Senior police spoke of Lawyer X’s mental health in secret hearings

New documents reveal Lawyer X was highly stressed but at times thrilled at the prospect of bringing down her own gangland clients, which included Tony Mokbel’s drug cook, who declared his love for her.

Senior police, including former chief commissioner Simon Overland, spoke of Lawyer X’s “apparent psychological or psychiatric dysfunction” in secret hearings about her use as a police informer.

Documents released yesterday show that Victoria Police failed to adequately supervise Gobbo.

Police officially registered the high-profile defence barrister as an informer, for the third time in a decade, between 2005-09.

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Police handlers queried her mental health soon after her registration as Informer 3838.

Thousands of pages of confidential files now released depict Gobbo as highly stressed by her double agent role, sometimes paranoid, but at times thrilled to be helping to bring down her own clients.

She would ring her handlers up to nine times a day, at all hours. Her handlers and their superiors knew that Gobbo was consuming large amounts of medication throughout her informing years.

She suggested at one point that police bug her office to assist in her information gathering.

In 2015, Mr Overland told a secret inquiry headed by Justice Murray Kellam that Gobbo had “personality and attachment disorders” and was ‘pathologically incapable of acting in (her) own best interests”.

Lawyer x Nicola Gobbo

In his findings, Justice Kellam wrote: “However, all of such persons gave evidence that the Source was a difficult and apparently unstable person whose instability was reflected in an aberrant lifestyle and behaviour of which they were well aware …”

He spoke of “inconsistencies and dangers” of police allowing Gobbo to determine her own ethical responsibilities. Mr Kellam said the police officer had an “imperfect understanding of the meaning and ambit of legal professional privilege and confidential information”.

This conclusion is disputed by the handlers, who say they warned senior command of the ethical and legal concerns.

In 2006, in an internal risk assessment of her use as a human source, Gobbo was said to be motivated by a strong desire to rid herself of criminal elements, especially the Mokbel cartel. Her use as an informer was considered “both strategically and tactically viable”, despite her questioning the police handling of her information.

“If the Source decides that Police are not acting on the intelligence provided appropriately, a feeling of frustration may cause the Source to take unknown radical action in order to rid herself of contact with these people,” the risk assessment said.

The documents reveal that Gobbo blamed the onset of a stroke in 2004, aged 31, on heavy stress of associating with criminal clients.

She said in a 2017 affidavit that she was approached by two officers in 2005 while representing a Mokbel associate. She was at “breaking point” at the time.

Detective Sergeant Steve Mansell “said words to the effect, we know that you are in a difficult position in relation to Tony Mokbel”. She spoke of her fears of being murdered if her informing was revealed.

Gobbo felt “depressed” about her informing on Mokbel’s main drug cook, who cannot be named.

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He fell in love with her, and called her his “fiance” to criminal associates.

She was sad after he left her a movie, Leap of Faith, to watch, and she had bonded with his children.

He made amorous advances, she told police at the time, and she was advised “not to allow the relationship to develop for the sake of the handlers”.

“This is an issue for her only,” a handler reported.

Gobbo was concerned that her “c--- tease approach will not last much longer at keeping (The Cook) close”.

Yet three days later, he told her: “I love you.”

Former Victorian Police Commissioner Simon Overland spoke of Lawyer X’s “apparent psychological or psychiatric dysfunction” in secret hearings about her use as a police informer.

When The Cook was arrested in April, 2006, her conflicted emotions about betraying him had apparently lifted.

She was driving to the St Kilda Road Police Station, to represent The Cook and others, when she spoke to her handler: “3838 seems happy re arrests, and asked the question: ‘Who’s next’?”

After she finished as an official informer, Gobbo consulted psychiatrists and had surgeries to remove cancer.

The cancer diagnosis in 2010 followed 17 days in hospital the previous year. She was also diagnosed with a neuro-dermatological condition, said to be triggered by stress, for which she was also operated on.

She wore a wire against allegedly corrupt former police officer, Paul Dale, in late 2008 and later agreed to give evidence against him.

Clients asked her: “if you did it with him, how do I know you didn’t do it with me?”

She used “plausible deniability”, she said.

She told the clients: “If I really was an informer, would I be around? People like that go into witness protection.”

In 2017, she told a court: “I am extremely concerned about my personal safety and the safety of my children, and over the years have suffered extreme stress and anxiety in connection with risks in my life.”