Nicola Gobbo feared Carl Williams would link her to crimes

When supergrass Nicola Gobbo heard gangland boss Carl Williams was talking to police about the Hodson double murders, she became haunted by fears he would link her to crimes.

Supergrass Nicola Gobbo feared Carl Williams would link her to crimes after learning he was talking to police about the Hodson double murder.

Ms Gobbo, who is suing Victoria Police for an undisclosed sum, was also described in a confidential police intelligence document titled “Petra Task Force Target Profile” as a suspect in the years-long Hodson inquiry.

Under the subheading, “Reasons for Targeting” the police profile reads:

“It is believed that GOBBO may have knowledge of intimate details of the planning of the murders of Terence and Christine Hodson.”

The “updated” target profile was prepared in early 2008.

By then, Gobbo was entrenched as a registered police informer 3838, who was giving intelligence to help convict the gangland war’s most significant players.

Among the clients she had informed on were Tony Mokbel, Carl Williams, Rob Karam, mafia members and crime figures in the so-called Carlton Crew.

But it was the ongoing Hodson murder inquiry which haunted Gobbo.

The married couple’s bodies were found by two of their children in the TV room of their Kew East unit on May 16, 2004.

Terence and Christine Hodson.

The couple was found dead in their East Kew home.

Both slain victims had been shot in the head and another bullet placed on them.

On the night a hitman murdered the Hodsons, Gobbo was having dinner in a Chinatown restaurant with her client and rumoured lover, Azzam Ahmed.

She would later confirm his alibi when Ahmed was quizzed by police a month after the Hodson killings.

Terry Hodson, who was also a police informer, was in danger the moment a burglary he committed with his police handler, David Miechel, went wrong and patrolling police arrested them near the crime scene.

The detective and his informer had burgled a house in Dublin St, Oakleigh, which was under the surveillance of the drug squad in September, 2003.

It was an inside job.

Miechel, a drug squad Detective, was part of the sting operation watching the house and waiting to make arrests.

He knew the comings and goings of those minding more than a $1 million in cash and drugs.

What, apparently, the drug squad and Hodson didn’t know was that the “drug safe house” was linked to underworld kingpin Tony Mokbel.

All they knew was that Ahmed was in charge of the safe house and two women were being paid as “sitters”.

Within hours of the burglary, Gobbo was being called by Ahmed’s father and she even had a conversation soon after with Miechel’s police partner (and Hodson’s co-police handler), Sgt Paul Dale.

Investigators who probed the Hodson killings would suspect that it was also in the hours after the burglary that Hodson’s “protected” informer file – known as the “Blue File” – was stolen from the force’s St Kilda Rd headquarters.

In the weeks following the burglary Hodson met with Gobbo at a city pub, organised by ethical standards police, to get legal advice.

As a result of the meeting Hodson made contact with detectives from the ethical standards division.

Former drug detective Paul Dale. Picture: Simon Dallinger

It meant Gobbo knew Hodson was set upon implicating his police handlers – Miechel and Dale – in the Oakleigh burglary.

It was at this juncture that Gobbo struck up a professional and personal relationship with the man he was implicating – Paul Dale.

Hodson in these months believed he was “a dead man walking” after making a series of statements to police about the Dublin St burglary, implicating Miechel, who was caught at the scene, and Sgt Dale.

The career crook would also begin to distrust Gobbo, wearing a police wire when meeting her again.

But what Hodson didn’t know, however, was that Gobbo had figured out he was a registered informer more than a year earlier.

Gobbo, before her stint as “human source 3838”, had been Mokbel’s snitch hunter.

She had even quizzed his police handler, Miechel, about it outside a court.

Miechel immediately made sure Hodson’s informer number was changed.

And there was something else he didn’t know.

That the “Blue File” had gone missing.

It contained his entire informing history.

The mystery of who stole the “Blue File” would elude investigators for years.

What wasn’t a mystery was where its contents ended up.

By the end of February, 2004, it was in Mokbel’s possession.

Investigators would ultimately suspect that Gobbo was the conduit.

The significance of this aspect of the Hodson mystery – who stole and who delivered the “Blue File” to Mokbel – cannot be overstated.

