Victoria Police warned the Director of Public Prosecutions against using term ‘Lawyer X’
The desperate lengths Victoria Police went to in order to keep the Nicola Gobbo scandal secret have been exposed, with high-level correspondence revealing it tried to stop the Director of Public Prosecutions from even using the term “Lawyer X”.
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Victoria Police was so desperate to keep the Nicola Gobbo informer scandal under wraps that force commanders warned the Director of Public Prosecutions not to even use the term “Lawyer X”.
The high-level correspondence that exposes the force’s legal manoeuvres to try to keep the scandal secret between 2014 and 2018 is contained in thousands of Supreme Court documents relating to the case, unsealed this year.
They reveal that Director of Public Prosecutions John Champion in 2016 tried to tell seven criminals that their convictions might have been “unsafe” due to police using Gobbo as an informer.
But Deputy Commissioner Shane Patton warned him that court suppression orders prohibited him even using the term “Lawyer X”.
“I would discourage you from using the term Lawyer X in any further correspondence,” Mr Patton said in a letter to Mr Champion.
As police fought to stop him alerting criminals, documents released by the Supreme Court reveal the force rejected his request for criminals’ contact details.
Mr Champion had told police it was his duty to inform the criminals about potential issues with their convictions after a probe by the Independent Broad Based Anti-Corruption Commission (IBAC) found force negligence “had the potential to have adversely affected the administration of justice in Victoria”.
The documents further expose how Victoria Police pressured IBAC to remove a reference to the “Lawyer X matter” from a 2014 media release.
Gobbo herself sent a text message to a police contact in March 2015 demanding then Chief Commissioner Ken Lay outline to Premier Daniel Andrews the danger she faced if the IBAC report was released.
MORE LAWYER X:
WHY DID GOBBO HAVE SECRET MEETING WITH CARL’S KILLER?
THE SECRET ALIASES OF NICOLA GOBBO
WILLIAMS’ ALARM OVER ‘DOG’ LAWYER X WAS IGNORED
“I see the Premier is still publicly saying he wants the IBAC report to be made public — could you please ask the Chief Commissioner of Police to write to him or tell him that I will be killed if it is made public? Or if he won’t then I will ring him myself,” Gobbo said, according to an affidavit from Senior Sergeant Ralph Taylor.
IBAC ultimately kept the detail of its report confidential, with Mr Andrews saying he had concerns over the secrecy and “we want to be properly briefed”.