Victoria Police slammed by own lawyer over ‘unthinkable’ use of Nicola Gobbo as informer
Victoria Police has been slammed by its own lawyer for the “unthinkable” move of using Lawyer X Nicola Gobbo as a secret informer, with the force’s chief legal officer saying “the wheels came off”.
Police & Courts
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Victoria Police’s top lawyer said it was “unthinkable” the organisation used a gangland barrister as a secret informer and took aim at the “relentless” investigators who facilitated it.
Fin McRae, the force’s chief legal officer, told of his “disappointment” at being kept in the dark by high ranking officers about Nicola Gobbo’s double dealing.
Mr McRae told the Royal Commission into the Lawyer X scandal today his legal expertise was called upon in mid-2009 after negotiations broke down between senior command and Gobbo about the gangland barrister joining police protection.
“That was when the wheels came off,” he said.
Mr McRae said he was only told that Gobbo was a witness in the murder case against suspected corrupt cop Paul Dale, not that she was a police informer.
He recalled meeting with Gobbo and a senior officer, Rod Wilson, in June 2009 to discuss her joining police protection.
“She seemed resigned to the fact that her career was over,” Mr McRae said.
“To hear a young barrister talk about how her life was imploded was compelling,” he said.
At the time he believed Gobbo’s decision to give evidence against Dale — who was charged over the 2004 murders of Terence and Christine Hodson — was “incredibly brave” and put her life in significant danger.
During testimony on Thursday, Mr McRae became emotional and rushed from the hearing room, later revealing that the “10 years of safety issues” surrounding Gobbo had taken a toll on him.
“The concern I had was that the criminal barrister was having something of a near-death experience,” he said.
He said he ignored the “attacks” on Gobbo by investigators at the time and during the current Royal Commission.
“The investigators are concerned about other matters … about solving horrible crimes,” he said.
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“They will continue to do that. They will never stop, they are relentless, they would call her as a witness tomorrow.”
Mr McRae said when he learnt in 2010 that Gobbo had been secretly snitching to police for years, he went to the relevant police squads and “lined them all up … and asked them”.
“(We) pulled in all the relevant players … to understand what they were doing and to stop their interactions with this person,”
“We were drawing a line in the sand,” he said.
Mr McRae told the commission he has worked “relentlessly” over the years to expose the scandal and “dismantle” any settlement agreements between Gobbo and Victoria Police.
“I wanted to dismantle whatever those deals were … because they were not in the public interest, he said.
Mr McRae will continue his evidence on Friday.