Police officer kept quiet over Gobbo concerns
A top cop wanted to keep Nicola Gobbo’s role as a secret police informer under wraps, fearing raising concerns about her safety would be a “career limiting move”.
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A senior Victoria Police officer felt that documenting warnings that Lawyer X could be killed if she was transitioned from secret informer to public witness was a “career limiting move”.
Superintendent Tony Biggin, who had oversight of the handling of prized Victoria Police source, gangland barrister Nicola Gobbo, said he was worried that warning the force command Gobbo’s informing role could be compromised if she was made a witness would be a career “black mark” against him and his subordinates.
In 2009, then Deputy Commissioner Simon Overland wanted to shift Gobbo from being a secret informant to a public witness in a double murder investigation, which allegedly involved police corruption.
The Lawyer X Royal Commission heard Gobbo’s handlers wrote a letter to the Petra Taskforce steering committee — who had oversight into the investigation into the murder of police informer Terry Hodson and his wife Christine — setting out their concerns about going against the golden rule of human source management and turning Gobbo into a court witness.
Mr Biggin’s and the handlers’ memo said if details of Gobbo’s time as a registered source from 2005 were known it could lead to underworld convictions being challenged.
Mr Biggin said it was his view the warnings should be documented if things went “pear-shaped”.
“My view was that I’d raised the issues, I had concerns about her safety and welfare.
“I told the appropriate people it had happened, what I thought would happen so I was documenting it.”
He said the members who sat on the steering committee could one day be on a promotion panel and if convictions were later found to be unsafe the memo could be embarrassing for them.
He said he was worried his subordinates would have their career prospects curtailed by going against the wishes of the force’s hierarchy.
“I was concerned for them that by standing up to the organisation and saying ‘We think you’re making the wrong decision in this’, for them, their careers may well have a black mark against them, at least in the short-term.
“I know you can out live black marks against you in an organisation but that takes a little time and that was my major concern.”
Mr Biggin said in 2009 the force was still undergoing cultural change to move away from a militaristic organisation “where you did what you were told, stood to attention and polished your shoes” to one with more collegiate decision making.
He said then Chief Commissioner Christine Nixon had started the cultural change in the early 2000s but the change had been slow.
“I’ll put it this way, I think for the first five years of Christine’s tenure was outstanding, the last three years were probably three years too long.”
“I’ll leave it at that. The organisation had embarked on this change and was significantly changing.”
Supt Biggin said Gobbo and the gangland murders were a small part of the issues afflicting Victoria Police at the time.
He said Mr Overland had to weigh up safety concerns about Gobbo with the need to do everything to solve a double-murder with links to police corruption.