How Nicola Gobbo became Lawyer X: Timeline of informer’s key moments

Lawyer X was the perfect snitch to end Melbourne’s underworld bloodshed. Now, criminal charges against her and her police handlers are real possibilities. This is how we got here.

Lawyer X was a police informer with the perfect cover.

Nicola Gobbo was a respected defence barrister acting for feared gangland and mafia figures.

As Victorian police desperately tried to bring an end to the underworld bloodshed which played out on Melbourne’s city’s streets, the lawyer passed on her clients’ secrets and helped lock up killers and drug traffickers.

But the use of a lawyer to snitch on her clients was unprecedented — worldwide — because it went against every principle of fair justice.

The police subversion of the legal system has already seen one man convicted of murder and another of drug trafficking walk from jail.

More could follow.

And now, criminal charges against Gobbo and the police who handled her are very real possibilities.

This is the Lawyer X story — first uncovered in 2014 by the Herald Sun and still unravelling— so far.

1972: Nicola Maree Gobbo is born

1980s and 1990s: Nicola Gobbo, the niece of Sir James Gobbo — a Supreme Court justice and later Governor of Victoria — attends Genazzano College in Kew, a private Catholic school for girls. Her father dies when she is 17, while she is studying for her VCE. She wants to follow the rest of the Gobbo family into the law, entering the prestigious Melbourne University.

Nicola Gobbo (centre) during her schooling years in the 90s.

1991: Gobbo is publicly embroiled in the tragic death of Collingwood footballer Darren Millane, who had a blood-alcohol level of 0.32 when he crashed into the back of a truck at South Melbourne on October 7, 1991. She had spent the night with him at the Tunnel nightclub before he drove off in his car. She appears as a witness at the inquest into his death.

1993: Police raid Gobbo’s Carlton house which she shares with drug dealer boyfriend Brian Wilson, seizing 1.4 kg of amphetamine worth $82,000 and 350 grams of cannabis. Gobbo, fearing her legal ambitions could end there, cooperates and leads officers to the drugs. Trevor Ashton, a senior detective who interviews her, later says he had the impression she treated it like a game. Gobbo escapes without a conviction, pleading guilty to drug possession and use. At the time of her arrest, Gobbo is a third-year law student and editor of its student newspaper Farrago.

1995: Officers Ashton and Tim Argall visit Gobbo while she works at the MCG, leading to her setting up a sting on Wilson, who is still living with her at her Carlton house. Police abort the illegal tobacco sting before it gets off the ground. She is also registered as an informer without her knowledge. Argall will become one of her lovers.

Gobbo appeared as a witness at the inquest into the death of Darren Millane. Picture: Getty Images

1996: Gobbo hits the headlines during the 1996 federal election while a Labor Party member. Letters, said to be from Jeff Kennett, are released criticising John Howard. They are swiftly exposed as forgeries. Gobbo, then 23, provides a statement to federal police claiming the person behind the stunt is a Liberal staffer.

1997: Gobbo is admitted to practice law, having lied on her affidavit to gain a practising certificate. Her best university mark was in ethics. She starts at a commercial firm, but is soon employed by Alex Lewenberg, a former boxer turned criminal lawyer, who runs a firm in Richmond. Gobbo will come into contact with criminal bigwigs like John Higgs and Tony Mokbel. She will also meet corrupt cops.

1998: At the age of 25, Gobbo is the youngest woman admitted to the Victorian Bar and quickly becomes a prominent defence barrister. She is being directly briefed by many clients.

October 13, 1999: The underworld war begins, as Carl Williams is shot in tiny park in Gladstone, north-west of Melbourne. He has been making his own pills to sell on Mark and Jason Moran’s pill press. Jason Moran puts a bullet in his belly. It is Williams’ 29th birthday. He is taken to John Faulkner Hospital and refuses to tell police who shot him. Gobbo, meanwhile, is gaining a reputation as a solid barrister with a speciality in bail applications. She is also having secret meetings with the drug squad. There, she has stuck a relationship with Wayne Strawhorn and other key corrupt cops who are delivering precursor chemicals to drug lords like Mark Moran. Gobbo is also introduced to Jeff Pope - a cop on the rise. He is with the Asset Recovery Squad. She is registered for the second time in 1999 by Pope. She says they had a relationship. A decade later, while he is an assistant commissioner sitting on steering committees running her as an informer, he denies any affair.

