Why the Gobbo case is like munching on a dead elephant

The case of disgraced barrister Nicola Gobbo is to lawyers what a dead elephant is to hyenas. Even after it starts to smell, you can’t help coming back for a little bit more.

After five inquiries, legal battles that have bounced to the High Court and back, a royal commission that discovered very little and a couple of quashed convictions, the state government has put a log on the tracks in front of the gravy train.

Nicola Gobbo outside the Supreme Court in 2004, at the height of her criminal defence career.Credit: Vince Caligiuri

The whole shambles has cost $200 million (the equivalent of building nine primary and two secondary schools).

Attorney-General Jaclyn Symes said: “Enough is enough. It is time to end this dark chapter for the benefit of taxpayers.”

Gobbo, a clever, hardworking lawyer, became too close to her clients and then decided to betray them by becoming a not-so-secret police informer.

She did it enthusiastically and repeatedly, then when the worst secret in town became public, she played the victim, and in 2010 was paid nearly $3 million in compensation. Not satisfied, she has launched legal action demanding $30 million more, with her case due in court next month.

The state government will respond this week with the State Civil Liability (Police Informants) Bill, designed to shut down all compensation claims generated from Gobbo’s role as an informer and that of fellow lawyer Joe Acquaro.

It is a fancy way of saying to Gobbo (and many of her former clients) to go whistle.

Estimates vary, but the general view is that up to 125 convictions are directly affected by Gobbo’s role and more than 1000 indirectly impacted.

In many of these cases, the person jailed had pleaded guilty; when they go to court to argue their conviction should be quashed, it is not a case of whether they did it but whether police played dirty pool to nick them.

Gobbo during an interview with the ABC in 2020.Credit: ABC 7.30

For most of them, Gobbo has delivered the guilty a get-out-of-jail card.

So when they want millions in compensation, it is a little like escaping from prison and complaining there isn’t a government-chauffeured limousine, with chilled spring water and tasty canapes, waiting to take you to the airport.

The new law will not restrict any of Gobbo’s former clients who seek to appeal against their convictions on the basis they were denied justice by her duplicity.

One of two men to have their convictions quashed was Faruk Orman, originally convicted of the 2002 murder of gunman Victor Peirce. Orman pleaded not guilty to the charge and has always maintained his innocence. Orman served 12 years until his conviction was overturned in 2019.

Fortunately, Orman fell on his feet, or more accurately jumped on a gravy train, becoming a preferred provider for labour hire and traffic control for CFMEU sites.

What the police did was unlawful but, according to the Office of Public Prosecutions, not criminal. In 2020, the royal commission found insufficient evidence to charge; in 2015, the Independent Broad-based Anti-corruption Commission found insufficient evidence to charge; and in 2023, the OPP found the same.

Prolific drug trafficker Tony Mokbel was in court earlier this year, arguing that Gobbo persuaded him to jump bail and later plead guilty. His straight-faced performance was better than Laurence Olivier in Othello.

Or perhaps it was more like Forrest Gump, a decent but thoroughly misunderstood bloke who is easily manipulated.

Gobbo and her former client Tony Mokbel.Credit: Nine News

In his evidence, Mokbel didn’t address how, as a former suburban pizza shop owner, he established a network that grew to $400 million.

If he let us in on that secret, his conviction should be immediately set aside – not because he is innocent, but because he should immediately be appointed Victoria’s treasurer.

The proposed law may stop some serious criminals from getting undeserved millions in compensation, but it comes at a cost. Civil rights, when they are taken, rarely return.

This is not the end of the Gobbo saga — this law will be taken to the High Court to test its legitimacy.

So there will be a few more meals in the dead elephant yet.

John Silvester lifts the lid on Australia’s criminal underworld. Subscribers can sign up to receive his Naked City newsletter every Thursday.