Gobbo seeking millions in secret lawsuit against Victoria Police

Victoria Police has lost a two-year battle to keep secret a multimillion-dollar lawsuit by barrister-turned-informer Nicola Gobbo over allegations her life was ruined and her safety put at risk through “negligence” and “malfeasance in public office” by a number of high-profile officers.

The lawsuit comes after the Office of Public Prosecutions abandoned potential criminal prosecutions against any current or past member of Victoria Police involved in the Lawyer X scandal, despite the recommendation of the Office of the Special Investigator.

Nicola Gobbo in 2019.Credit: ABC

On Friday, the Supreme Court of Victoria dropped a suppression order prohibiting any public disclosure about the existence or content of Gobbo’s lawsuit, despite opposition from Victoria Police.

Documents released by the court show Gobbo is seeking compensation for Victoria Police’s alleged failure to keep secret her role as a police informer – when she was known as Lawyer X and registered as Informer 3838 – which she claims has caused serious and lasting damage to her health, mental state and career.

The amount of compensation the former lawyer is seeking is not known, but in a 2010 lawsuit Gobbo allegedly demanded $20 million, but settled with Victoria Police for $2.88 million.

“[Gobbo] seek[s] exemplary damages which should be awarded to punish those Victoria Police officers and deter other police officers from doing what has been done to [Gobbo],” the current statement of claim says.

Simon Overland in 2019, outside the royal commission into the use of Nicola Gobbo as a police informer.Credit: Jason South

Gobbo alleges Victoria Police “knew or ought to have known” that her identity would one day have to be revealed and that using her as an informer was “negligent and their negligence” had “put her at a real risk of suffering harm by them and others”.

“[The officers] reassured her that her identity would be protected by Victoria Police and that her information would remain confidential.”

In the lawsuit, Gobbo admits she provided “confidential information relating to [her] clients” from 2005 to 2009 at the behest of police.

The statement of claim names nearly a dozen officers from the once-feted Purana anti-gangland taskforce, the human source intelligence unit and police command as allegedly acting in a “deliberate, intentional, reckless and contumelious manner” in registering and using a lawyer as an informer.

This includes an allegation that former chief commissioner of police Simon Overland – who was an assistant commissioner when he first allegedly permitted the use of Gobbo as an informer – committed “malfeasance in a public office” by allowing Gobbo to be registered and used.

“Overland’s exercise of power in permitting [Gobbo’s] use as a police informer for the period 2005 to 2009 which informing included providing confidential and/or privileged information of [Gobbo’s] current and former clients, was invalid or lacked lawful authority,” the document says.

“It fundamentally undermined the premises of the criminal justice system, including the common law right of a fair trial to accused persons and independent legal representation.

“Had Overland validly exercised his power and not permitted the use of [Gobbo] as a Victoria Police informer, [Gobbo] would not have suffered the injury, loss and damage alleged herein.”

Nicola Gobbo with then-client Tony Mokbel outside a court in 2004.Credit: Nine News

Gobbo has claimed Victoria Police is responsible for ruining her life, but most of the details of the mental, physical and emotional damage she claims to have suffered were redacted from the released documents.

In 2010, Gobbo was paid $2.88 million to settle a lawsuit after her identity as a key witness against the allegedly corrupt drug squad detective Paul Dale was inadvertently revealed in court proceedings.

At the time, Gobbo’s 15-year history as an informer – for which one chief commissioner called her a “glittering prize” in the fight against organised crime – was one of Victoria Police’s most tightly guarded secrets.

The $2.88 million settlement was quickly approved in an apparent attempt to prevent the exposure of her role in sending potentially dozens of her own clients to jail, when she was a gangland lawyer informing on her clients.

Victoria Police’s bid of nearly two decades to keep that secret unravelled in late 2018 when a High Court decision forced authorities to disclose her involvement as a registered police informer to her former clients.

The force has not yet filed a defence to the latest lawsuit.

In the past, in public pronouncements and submissions before the Royal Commission into the Management of Police Informants, Victoria Police has acknowledged that recruiting Gobbo as an informer was a serious mistake.

Chief Commissioner Shane Patton has previously said: “I would like to make clear today Victoria Police’s absolute acknowledgement that the management of Nicola Gobbo as a human source and the manner in which the information she provided was used, was a profound failure by our organisation that must not, and will not, ever be repeated.”

The use of Gobbo as an informant has already led to convictions being quashed for two of her former clients. Tony Mokbel, another former client, has also had some convictions quashed but remains in prison and is appealing against his further convictions.

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