck thinking I’m talking to a legal adviser and every time I’m hesitant about talking about the ACC, she gives me that comfort again, ‘It is OK, you are talking to a lawyer,’ she does it a number of times in the recording.”
The transcript showed Mr Dale believed Williams had provided a “very accurate” statement against him.
“Very accurate to the point of every single time we met, he seems to have documented it,” the transcript said.
“There were some things that came out that only him and me knew.”
Mr Dale said the ACC was trying to portray that he had a corrupt relationship with Williams, which he denies.
He said the more than hour-long conversation at the Starbucks with Gobbo jumped from legal advice to matters that weren’t privileged.
“I trusted her and believed she was working in my best interests. I was there seeking legal advice.”