Police informer Lawyer X finally revealed after high court battle
She’s a party girl, criminal barrister and police informer. Snapped arm in arm with Carl Williams and hitman Andrew Veniamin, she hosted the Crown casino christening of Williams’ daughter, Dhakota. Now Nicola Gobbo is a household name — just not in the way she once hoped.
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This is Nicola Gobbo, party girl, criminal barrister and police informer. She is Lawyer X.
Pictured hiding in plain sight with the killers she is betraying, unleashing Australia’s biggest legal scandal.
She is arm in arm with Carl Williams and his busiest hitman, Andrew Veniamin — both now dead.
She is hosting the Crown casino christening of Williams’ daughter, Dhakota. She is winning over the crowd, including Tony Mokbel, by mocking the Purana police taskforce.
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It is 2003, at the height of the gangland killings. She has just defended Williams in court. But she is helping put him away, too, as a police informer for the same officers she jeers on stage.
She has started the day with a prison visit to allegedly corrupt policeman Paul Dale. Comedian Marty Fields was entertaining crowds at the Crown casino gig.
Offstage, Nicola Gobbo snorts cocaine.
It’s a snapshot of an extraordinary deception the High Court has labelled “reprehensible” and which could trigger the early release of some of Australia’s worst criminals.
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INFORMING BEGAN WITH DRUG ARREST
Gobbo, 46, once seemed set on a different path. Her uncle is former governor Sir James Gobbo, QC, AC. She recently returned to conventionality — if not the family fold — as a suburban mum and kids’ centre saviour.
Now, after a five-year Herald Sun battle, Nicola Gobbo will be a household name. Just as she always wanted. But not for the reasons she hoped.
The marathon battle to keep the Lawyer X scandal from public view, which has cost taxpayers millions of dollars, was conducted behind a veil of secrecy.
Police claimed the information would put her life at risk from criminals.
But many had already worked out that Gobbo was an informer, with both drug baron Tony Mokbel and ecstasy importer Rob Karam launching appeals over their convictions.
Late last year the DPP was given the green light to send letters to the convicted criminals to tell them that their cases might have been compromised.
A Royal Commission into the police use of informers sparked by the scandal has already begun but orders concealing her identity remained until today.
Commissioner Margaret McMurdo is calling for anyone represented by Gobbo between 1995 and 2009 who was found guilty or convicted of a crime to make a submission.
Friends say Sir Gobbo, a retired Supreme Court judge, is “deeply embarrassed” about her double-dealing.
The Herald Sun can also reveal that despite the cloak of secrecy that has hung over the case for years, Gobbo has not kept a low profile but instead been a prominent and active member of her local community.
As recently as a few months ago, Gobbo was living in Bentleigh and was an active leader at both a Brighton childcare centre and a kindergarten.
Last September, “Nicki” Gobbo was even recognised in the Premier’s Volunteer Champion’s Awards for “her skilled and selfless leadership” in saving and reviving Brighton Playroom Inc.
Gobbo picked up her award from then-early childhood minister Jenny Mikakos, now the health minister, at a ceremony at Government House.
A citation, removed from the State Government website in early February, stated: “The volunteer-run Brighton Playroom is thriving thanks to Nicki’s skilled and selfless leadership.
“Since saving the not-for-profit centre from closure three years ago, Nicki has introduced transformational changes — from strengthening child safety policies to finding ways to help disadvantaged families.
“Practical and passionate, Nicki has created a true community hub for successive generations of children and families.”
Just days before sweeping gag orders over the scandal were lifted in December, Gobbo was attending a kinder mothers’ park picnic.
Few mums who sipped wine at the event knew much about her extraordinary history.
Sir James, 87, still regularly attends formal state functions and was most recently at the Black Saturday 10th anniversary memorial service at the Royal Exhibition Building early this month.
But those close to him say he is “ashamed” of his niece and avoids discussing the issue.
A statement issued on behalf of the Gobbo family, including Sir James and Lady Gobbo, Jeremy Gobbo QC, Flavia Gobbo, Dr Olivia Gobbo, Danni and James Gobbo, says they “know nothing about the issues and have had no contact with Nicola”.
“As a family, we have been disturbed by the revelations leading to the establishment of a Royal Commission into the management of informants by Victoria Police,” the statement said.
“We understand that the Royal Commission will, in part, look into the actions of Nicola Gobbo, the daughter of Sir James’ late brother. No members of our immediate family have seen or spoken to Nicola in many years and have no knowledge of the matters to be investigated or her actions.”
It is five years since the Herald Sun first revealed a barrister, who we identified at the time only as Lawyer X, was informing to police on her clients.
The police immediately sought to shut the story down, winning suppression orders preventing the paper from naming her and then from reporting most aspects of the scandal.
An Independent Broad-based Anti-corruption Commission inquiry triggered by the Herald Sun articles found that her use as an informer “had the potential to have adversely affected the administration of justice in Victoria”.
The secret report did not find that any unlawful behaviour had occurred.
In response, acting police chief commissioner, Tim Cartwright said there was “no evidence at this stage of any threat to any conviction or any evidence of mistrial”.
But based on the IBAC findings, the Office of Public Prosecutions reviewed several cases involving Gobbo and concluded that the convictions of more than 20 criminals might have been tainted by her informing.
Gobbo boasted in secret hearings that she produced more than 5500 informer reports while working for police, including many on her clients.
And she dangerously played both sides.
In one conspiracy, Gobbo is alleged to have handed a “blue file” revealing the status of another informer, Terry Hodson, to Mokbel, weeks before Hodson was murdered.
Carl Williams’ wife Roberta says Gobbo warned him before he was about to be charged for murder — but she convinced him not to abscond.
And Mokbel has claimed she tipped him off that he was about to charged over two gangland murders, prompting him to disappear to Bonnie Doon and then Greece, sparking a 15-month global manhunt.
But Supreme Court judge Timothy Ginnane also found that she was informing on Mokbel’s legal strategies during his cocaine trial in 2006, just before he fled.
And she was informing on his strategising during his extradition proceedings.
Mokbel even believes she also helped authorities catch him in Athens.
The IBAC report, which the Herald Sun has now seen, also reveals Lawyer X covertly copied a shipping manifest for 15 million ecstasy pills hidden in tomato tins bound for Australia and handed it to police.
The shipping document which she told police she copied from Tomato Tins syndicate Rob Karam, triggered the then biggest ecstasy bust in world history in 2007.
Royal Commission chair Margaret McMurdo has called for anyone who had dealings with Gobbo to make submissions, saying it is “essential” to the inquiry.
“The Commission is now better placed to ascertain the full extent of Nicola Gobbo’s conduct as a police informer between 1995 and 2009 and the identities of the persons potentially affected,” Ms McMurdo said in a statement this afternoon.
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“We are calling for submissions from individuals who were legally represented by Nicola Gobbo between 1995 and 2009 and who were found guilty or convicted, and sentenced.
“If you were represented by Nicola Gobbo and believe the outcome of your case may have been affected by her role as an informant with Victoria Police, we encourage you to make a submission.”
The due date for submissions has been extended to March 15, and to April 12 for submissions relating to Victoria Police’s management of informers.
As well as Gobbo, others expected to come under the spotlight include police chief commissioner Graham Ashton and former chiefs Christine Nixon and Simon Overland, judges and members of the Office of Public Prosecutions.
Overland, now Whittlesea Council chief, is considered to have driven Lawyer X’s informing in the 2000s, in a desperate bid to end the gangland war.
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