Lawyer X royal commission report released
Two former Victoria Police chief commissioners are in the firing line of the Lawyer X royal commission for their role in the scandal as the Commissioner found drug baron Tony Mokbel’s trial may have been tainted.
Police & Courts
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FORMER Victoria Police chief commissioners Graham Ashton and Simon Overland have been excoriated in a long-awaited report to the Lawyer X royal commission which asserts drug baron Tony Mokbel’s trafficking conviction was tainted.
The report also says three possible charges — misconduct in public office, which carries a possible 10-year prison sentence; attempting to pervert the course of justice; and aiding, abetting, counselling, procuring, or conspiring with Nicola Gobbo to obtain property or financial advantage by deception — could be laid against senior officers.
The force issued a sensational apology late on Tuesday night, admitting the use of Gobbo to inform on her clients was “indefensible” and “profoundly wrong”.
In an explosive 3000-page report, counsel assisting the commission Chris Winneke QC said Gobbo and police had engaged in “collusive behaviour that has potentially had catastrophic consequences to the criminal justice process”.
Mr Winneke submitted that when considering the entirety of the evidence it appeared many in the force believed “the high value of the information Ms Gobbo could and did provide justified … the obvious impropriety of using Ms Gobbo as a human source and keeping that fact hidden”.
Taking aim at Mr Ashton’s conduct following the Herald Sun’s exposing of Victoria’s biggest legal scandal, he said the top officer may have perpetuated a culture in which “noble cause corruption” was acceptable.
Mr Winneke submitted that Mr Overland — Victoria’s top gangland cop during Melbourne’s bloody tit-for-tat underworld war — and senior Purana taskforce detectives may be guilty of misconduct.
Former Purana detectives Stuart Bateson, Jim O’Bryan and Gavan Ryan, as well as Gobbo’s police handler, could have also acted in a way which constituted improper conduct.
The report has also bolstered drug kingpin Mokbel’s fight to be freed from jail after it submitted it was open for the Commissioner to find that at least three of Mokbel’s convictions may have been affected by the conduct of Gobbo as a human source.
The submissions to the Lawyer X royal commission said that between early 2002 and late December that year, Mokbel had a professional legal relationship with Gobbo, believing their conversations were subject to legal professional privilege.
“It was submitted that Ms Gobbo failed to disclose to Mr Mokbel her personal relationships with witnesses (both civilian witnesses and police officers),” the submission said.
“It was submitted that the circumstances in which Mr Mokbel was convicted of each charge gave rise to a substantial miscarriage of justice.”
In his submissions, Mr Winneke argues that evidence suggests:
GOBBO told Mokbel “I’d take off if I were you” during his cocaine trafficking trial, leading to a 15-month global manhunt. He was eventually captured in Greece wearing a wig;
GOBBO deliberately misled the legal Board of Examiners in a 1997 sworn statement over an amphetamines bust at her Carlton house in 1993, when she was applying to practice as a barrister and solicitor;
MR Overland hid Gobbo’s identity as Informer 3838 from then police chief commissioner Christine Nixon, as well as the risk associated with it and the fact Gobbo’s car was set alight after ongoing death threats, despite concerns raised by his colleagues; and
GOBBO’S evidence to the royal commission was deliberately evasive and suggests that she was aware that she had deliberately lied, or at best knowingly misled the Supreme Court whilst she was on oath.
Mr Winneke said former police chief Ashton suggested the “pub test” was a more acceptable standard of police conduct than the rule of law.
Mr Ashton expressed the view in interviews broadcast in the wake of the High Court’s 2018 judgment which blasted the force’s use of Gobbo as “reprehensible” and “atrocious”. He described the gangland war as “desperate and dangerous times”.
Mr Winneke asserted to the commission it was open for Commissioner Margaret McMurdo AO to find Mr Ashton “sought to justify potentially corrupt activity by Victoria Police on the basis that ‘the ends justify the means’. “ (Mr Ashton) sent a message to Victoria Police which might be understood by them to mean they can safely ignore both the rule of law and the condemnation of the High Court and engage in ‘noble cause’ corruption, and in so doing may be responsible for perpetuating a culture in Victoria Police in which ‘noble cause’ corruption is acceptable,” the damning recommendations say.
In its apology on Tuesday night, Victoria Police said: “It was an indefensible interference in the lawyer/client relationship, a relationship that is essential to the proper functioning of the criminal justice system and to the rule of law.”
Mr Winneke’s submissions will inform Commissioner McMurdo’s final report, due in late November.
But Commissioner McMurdo said it would be up to the state’s top prosecutor to decide if Nicola Gobbo or any police have committed a criminal offence.
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* Explosive new revelations and exclusive extracts from gripping new book Lawyer X, by Anthony Dowsley and Patrick Carlyon, only in the Herald Sun and heraldsun.com.au this weekend
* Lawyer X, the story of how one woman played off police and criminals, is published by HarperCollins Australia on September 7. Pre-order your copy now at Booktopia
* Live online Q&A with Dowsley and Carlyon, hosted by Sky News’ Peter Stefanovic, on their battle to expose the truth. Send questions to ask.lawyerx@news.com.au and watch at facebook.com/heraldsun or facebook.com/TrueCrimeAustralia at 6.30pm AEST, September 9
* Watch Peter Stefanovic’s compelling two-part documentary Lawyer X: The Untold Story on Sky News at 8pm AEST, September 12 and 19