Paul Dale tells royal commission cops ‘allowed’ informant to sell drugs on the street
Drug dealer and informer Terry Hodson was greenlighted by police to sell 5000 ecstasy tablets on the street, according to a statement made to the Lawyer X royal commission by Paul Dale.
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An informer was greenlighted by police to sell 5000 ecstasy tablets on the street, according to a statement made to the Lawyer X royal commission.
Former police officer Paul Dale, who is due to take the stand at the commission today, says drug dealer and police informer Terry Hodson was allowed to sell the drugs after buying them as part of a police sting in the early 2000s.
“During one particular drug investigation, Terry Hodson purchased 5000 ecstasy tablets with $20,000 of his own money and had them at his house,” Mr Dale says in a draft statement due to be lodged with the commission today.
“The MDID (drug squad) did not have the budget to reimburse Hodson. And, as Hodson had used his own money to make the buy, we were told to allow Hodson to sell the drugs.
“This shocked me, as 5000 ecstasy tablets was a large commercial quantity and would have been considered one of the largest drug seizures at that time in Victoria.”
The commission has collected 33 large boxes of evidence from the Wangaratta home of Dale, who was one of Hodson’s police handlers.
Another of his handlers, corrupt officer Dave Miechel, is also to give evidence today.
In late 2003, Hodson implicated Dale and Miechel in the burglary of an Oakleigh house containing drugs, which the police crew had been watching.
The following May, Hodson and his wife Christine were executed in their Kew home.
Barrister Nicola Gobbo, the police informer Lawyer X, had provided Hodson with legal advice after police approached her and suggested she contact his family so they could speak with him.
Hodson began co-operating with the force shortly after meeting Gobbo.
Dale says in his draft statement that Gobbo — who was also giving him legal advice — told him Hodson was co-operating with Ethical Standards officers over the burglary.
“I recall her telling me they had both met with her to discuss what Terry Hodson could do to help himself with the Ethical Standards Department members,” he says.
“I recall her telling me that both Terry and Andrew (his son) were very heavily drug and alcohol-affected at the time.”
Gobbo was later suspected of having helped leak to her client, drug lord Tony Mokbel, details of Hodson’s activity as a police informer, before Hodson was executed.
Dale was charged with Hodson’s murder in 2009, but the case collapsed after crime figure Carl Williams — who made a statement against Dale — was bashed to death in jail.
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The burglary case against Dale collapsed after Hodson died. But Miechel, caught at the scene, got 15 years’ jail.
Dale is expected to detail Gobbo’s closeness to officers and accuse police of perverting the course of justice.
In his draft statement, he recalls one occasion: “We’d all had a lot to drink when Nicola offered to drive us to the casino … though we were aware she’d been drinking excessively, a number of us squashed into her convertible Mercedes Benz coupe … From that night on I felt I’d built a rapport with Nicola.”
And of a Christmas party in 2002-03, Dale recalls: “I saw Nicola at a bar in the city where the legal fraternity were having their Christmas breakup drinks. She was very drunk, very loud and the centre of attention … Larger than life. Long blonde hair, short shirts, short tops, with plenty of breast showing.”