Lawyer X snitching continued for years longer than thought
Shocking new documents revealing the full extent of Lawyer X’s snitching have been uncovered. The discovery alters the timeline of the rogue barrister’s meddling in Victoria’s legal system.
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Documents revealing Nicola Gobbo’s snitching continued for years after top police ordered it to stop have been discovered.
The Herald Sun understands Victoria Police has found a new tranche of informer files relating to the gangland barrister, dubbed Lawyer X, which were handed over to the Lawyer X Royal Commission today.
Information the commission has received will reveal intelligence from Gobbo, who was deregistered as “Human Source 3838’’ in 2009, continued to flow in the subsequent years.
Gobbo was deregistered as an informer on the orders of then police deputy commissioner Simon Overland.
But despite those orders, the intelligence continued to flow.
The force’s barrister, Saul Holt QC, told the commission that Victoria Police had discovered four information reports while undertaking a task for a federal authority.
The intelligence was gained from Gobbo in February, 2012. It was then disseminated, including to the federal authority.
On Thursday last week, an analyst from the taskforce delving through the documents, codenamed Landow, found the intelligence while dealing with a request from the Australian Federal Police.
One of the information reports relates to information effecting one of her clients, Rob Karam.
Karam is currently serving 37 years in prison over massive drug importations, including the Tomato Tins import.
Although police were aware of the documents it was not verified that Gobbo had been the informer who provided it.
The new ‘’information reports’’ are expected to be delivered to the commission today.
Mr Holt said inquiries were ongoing as to why an incorrect assessment to those documents were initially made.
Gobbo was taken out of the force’s secretive informer program after she was turned into a witness in the murder case of Terry Hodson and his wife Christine.
During this period she was assigned to the Petra taskforce, which was primarily investigating the double murder in which corrupt police involvement was suspected.
Petra taskforce investigators also took information from Gobbo regarding other criminal activity.
The Herald Sun revealed last year that years before Gobbo was turned into a witness, she had tipped-off the force about a massive ecstasy haul in 2007, known as the “Tomato Tins’’ bust.
She photocopied and sent police the shipping document known as the Bill of Lading as the ship MV Monica was en route to Melbourne.
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Years later, as those charged over the “Tomato Tins’’ ecstasy importation were being prosecuted, Gobbo was involved in the defence of several of the accused.
She was later suspected by her peers of informing on those clients.
The new tranche of documents comes after ongoing frustrations between the commission and Victoria Police have been ventilated about the delays in disclosing information the force has in its intelligence holdings.
Chief Commissioner Graham Ashton in July said that Victoria Police was spending $1.5 million a month finding, reviewing and handing over documentation spanning decades to the commission.