Lawyer X was registered as a police informer a decade earlier than thought, six informers to be probed
The explosive Lawyer X royal commission will officially begin with its first public hearing on Friday next week. It comes after the Herald Sun revealed six police informers would be investigated by the commission.
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The Lawyer X royal commission on Thursday called for public submissions from anyone with “concerns about their dealings” with her, either as a lawyer or informer.
Commission chair Margaret McMurdo said on Thursday: “Input from individuals, particularly those who may have been directly affected by (Lawyer X’s) conduct, is essential to the Royal Commission’s inquiry.”
LAWYER X:
But amid a continuing ban on her identity being revealed, the royal commission was unable to name the person it is seeking submissions about.
Convicted criminals, including Tony Mokbel and some syndicate members of the Tomato Tins ecstasy bust — who collectively received more than 300 years in prison — could make submissions because they were represented by Lawyer X.
The scope of the royal commission will swell after Victoria Police admitted on Wednesday Lawyer X had been an informer for 10 years longer than had been previously disclosed, due to “shortcomings in record keeping”.
A single piece of paper confirming her 1995 informer status, when she was still a Melbourne University student, was recently uncovered in a police archive.
The inquiry will also investigate the use of five other police informers who had “obligations of confidentiality”.
Victoria’s legal fraternity was awash with rumours as to their identities on Thursday.
The royal commission will officially begin next Friday, though witnesses won’t be called before mid-March.
Lawyer X has said she will testify, while it is understood former chief commissioner Simon Overland, believed to have been key in driving her informing. will also be subpoenaed to appear.
A secure online submission portal will open on February 18, three days after Commissioner McMurdo and counsel assisting Chris Winneke, QC, make their opening statements.
Lawyer X was registered less than two years after a 1993 police raid on her Carlton home uncovered methamphetamines valued at $82,000.
It had already been revealed Lawyer X was an official informer from September 2005, soon after a gruesome run of gangland killings. Over the next four years, according to the Director of Public Prosecutions, Lawyer X appeared in 304 hearings for 143 individuals charged with crimes.
Yet questions about the timing — and motivation — for Lawyer X’s informing have been clouded since 2014, when the Herald Sun broke what has now been labelled Australia’s biggest ever legal scandal.
The Herald Sun understands Lawyer X assisted drug squad detectives in the late 1990s. Many officers from that department were jailed over their misuse of a controversial program, called the Chemical Diversion Desk, which involved Victoria Police selling precursor chemicals to illicit drug manufacturers.
A police officer who knew Lawyer X and introduced her to a higher-ranking drug squad detective — who later went to jail — is believed to have been important in her informing.
Lawyer X told the Herald Sun in 2014 that years earlier she’d had an affair with the police officer, a claim he denied. He was subjected to inaccurate gossip that he had fathered her child.
About a decade after the alleged affair, he sat on police steering committees that oversaw her use and supervision.
At the turn of the millennium, Lawyer X worked for solicitor Alex Lewenberg, whose clients, including the Mokbels and John Higgs, were later convicted of major drug offences.
She said in the Supreme Court in 2017 that she acted out of “altruism”. She also wanted “the Mokbel Monkey” off her back. She said she was depressed and hoping to get hit by a tram or car when she was approached to inform.
Her evidence to the Supreme Court in 2017 states she unofficially informed to Purana after the anti-gangland taskforce’s inception in 2003. She was re-registered as Informer 3838 two years later.
Another version of events, put to the Herald Sun, says Lawyer X was compelled to become an informer after she and another solicitor were recorded in conversations about drug trafficking in the early 2000s. Lawyer X has said she did not require a “get-out-of-jail card” but she did fear she could be charged as an accessory because clients had told her about crimes.
The royal commission is required to file an initial report by July 1.
MORE POLICE INFORMERS REVEALED
Six police informers will be investigated by the Lawyer X royal commission, the Herald Sun can reveal.
Several mob-boss clients of Lawyer X are now lining up to join drug lords Tony Mokbel and Rob Karam in appealing their convictions due to her informing, while others will also challenge being deported.
Attorney-General Jill Hennessy on Wednesday revealed Lawyer X was registered with the force in 1995, a decade earlier than police had previously told Victoria’s peak anti-corruption body and the Supreme Court.
