Nicola Gobbo says she doesn’t feel guilty over Lawyer X scandal
She’s triggered a royal commission and stands accused of perverting the course of justice and gross breaches of her legal professional duties, but Nicola Gobbo says she does not feel guilty.
VIC News
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Lawyer X has been accused of perverting the course of justice, burglary, obtaining financial advantage by deception and gross breaches of her legal professional duties but the former gangland barrister says “she does not feel particularly guilty.”
Nicola Gobbo, who sparked a royal commission after she spent four years snitching to police about her clients, says she also feels like she is being punished.
Gobbo’s legal team presented a series of medical reports to back up their application that she was too unwell to give evidence at the Lawyer X Royal Commission.
Gobbo’s doctors say she suffers from anxiety, depression and acute stress and cries herself to sleep most night.
The mother of two filled out a survey as part of a mental health assessment rating from zero to three how she was feeling.
She rated a zero and said that she “does not feel particularly guilty” but ticked a three when asked about punishment feelings, saying: “I feel I am being punished.”
Gobbo said she feels sad all the time and her future seems hopeless. She reported feeling “utterly worthless”, has trouble making decisions and doesn’t have energy to do anything. Gobbo’s survey score shows she was suffering from severe depression. It also says she is suffering from moderate anxiety.
A physician who treated Gobbo since 2010 said the barrister was in a “parlous state” and she has deteriorated in overall function since 2019 due to the “trauma suffered at the hands of Victoria Police.”
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“She ruminates about her loss of motivation and energy, her anger at the police and her poor mental health,’’ the doctor said in a report to the commission.
“It takes her two hours to sleep herself as she turns over and over her situation in her mind.”
Another said she was in a “vicious cycle of despair and emotional paralysis” and had entered a stage of “therapeutic nihilism.”
Commissioner Margaret McMurdo accepted that Gobbo suffered from the conditions but was not satisfied they were a reasonable excuse from her giving evidence.
She gave Gobbo until November 18 to provide a written statement to the commission and her application to be excused from the hearing would be determined later that month.