Lawyer X probe was ‘doomed from the start’

The special office set up to determine if criminal charges should be laid in the Lawyer X scandal was warned their investigation could be ­futile, according to a bombshell claim.

Whistleblowers in the special office set up to determine if criminal charges should be laid in the Lawyer X scandal say their probe was “doomed from the start”.

In bombshell claims, the furious whistleblowers say a year before she ruled out laying charges Victoria’s top prosecutor Kerri Judd told their boss she doubted the investigation would go anywhere.

The Office of Special Investigator, established by the state government in the wake of the Lawyer X royal commission, is being disbanded after its head, Justice Geoffrey Nettle, said it was now “a waste of time”.

Justice Nettle, a former High Court judge, resigned amid a feud with Ms Judd over her refusal to lay charges as a result of his work.

A special office was set up to determine if criminal charges should be laid in the Lawyer X scandal.

Now the Herald Sun can ­reveal that in May 2022 – more than a year ago and just months after the office had been set up – an exasperated Justice Nettle told his staff that Ms Judd had privately warned his investigations could be ­futile.

At the time she had seen a single draft brief, and refused to authorise the direct indictment of an individual for the offence of attempting to pervert the course of justice.

A senior OSI whistleblower claimed Ms Judd, the Director of Public Prosecutions, “expressed doubt we could get anywhere” despite just one brief having been prepared by that stage.

“Surely she should have kept an open mind,” one senior source said. “We were doomed from the start.”

In May 2022, an exasperated Justice Geoffrey Nettle told his staff that Ms Judd had privately warned him that his investigations could be ­futile.

A spokesman for Ms Judd on Monday rejected the ­assertion that she had ­expressed any view about the prospects of prosecutions ­referred to her by the OSI.

The whistleblowers also claim that senior justice officials – including a former top state prosecutor – refused to fully co-operate with investigators.

Former director of public prosecutions and Supreme Court judge Paul Coghlan, and former chief crown prosecutor Geoff Horgan, declined to be formally interviewed, OSI whistleblowers said.

Both men declined to sign statements, telling investigators they had nothing to add to their work, the OSI sources said. A sitting magistrate who at the time was another key public prosecutions figure also allegedly declined to make a statement.

The OSI was set up – at a cost of $20m – after the Lawyer X royal commission recommended it investigate whether police should be charged for conduct it deemed “fell well short of an acceptable standard”.

The government had established the commission in 2019 after the High Court of Australia ruled that Victoria Police’s conduct in using criminal defence barrister ­Nicola Gobbo to inform on her own clients was “reprehensible conduct”.

A spokesperson for Director of Public Prosecutions Kerri Judd, QC, rejected the ­assertion that she had ­expressed any view about the prospects of prosecutions ­referred to her by the OSI.

“Victoria Police … were ­involved in sanctioning atrocious breaches of the sworn duty of every police officer to discharge all duties imposed on them faithfully and according to law without favour or ­affection, malice or ill-will,” the judgment said.

The High Court said subsequent prosecutions were corrupted in a manner that “debased fundamental premises of the criminal justice system”.

But with the disbanding of the OSI, the prospect of anyone bearing criminal responsibility over the saga – considered one of the darkest chapters in Victoria’s legal history – is now remote.

In a furious letter to Victoria’s Attorney-General Jaclyn Symes, revealed in June, Justice Nettle slammed Ms Judd’s “consistent rejection of proposed charges”, saying: “In the circumstances, I am forced to conclude that there is no point in OSI persisting; to do so would be a waste of time and money.”

The whistleblowers this week have echoed subsequent criticisms of the government for not giving the OSI direct powers to prosecute any parties regarding the Lawyer X scandal.

Instead, the OSI could only present recommendations on criminal charges, with the DPP given the ultimate say.

Justice Coghlan and Mr Horgan were key figures in the prosecutions of high-profile underworld players that were convicted with the secret ­assistance of Gobbo.

But former police chief Simon Overland told the royal commission that he kept Ms Gobbo’s informer status a secret from both men despite “extensive liaisons” in the lead-up to numerous gangland trials, including that of Carl Williams in early 2006.

OSI whistleblowers say the investigators were working to secure statements from all staff at the Office of Public Prosecutions and Victoria Police’s anti-gangland Purana task force that had been connected to matters involving Ms Gobbo. It is understood all other staff who were contacted cooperated in full, including one current serving Supreme Court judge.

Sources say Ms Judd’s comment and the lack of co-operation from Justice Coghlan and Mr Horgan were a source of ongoing tension between the OPP and OSI in the lead-up to the public spat between the offices.

As a result of the OSI’s work, Justice Nettle had recommended at least five people be charged with attempting to pervert the course of justice.

In one brief, which proposed charges against five officers, his team gathered what he ­believed were 5000 pages of admissible documentary evidence, many hours of audio ­recordings and multiple witness statements.

“OSI considered that the brief established a powerful case of offending and therefore expected that the director would approve the charges,” he wrote in a special report.

“The director (Ms Judd) stated that she did not consider that there was a reasonable prospect of conviction against any of those five persons,” he added.

An OPP spokesman hit back at the whistleblowers’ claims on Monday, saying: “We reject the assertion that the director (Ms Judd) had ­determined, before seeing any briefs of evidence, that no prosecutions would follow from the work of the Office of the Special Investigator. As the director’s response to the OSI and the correspondence attached to the OSI’s own Special Report make clear, each matter and brief referred to the director was carefully and comprehensively reviewed.

“Where necessary, further information was sought from the OSI about the two briefs of evidence submitted to the ­director.

“After each brief had been reviewed, the OSI was given the opportunity to respond to concerns the director had about the evidence.

“For example, in the director’s correspondence to the OSI of December 1, 2021, annexed to the Director’s Response and referring to a draft brief of evidence concerning the offence of perjury, the director identified further information which, if obtained by the OSI, might address some of her concerns regarding the sufficiency of evidence in that particular brief.

“The OSI did not provide that further information.”

Asked about the allegations on Tuesday, Premier Daniel Andrews said he “absolutely” had confidence in Kerri Judd.

“The Director of Public Prosecutions has disputed that claim,” he said.

“I’m not a spokesperson for her, she can speak for herself,” he said.

‘I went into this in some detail a week or more ago and I don’t have anything further to add.”