Tony Mokbel (left) with his legal team Nicola Gobbo (behind, centre) and Con Heliotis QC (right) outside Magistrates court.

It laid bare the extent of Hodson’s assistance to the drug squad and was released into the underworld just months before he and his wife were executed.

Petra taskforce detectives charged Dale over the murders five years later in 2009 after getting Gobbo to wear a wire to record the former policeman.

Dale has always vehemently denied any involvement in the Hodson murders and the Oakleigh drug house burglary.

They also charged hitman Rodney Collins, who Williams alleged was the triggerman.

Carl Williams, however, was murdered before the case got to court.

Before his death inside Barwon Prison, Williams would tell police Gobbo was pivotal as a conduit between he and Dale.

Gobbo would also tell investigators she had passed a secret phone number to Williams, who called Dale from a Taylors Lakes phone box just prior to the Hodsons’ executions.

Williams would allege it was at this alleged meeting in Hillside, on the outskirts of Melbourne, Dale ordered the murder of Terence Hodson.

Christine Hodson’s murder wasn’t part of the plan.

Williams, however, did not implicate Mokbel.

But when Gobbo learned Williams had begun talking with police about the Hodson murders in 2007, she fretted he would implicate her.

Ironically, by this point she was in a similar position as Hodson – a registered police informer – and Williams had worked it out.

Experience should have taught her the risks of becoming an informer and how she could be exposed.

The Herald Sun has written extensively on the Hodson murders being a motivating factor in her decision to become the force’s most active informer between 2005 and 2009.

And her intimate knowledge of the events that led to the Hodson murders led to her being turned from secret informer to witness, a highly risky move green lit by then Deputy Commissioner Simon Overland.

One of Gobbo’s long-term handlers would state to the Lawyer X royal commission her fears grew when Mokbel was extradited to Australia from Greece in 2008.

And, he stated, Gobbo became “motivated” to assist with the Hodson murders.

“It became apparent over time that she had maybe unwittingly assisted with the passing of information, phones and /or documents between parties that ultimately led to the Hodson murders.

“The source feared being forced to give evidence in coercive hearings against Tony Mokbel regarding this matter.

“This would get her killed.

“Her fear especially escalated upon Mokbel’s return to Australia.”

Tony Mokbel leaves Melbourne Magistrates’ Court with his lawyer, Nicola Gobbo.

Mokbel, who is appealing his numerous drug convictions due to Gobbo’s duplicity as his lawyer, was visited by police about the Hodson murders in recent years.

In 2014, police ensured Gobbo did not appear at the long-awaited inquest into the Hodson murders after the Herald Sun that year exposed the Lawyer X scandal.

It begs the question: were they protecting her life, or harbouring an accessory to murder?

Six years later, when Gobbo was exposed as Lawyer X, the former lawyer reluctantly testified at the royal commission examining her and Victoria Police’s conduct.

Gobbo denied being the conduit of the “Blue File” during questioning at the Lawyer X royal commission.

As for Mokbel, police visited him in jail a few years ago.

He too refused to answer questions.

They now have something in common again.

Both will be fighting the cops in the Supreme Court in 2023.

And neither will give anything in return as they pursue millions of dollars.

They know too much about one another.

It would be mutual destruction.

Andrew Hodson, the son of Terence and Christine, said he supported another inquiry into their murders.

Hodson was open to a royal commission or a second Coroner’s Inquest into their deaths.

The 2014 Coroner’s Inquest was hampered by Gobbo not giving evidence at the hearings, which came after Victoria Police successfully argued she should not be a witness.

But Hodson, whose sisters Mandy and Nikki fought for the original inquest, said it was time to get to the truth.

“Obviously I would like to get to the bottom of it,” he said.

“Am I going to push for it? Behind the scenes, yes 100 per cent.

“To me it’s been like a bad joke from start to finish.”

Hodson said Gobbo had been able to brush off questions when she gave evidence at the Lawyer X royal commission into her and Victoria Police’s conduct.

“It was like giving a kid fairy bread,” he said.

But he said he was sure of one thing about Gobbo — she knows who murdered his parents.

“She knows everything,” he said.