Roberta Williams says the royal commission must investigate whether Carl Williams’ murder convictions were legally sound
Roberta Williams will demand access to confidential police files on Lawyer X’s dealings with her ex-husband Carl and says the royal commission must investigate his murder convictions and prison death.
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Roberta Williams will demand access to confidential police files on Lawyer X’s dealings with her ex-husband Carl.
Ms Williams has already sought legal advice, on behalf of daughter Dhakota, to try and unravel the information provided by Lawyer X to police.
She says the royal commission must investigate Carl’s prison death and whether the four murder convictions against him were legally sound.
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“I’m going to fight as hard as I can for him,’’ Roberta said.
“I want answers. I’m not going to let him be murdered for nothing.
“It’s for my daughter’s sake. I have to do that as her mum.’’
Roberta said she had trouble comprehending the revelations in the last week. “It’s like a movie taking place in my loungeroom.”
Carl Williams’ suspicions about the motives of Lawyer X grew while he was in prison.
Her signature was regularly seen in the visitors’ book at Barwon Prison from about 2005, despite having few business reasons to visit Williams. He said he did not know why she came. But he suspected she was gathering information to pass on.
Lawyer X represented Carl Williams intermittently during the 2003-2004 period in which he would be convicted of four murders — those of Jason Moran, Mark Mallia, Michael Marshall and Lewis Moran.
Williams wrote her off in a later letter — more than a decade before her deceptions were revealed to the public world last week.
“In regards to (Lawyer X) I am 100 per cent correct as much as I didn’t want to think I was right, the writing was on the wall,’’ Carl wrote as his murder cases proceeded.
“I had a lot of time for (Lawyer X) and stuck up for her quite a lot of time with different people.
“(Lawyer X) admitted to Milad that she told or advised (a co-accused) to go with police and make statements against me and others.’’
Supreme Court documents revealed last week showed Lawyer X, also known as Informer 3838, counted the turning of Williams’ hitmen against their boss as a key moment of her informing career.
A well-placed legal source said Williams figured out Lawyer X many years before his neighbour two doors down at Barwon Prison, Tony Mokbel.
“People have this view of Carl that he’s like the character in Underbelly,” the legal source said.
“That’s nothing like him. He was a really smart guy. He’s the guy who would make 200 phone calls a day. He wouldn’t tell anyone anything, he’d never give anyone up.
“But he’d put all of those pieces, all those chats together and he’d create a pretty real picture out of what’s happening. He was pretty smart for a guy that got essentially life in jail.”
The source said Lawyer X was fraternising with both crooks and police.
It seemed flagrant, he said, but she carried it off under the perfect cover — few if any of her peers had ever contemplated the breaching of confidential client information.
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It didn’t occur to him because it seemed so “left field”. Now he’s curious to know whether, as he has heard, she wore wires in meetings as encouraged by her police handlers.
“A lot of people, myself included, just thought she enjoyed the attention, that she was playing both sides,” he said.
“It’s a pretty sacrosanct thing that a barrister protects your privilege”.
Roberta said she had never liked Lawyer X, an opinion shared by Danielle McGuire, the girlfriend of her high-profile client Tony Mokbel.
“Mate, she knew a lot,” Roberta said.
“She was part of the gang. She didn’t conduct herself like a lawyer. She was a man’s woman. She knew everything. Tony trusted her so much.”
Roberta has already claimed Lawyer X had warned Carl to “f--- off overseas” before his murder arrest in 2004.
“(Lawyer X) was side by side with Carl — she gave a speech at Dhakota’s baptism,” she said.
Roberta believes the royal commission must provide answers on Carl’s murder. “I believe the police killed Carl or were involved in his murder,” she said.
“You would not believe the corruption Carl knew about.”
Williams was bludgeoned to death with the seat pole of an exercise bike by Matthew Johnson in Barwon Prison in April, 2010, soon before Williams was expected to give evidence in the murder trial of former detective Paul Dale.
Johnson was convicted of Williams’ murder, but investigations later focused on payments after the hit.
Williams had told police that he had accepted Dale’s offer of a hit on police informer, Terry Hodson, who was killed with his wife, Christine, in Kew East in 2004.
Another key prosecution witness in Dale’s (later aborted) murder trial was Lawyer X, who had worn a wire in a conversation with Dale.
The revelations about Lawyer X’s duplicity have brought the convictions of some of our highest profile criminals, including Mokbel, into question.
Criminals are now lining up to appeal after the High Court of Australia described the Victoria Police methods in using a barrister as an informer as “reprehensible” and “atrocious”.
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