Ms Hennessy also announced further informers with “obligations of confidentiality” — believed to be lawyers — had been unearthed.
The six registered informers, including Lawyer X, will be scrutinised by a significantly expanded royal commission, with convictions of scores of criminals in jeopardy.
The Herald Sun first reported in 2014 that police had recruited Lawyer X to inform on her clients, later revealing several, including Mokbel and Karam, were appealing jail terms.
Police registered Lawyer X as an informer while she was still a university student, less than two years after a raid on her Carlton home in 1993 uncovered $82,000 of methamphetamine, as well as cannabis, stolen property and weapons.
We can also reveal:
LAWYER X has pledged to testify at the royal commission;
A SINGLE sheet of paper listing Lawyer X as a registered informer in 1995 was found in police archives, confirming previous Herald Sun reports that she had worked as a double agent since the 1990s;
ORGANISED criminals including Pasquale Barbaro, John Higgs, Saverio Zirilli and others involved in the “Tomato Tins” syndicate that imported 15 million ecstasy pills are close to launching appeals; and
MOB boss Frank Madafferi is also considering taking steps to demand police and legal files to avoid deportation.
WHY ROBERTA WILLIAMS DID NOT TRUST LAWYER X
HOW LAWYER X’S INFORMING BEGAN WITH DRUG ARREST
Embattled police on Wednesday blamed “shortcomings” in record-keeping for not previously identifying Lawyer X’s full history of informing, which could lead to dozens of criminal sentences being appealed.
In a statement, Victoria Police said the stunning revelation that Lawyer X was first registered as an informer in 1995 — instead of 2005 — came about “in the course of its work preparing for the royal commission”.
“This information had not previously been identified due to shortcomings in our record keeping practices related to informers in the mid-1990s,” a police spokesman said.
“These practices have since been comprehensively improved.”
EXPLAINER: THE NEW PIECES IN LAWYER X JIGSAW
HOW LAWYER X’S INFORMING BEGAN WITH DRUG ARREST
The revelation triggered the resignation of Malcolm Hyde, one of the two commissioners appointed by the Andrews Government to lead the inquiry, because he was a Victoria Police deputy chief in the 1990s and did not want a perception of a conflict of interest.
Ms Hennessy said she retained confidence in Chief Commissioner Graham Ashton, but could not say whether lawyers were still being used as informers today.
“I can’t speak to the contemporaneous nature of their activity or not … the royal commission will be investigating it,” Ms Hennessy said.
Asked why the information had not come to light earlier, Ms Hennessy said: “That’s really a question for Victoria Police.”
Ms Hennessy said the commission could advise other bodies about evidence it identified as it worked to “understand what the consequences might be”.
Royal commission chair Margaret McMurdo confirmed that she had received new information from Victoria Police about Lawyer X.
She said this had not caused “a direct conflict of interest” for Mr Hyde but that he was “concerned to avoid any adverse perceptions”, given he had worked at Victoria Police in the same period as Lawyer X had been an informer.
“I sincerely thank him for his contribution to the administration of the commission, for his integrity, and for his commitment to the best interests of the commission, the criminal justice system, and the public,” Commissioner McMurdo said.
She confirmed public submissions would soon be able to be made to the commission through its website.
Shadow Attorney-General Edward O’Donohue said the royal commission had turned into a “dog’s breakfast”.
He said Ms Hennessy needed to explain what due diligence they did in setting the terms of reference and appointing Commissioner Hyde, given how long he had worked for Victoria Police.
He said all residents of Victoria should have been precluded from serving as a commissioner.
“This is the test Jill Hennessy set herself and then she went and appointed a 30-year veteran of Victoria Police and was a resident of Victoria for most of his life,” he said.
Mr O’Donohue said while the opposition still supported Mr Ashton, the force command had serious questions to answer about the handling of its informer.
“Clearly there are questions to be answered and it is not satisfactory that we are in this position.”
Police had previously admitted using Lawyer X, who held privileged information about clients between 2005 and 2009.
It is understood informer records from the 1990s were kept on paper and put in a vault.
They were not accessible on any computerised system.
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