Sir Ken Jones fronts Lawyer X royal commission, slams ‘toxic’ Victoria Police culture
Sir Ken Jones once thought Victoria Police was the best force he’d ever seen. But he’s revealed that he was “terrified” and had his reputation left in tatters after reporting his concerns about the use of Lawyer X, Nicola Gobbo.
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A former top cop has slammed Victoria Police’s culture of blind loyalty and internal rivalry as distasteful, toxic and wrong, a royal commission has heard.
Sir Ken Jones has taken to the witness stand to blow the lid on the force’s attempt to cover up their use of gangland lawyer Nicola Gobbo as an informer.
Sir Ken, one-time deputy commissioner to Simon Overland, said he believed the Lawyer X scandal “began as something highly irregular and unethical and deteriorated … into something illegal and chaotic”.
Sir Ken told the Royal Commission he initially viewed the local police model as “the best he’d ever seen”.
But as he got nearer to the centre, he realised there was a very powerful bureaucracy at play, Sir Ken said.
“There was a strong culture to loyalty, your supervisor, boss … I thought that was wrong and toxic,” he said.
Sir Ken said he was unaware of Gobbo’s “parallel and secret life” with police when he first joined the force in early 2009.
But in the weeks following Carl William’s jailhouse murder in April 2010, he tasked detectives investigating the murder to start digging.
“It became more and more shocking to me,” Sir Ken said. “The scales began to fall from my eyes.”
And the ousted former top cop said Victoria Police attempted to “discredit and silence” him after he reported his concerns about the use of Gobbo — the force’s prized source.
“It worked, we were terrified,” he said. “I was called to the chief commissioner’s office and was told to leave the building.”
The decorated UK police officer told the commission he was unable to secure work and his reputation was in tatters after he left the force in 2011.
He said many gangland investigators had also been kept in the dark about Gobbo’s double-dealing.
“They were in the fight with one hand tied behind their back,” he said.
Asked by the royal commission if there was any excuse for police using her as a source, Sir Ken said: “You’re investigating the taking of life and that just trumps everything.”
The former deputy commissioner said he immediately reported what he had learned to the State’s Ombudsman and sought advice from a senior judge in early 2011.
But he didn’t speak to his boss, then-Chief Commissioner Simon Overland because he believed he was too close to the scandal, Sir Ken told the commission.
“The Chief would’ve been conflicted … it needed an independent review. I did what I thought was the right thing and reported it,” he said.
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Sir Ken said he was ignored and sidelined after challenging senior command and was eventually forced out of Victoria Police in 2011.
He later learnt senior police had “high fived” each other after hearing he had left.
The decorated UK policeman said he and his family were left “completely, utterly humiliated” and left Australia just weeks later.
“My wife was in bits. It was disgusting what was done to us,” he said.
Sir Ken told the commission he was “targeted” for speaking out on a number of issues, including the use of Gobbo and his criticism of the police’s anti-corruption watchdog.
He believed the Office of Police Integrity (OPI) was anything but independent and set about seperating the two organisations shortly after being appointed as deputy police chief in 2009, the commission heard.
“The OPI were actually in lock step with Victoria Police and I thought that put them in a terrible position in terms of regulating Victoria Police,” he said.
“I think we wouldn’t be sitting here today if Victoria Police was effectively regulated,
“I think it’s as bloodstain as that,” he said.
He told the commission he believed he began getting the “cold shoulder” after the shake up and his relationship with high-ranking police continued to sour.
“It goes back to the culture of the expectation of you must be absolutely loyal to the hierarchy above all else, and I couldn’t go along with that,” he told the commission.
“I was inconvenient,” he said.
By May 2011, the relationship was so bad he found it impossible to work and resigned, he told the commission.