Early 2000s: Gobbo’s reputation is further enhanced when she gets bail for a 16-year-old charged with murder bail. On Valentine’s Day, 2002, Gobbo becomes Mokbel’s lawyer and fights many bail applications for him and his drug crew. She also acts for Mokbel ally Williams, becoming a pseudo-member of his crew, even hosting his daughter Dhakota’s christening in 2003. Meanwhile, she helps Peter De Santo — a corruption buster who works in internal affairs with the Victoria Police — bust the corrupt Drug Squad. And she strikes up a friendship with Argall’s mate Paul Dale, a detective sergeant she drinks with, sleeps with and almost a decade later turns witness against.

Nicola Gobbo with Carl Williams and Andrew `Benji’ Veniamin at Crown Casino for the christening of Williams’ daughter, Dhakota.

September 2002: Gobbo springs Mokbel from prison after successfully applying for $1 million bail. Mokbel kisses her on the steps of the court in a show of gratitude.

Mid- 2003: Gobbo goes against Williams’ instructions and wins bail for Lewis Moran, a leading member of the Carlton Crew which Williams has been eliminating one by one. After Andrew “Benji” Veniamin threatens her on behalf of Williams, she is approached by Phil Swindells, from anti-gangland task force Purana, and is introduced to Stuart Bateson. Gobbo will soon crack the “dam wall of silence’’ for Purana, by turning key hit men into informers on Williams, Mokbel and their crews.

Early 2004: Gobbo becomes confidante for drug baron Rob Karam, who she met through Mokbel.

May 2004: Police informer Terence Hodson and wife Christine are executed. Gobbo acts as a conduit between drug squad detective Dale and Williams before the murders. Much later, Williams claims to police that Dale paid hit man Rodney Collins to kill Hodson.

July 2004: The rising barrister has a stroke at just 31 and undergoes heart surgery. She is devastated none of her close clients seem to care, says she wants to change, and begins informally talking to Purana detectives.

December 2004: Gobbo gives legal advice to an associate of Williams charged with the 2003 murders of underworld kingpin Jason Moran and his bodyguard Pasquale ``Little Pat’’ Barbaro. This assassin, known as “Mr McGrath’,’ becomes a critical police informer and witness in Gangland prosecutions. Moran and Barbaro were shot at close range in June, 2003, as they sat in a van with Moran’s young twins and three other children at an Auskick clinic in North Essendon.

September 2005: Gobbo is given informer number 3838. Her first task is to begin snitching on Mokbel and his crew. It is the beginning of three and a half years of intense informing.

March 2006: Mokbel, goes missing towards the end of Supreme Court trial over the importation of 2.9kg of cocaine from Mexico. He hides out in Bonnie Doon for months before crossing the Nullarbor to Perth and travelling on a yacht called The Edwena bound for Greece, dressed as a Maronite priest. He spends 15-months as a fugitive before being captured in Athens in June 2007. Gobbo is among the first people he calls for advice, but little does he know that she has been involved in tracking him down. Mokbel now even claims it was Gobbo who convinced him to flee.

Gobbo with Tony Mokbel in 2004.

June 2007: Gobbo is defending docks expert and drug smuggler Karam over the nation’s largest ecstasy importation. The pair lunch during adjournments, together with veteran drug trafficker John Higgs. Karam and Higgs are part of an even bigger importation with a mafia syndicate headed by Pasquale “Big Pat’’ Barbaro. Karam gives Gobbo the Bill of Lading — the document revealing the exact destination of a shipping container on route from Naples to Melbourne with 15 million ecstasy tablets hidden in 3000 tomato tins — for safe keeping. Gobbo copies the document for her police handlers and is tasked to set up more stings on the syndicate in an operation which leads to 32 people being prosecuted. Victoria Police handlers warn her not to represent any of the syndicate, but she does.

April 2008: The gangland lawyer’s BMW convertible is torched in front of diners in South Melbourne. Thousands of dollars in cash burns.

