Top cops stopped taking notes during Lawyer X years
Victoria Police Chief Commisioner Graham Ashton and Assistant Commissioner Luke Cornelius have admitted they stopped making notes in their police diaries at the height of barrister Nicola Gobbo’s informing. This is why.
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High-ranking police officers stopped keeping official diaries at the same time concerns were being raised about using a gangland lawyer as a secret informer, the royal commission has heard.
Victoria Police Chief Commisioner Graham Ashton and Assistant Commissioner Luke Cornelius, the former head of police ethical standards division (ESD), have admitted they stopped making notes in their police diaries within months of each other in 2006.
Mr Ashton, then at the police corruption watchdog, and Mr Cornelius both sat on steering committees investigating gangland murders, which received information from barrister turned police supergrass Nicola Gobbo.
The revelation came as Mr Cornelius was repeatedly challenged on the witness stand about when he became aware of Gobbo’s double-dealing.
Mr Cornelius testified he was only told of her informer status in March 2009 but did not question the extent of her informing.
But two separate diary entries from Gobbo’s handlers note the Assistant Commissioner was briefed about her identity as Informer 3838 years earlier at a meeting on June 15, 2006, while head of ESD — the same month he ceased keeping a diary.
The briefing followed concerns Gobbo’s source status would be exposed at an examination at the Office of Police Integrity, who were investigating the 2004 murders of Terence and Christine Hodson.
Mr Cornelius yesterday told the commission he had no recollection of being told about Gobbo before 2009 and, if he had, he would have sounded alarm bells immediately.
He said the contradicting diary notes could be “a case of Chinese whispers”.
But he had no diary entry from the day of the meeting, explaining the investigations were “highly protected” and he wanted to mitigate the risks of leaks. Mr Cornelius, the now head of Southern Metro, said he has not kept a dairy in the 13 years since and instead maintained records in other ways — including making notations on investigation files.
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It comes as Chief Commissioner Graham Ashton earlier this week admitted that for almost two years from 2006 he failed to take any notes in his police diary.
Mr Ashton, then chief investigator of the OPI, denied suggestions he made an agreement with then-assistant commissioner Simon Overland and Mr Cornelius to stop taking notes.
“You’ve got this big operation planned … and there’s been an agreement … to stop taking notes,” counsel assisting Chris Winneke QC put to Mr Ashton on Monday.
Both Mr Ashton and Mr Cornelius told the commission they were not instructed, nor did they discuss with anyone, the decision to stop keeping a police diary.