Lawyer X Royal Commission: Police erase speeding fines for snitch Nicola Gobbo
Gangland barrister turned police informer Nicola Gobbo racked up two speeding fines in 12 minutes as she was driving to a secret location to meet her handlers, so Victoria Police wiped the fines, a Lawyer X royal commission has heard.
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Victoria Police had two speeding fines wiped for its prized source Lawyer X, it was revealed on Friday.
Gangland barrister turned snitch Nicola Gobbo racked up the fines in 12 minutes as she was driving to a secret location to meet with her police handlers, the Lawyer X royal commission was told.
Gobbo feared she could lose her licence after she was clocked doing 78kmh in a 60kmh zone and 68kmh in a 60kmh zone on February 3, 2006.
Her handlers, with the approval of assistant commissioner Simon Overland, had the two tickets wiped.
In the application, they said Gobbo had provided relevant information about the movements of targets for the anti-gangland Purana Taskforce.
The application said if Gobbo lost her licence it would cause her difficulties in “achieving future results” and for the handlers to be able to task her.
Gobbo had only been a registered informer for five months but the handlers said she had already generated 107 intelligence reports on major drug traffickers.
Gobbo would go on to provide 5500 information reports on Melbourne’s underworld from 2005 to 2009.
A senior handler, who is giving evidence under the pseudonym Sandy White, told the Royal Commission into the Management of Police Informants that Gobbo got the fines when she was en route to a meeting with officers from his Source Development Unit.
“She was certainly not directed to exceed the speed limit,” Mr White said.
After the Lawyer X scandal broke in 2014, when the Herald Sun revealed a gangland barrister was a secret police double agent, a former senior officer from its traffic compliance department said it was a known practice for road offences to be withdrawn for criminals co-operating with police. He said Mr Overland was involved in having the incidents withdrawn.
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Also on Friday, one of the men jailed over one of the world’s largest ecstasy hauls, Jan “John” Visser, returned to the Court of Appeal to continue his bid for freedom over the Lawyer X scandal.
Gobbo represented Visser, who is serving an 11-year jail term for his involvement in the smuggling of more than 15 million ecstasy pills in tomato tins from Italy in 2007.
The court heard he was expected to learn in October if his petition of mercy had been granted, allowing him to forge ahead with his appeal.