Former detective Paul Dale gives evidence at Lawyer X royal commission
A former drug squad detective is set to take legal action against Victoria Police, saying the force “perverted the course of justice” by using his legally protected conversations Lawyer X to charge him with murder.
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A police officer once charged with burglary and murder is planning on suing the force for using Lawyer X against him.
Paul Dale says senior Victoria Police officers had “perverted the course of justice” by using his legally protected conversations with barrister-turned-informer Nicola Gobbo to charge him with murder.
Mr Dale told the Lawyer X royal commission he was “set up” by Gobbo at the behest of her “police handlers”.
He said it was a “privileged conversation” he’d had with Gobbo, which she taped and gave to Victoria Police, that led to him being charged with the murder of Terry Hodson and spending eight months in solitary confinement.
The inquiry heard Gobbo visited Mr Dale in prison when he was on remand for a burglary.
“She attends upon me on a legal professional visit to Port Philip prison where I hand her documents and she hands those documents straight over to Victoria Police,” Mr Dale said.
The former drug squad officer was on remand after he was charged with a burglary of a drug house on Grand Final night in 2003.
He was charged when his police informant, Terry Hodson, implicated Mr Dale in the Dublin St burglary. Mr Dale’s police partner, David Miechel, was also charged and was convicted after being caught at the burglary scene.
Eight months later, Hodson and his wife, Christine, were killed. Mr Dale was an early suspect in the murders.
Mr Dale said he was charged with Hodson’s murder after he had a professionally privileged conversation with Gobbo in 2008, which she taped and gave to Victoria Police to use as evidence.
“I spent eight months in solitary confinement because of a tape recording of a legally privileged conversation with a barrister,” he said.
He said his court appearances were a “debacle” as police tried to stop Gobbo’s informing role being uncovered. “They knew what they had done was seriously wrong,’’ Mr Dale said.
He said he kept thousands of documents hoping there would be a royal commission which would examine the Hodsons’ murder probe.
Mr Dale told the Herald Sun outside the commission hearings that he had spoken to his lawyer and flagged the idea of suing Victoria Police.
The Royal Commission into the Management of Police Informants had heard that in the weeks after the 2003 Dublin St burglary, Gobbo represented both Mr Dale and his key accuser, Mr Hodson.
Mr Dale even used the barrister to pass a message to his former informer before Mr Hodson was killed.
“We were very, very close, we met on an almost daily basis and been involved in some very dangerous situations,” Mr Dale said.
“His life was certainly in danger in a number of those investigations … I said ‘I can’t ring him but pass on my best wishes’.”
Mr Dale said Gobbo had told him the Dublin St house was connected to her other client, drug lord Tony Mokbel, who was upset about losing his product.
Charges against Mr Dale over the Dublin St burglary were dropped when the Hodsons were killed in 2004. The murder case against Mr Dale was withdrawn after Carl Williams was killed in prison in 2010. Williams was helping police over the murders.
Mr Dale said, along with her police handlers, Gobbo had “set him up” by calling Williams and putting him on the phone during a boozy night out at Crown casino.
“I was being set up to make it look like I had this unethical and unlawful relationship (with Williams),” he said, adding he had no doubt Gobbo made the calls at the behest of her police handlers.
“She was a very good police informer for a criminal barrister,” Mr Dale said.
Had he known she was an informer, he wouldn’t have gone near her with a “40-foot pole”.
CLAIMS INFORMER GIVEN ‘GREEN LIGHT’ TO SELL DRUGS
Senior police allowed an informer to buy and sell thousands of ecstasy pills on at least three occasions, a former drug squad officer has claimed.
Former drug squad detective Paul Dale said he was aware of as many as three times senior officers ‘green lit’ the buying and selling of commercial quantities of ecstasy by murdered drug dealer Terry Hodson.
Mr Dale told the Lawyer X royal commission that Detective Superintendent Anthony Biggin had told him to allow Hodson to sell thousands of pills he had purchased with his own money, during a drug a squad operation.
“He (Hodson) was using his own money on a number of different occasions, they didn’t have the budget to do those buys back then.”
Mr Dale said on one occasion Hodson bought 1000 pills, and another 3000 pills.
These were well above what Hodson was authorised to possess as an informer and he put a stop to the practice once he became Hodson’s handler, he said.
Mr Dale was later charged with Terry Hodson’s murder after Hodson implicated him in the burglary of a Tony Mokbel drug house in 2003. The charges against him were later withdrawn.
Barrister Nicola Gobbo said that the drugs and money belonged to her other client Tony Mokbel, he said.
“She said it was his money that was missing from the house, that it was his drugs and his money and that he is not too happy,’’ Mr Dale said.
Mr Dale earlier told the hearing he was “set up” by “corrupt senior members” of Victoria Police who had broken laws to get the outcome they wanted.
Mr Dale had earlier said senior police had broken the law when they used Gobbo against him.
Earlier in the morning, During his fiery testimony to the Lawyer X royal commission Mr Dale said senior police officers had perverted the cause of justice by using Gobbo as an informer.
Mr Dale also revealed the Police Association was paying for his legal team. Those solicitors are searching through thousands of documents Mr Dale was provided during his criminal matters.
His appearance comes just days after the Herald Sun revealed police plotted to use Gobbo to record her dealings with Hodson’s son, Andrew.
Hodson and his wife Christine were executed in their Kew home after he agreed to give evidence about a bungled burglary on a drug house in Oakleigh.
HOW GOBBO WAS EMBROILED IN GANGLAND FEUD
SECRET LAWYER X DIARIES REVEALED
Police investigating the Hodson slayings wanted Gobbo to report back to them on her conversations with Andrew Hodson who was a suspect at the time.
Gobbo had represented Andrew Hodson for several years and also advised his father after he was arrested over the drug house burglary.
— Sky News Australia’s two-part documentary, Lawyer X: The Untold Story, will air on Monday, July 22, and Tuesday, July 23.