December 2008: Gobbo wears a wire at a coffee meeting with Dale — a key target of a probe into the murders of the Hodsons — as he talks about secret hearings and Williams’ information on him.

2009: The barrister agrees to become a witness against Dale in the Hodson murder case.

2009: Under police protection, Gobbo frets over being exposed as an informer if she hits the stand against Dale. Gobbo is only identified as Witness F, until a judge rules that her name should be released. Gobbo is at one point put under 24-hour protection by the Special Operations Group after her life is threatened. Gobbo’s health declines and wounds cover her body. As the Dale trial nears, Gobbo demands $20m, then $30m, to give evidence.

April 2010: Prison enforcer Matthew Johnson murders Williams in Barwon prison with the stem of an exercise bike. Williams has told Johnson he is helping police with their case against Dale. But Johnson finds out he is prepared to give police more underworld information. The Dale murder case collapses.

Matthew Johnson was jailed for 32 years for the murder of Carl Williams.

2010: Gobbo sues Victoria Police within days of the Dale case collapsing and is paid $2.88m in a confidential settlement. She claims police have ruined her career and mismanaged her as a witness. The stress has taken a toll on her health. Former and current chiefs Christine Nixon and Simon Overland are parties to the civil action. Investigators, during this period, receive information about how Terence Hodson’s informer file was leaked to the underworld — specifically to Mokbel in 2004. They plan to question Gobbo. This hearing is shut down. Gobbo’s claim is settled swiftly.

2012: Then-assistant commissioner Graham Ashton tasks former chief Neil Comrie with investigating the police handling of Gobbo and filing a secret report. Then-assistant commissioner Jeff Pope is part of probe into her use as an informer. The Source Development Unit which handled her is disbanded.

2013: Paul Dale is found not guilty in a trial considering allegations he lied to the Australian Crime Commission about his relationship with Williams. Gobbo had been pulled as a witness amid police concerns over the dangers she faced if exposed as a registered informer.

2014: A Herald Sun investigation reveals the police’s use of Gobbo, who is referred to only as Lawyer X, as an informer. Police seek to shut down the story over the coming days, forcing the paper to stop the presses and leading to a series Supreme Court hearings and injunctions. Over the next five years, amid threats of criminal charges, the paper continues to expose the scandal, but key facts are suppressed by the courts, including her identity, informer number 3838 and the 5500 information reports she generated.

2014-15: An Independent Broad-based Anti-corruption Commission probe triggered by the Herald Sun’s revelations and conducted by former Supreme Court Justice Murray Kellam, QC, interviews Gobbo’s handlers and Overland. It finds “negligence of a high order’’ in the police’s management of Gobbo which may have interfered with the administration of justice.

2016: Victoria Police launches a secret Supreme Court case to stop Director of Public Prosecutions John Champion disclosing to six Gobbo clients that their cases may have been tainted.

Nicola Gobbo receives an award at the Premier’s Volunteer Champions Awards in 2018. Picture: Ian Currie

September 2018: Gobbo, still not publicly identified as Lawyer X, receives a Premier’s Volunteer Champions Award for saving a Brighton childcare centre. She poses for photographs at Government House, where her uncle was once governor. “Nicki’s skilled and selfless leadership” is lauded. Within months she flies overseas to escape the Lawyer X scandal.

N ovember 2018: The Lawyer X legal battle concludes with the High Court of Australia allowing letters to be sent to Gobbo’s clients saying their cases may have been tainted. The police’s use of her between 2005 and 2009 is described as “reprehensible’’ by the court.

December 2018: The Andrews government announces a royal commission.

February 6, 2019: Victoria Police say they have found an older registration document in a warehouse. It informs the commission of its find and it expands its probe back to 1995.

March 1, 2019: After a five-year fight, the Herald Sun is finally able to reveal Gobbo as Lawyer X. The High Court officially lifts suppression orders in place and the paper trail begins to unravel the sordid history of a psychologically vulnerable woman desperate for attention.

November 30, 2020: The $39.5m-plus commission delivers its final report, recommending the government establish a special investigator to probe police and Gobbo over potentially criminal conduct.

Originally published as How Nicola Gobbo became Lawyer X: Timeline of informer’s key moments