A wink and a nudge: How Nicola Gobbo learnt gangland figures would be murdered

At just 30 years old, Nicola Gobbo lived fast and dangerous in the early 2000s as the go-to barrister for Melbourne’s most lethal underworld crews, who would sometimes joke with a “wink nudge” about rivals who were about to be murdered during the gangland war.

On her first day in the witness box for her compensation lawsuit against Victoria Police, the now 51-year-old outlined her version of how a once-rising star in the legal profession became – alongside Victoria Police – the cause of the worst legal scandal in Australian history, when she was known as Lawyer X.

Former lawyer and police informer Nicola Gobbo.Credit: ABC

Gobbo took the court back to the height of the gangland wars in 2003, where bodies were dropping on a regular basis and Melbourne was awash in ecstasy and amphetamines.

“On occasion, I had been warned by those for whom I was acting or people that were on the periphery of the group of someone I was acting for – it was kind of wink, wink, nudge nudge: don’t be near this person, don’t have a coffee with this person. Don’t be in public with this person because it’s not safe or something might happen to them,” Gobbo recounted.

“And then, lo and behold, they would be murdered. It was almost unbelievable. I had never known anyone to have been murdered before, and all of a sudden there were quite a lot of people being murdered.”

It was the first time Gobbo has been heard from in more than three years, when she made a tightly controlled appearance before the Royal Commission into the Management of Police Informants.

Her first day in the stand was also close to coinciding with the sixth anniversary since she went into hiding after her identity as “Informer 3838” was ordered to be revealed by the High Court of Australia.

For safety reasons, Gobbo testified on Wednesday for the Supreme Court of Victoria civil trial via remote video link, which could be seen only by the judge and both legal teams.

More than 200 people tuned into the Supreme Court’s live-stream audio to listen to proceedings.

A few were underworld players with long and tortured histories with Gobbo, sources say.

It remains unclear whether Tony Mokbel, who was the subject of much of the testimony on Wednesday and is now appealing his hefty jail sentence after being represented by Gobbo, was allowed to tune in from prison. One of his lawyers declined to comment.

Gobbo’s appearance is the culmination of a lawsuit that was filed more than three years ago against Victoria Police and the state of Victoria seeking compensation for what she says was “negligence” and “malfeasance in public office” by a number of high-profile officers.

Gobbo alleges that the police’s failure to keep secret her role as a police informer has caused serious and lasting damage to her health, mental state and career.

She was originally seeking damages reportedly in the range of $20 million to $30 million, but a recent law passed by the state government has capped her total potential compensation payout at $1 million.

Victoria Police, who have deployed at least seven lawyers at the trial, is claiming they owe no duty of care to Gobbo — and therefore no compensation – because she allegedly committed crimes while acting as a police agent from 2005 to 2009.

After several hours in the box, Gobbo was forced to take an impromptu break. She had earlier explained to the court that she suffers from crippling facial pain, a condition she’s had for well over a decade, which she says is the direct consequences of the impact of the saga on her health.

Gobbo’s evidence on Wednesday included her describing how she crossed over from powerhouse barrister to police supergrass – which she told the court came after being placed in an impossible position between competing underworld crews in the early 2000s.

She said she found herself representing various players from the Moran, Mokbel and Williams outfits, who were then locked in a bloody conflict for the city’s drug trade.

“I was doing bail applications for almost every big drug arrest in Melbourne around that time,” she testified.

“There was pressure from Mr Mokbel and Mr Williams to not partake in any activity that assisted Lewis Moran or anybody in his crew or group of people. It was quite extraordinary.”

Barrister Nicola Gobbo with Tony Mokbel outside court in 2004.Credit: Nine

“There was a lot of screaming-kind-of-phone calls, a lot of directions – specifically being directed to not appear for Mr Moran on the basis that I was not part of his crew. I was apparently part of the Mokbel crew.”

Her claimed “betrayal” was addressed by a visit by Andrew “Benji” Veniamin, who was already an accomplished hitman and was shortly about to die following a confrontation with Mick Gatto, where he was killed in self-defence.

“He was literally parked on the nature strip outside where I was living, and was in a screaming rage. He was certainly a frightening sight, and he had frightening demeanour,” she testified.

Eventually, Gobbo would find herself in an even more dangerous position when she was representing another gunman who was a client and who was set to become a police witness.

Andrew Veniamin and Carl WIlliams.Credit: Ten News

“My concern was Mr Williams or Mr Mokbel becoming aware of me having assisted him (to do a deal with police) without having forewarned or told them.”

Other clients she was representing were also reaching a tipping point where they might implicate Mokbel under her watch.

After a number of contacts with detectives from the anti-gangland Purana Taskforce, Gobbo says she began a dance with police that saw her seek “help” for her worsening dilemma.

Gobbo told the court that during a covert meeting at the Footscray Market, police held out the promise of an “amazing new system”, a secret “special new department” that could give her a way out of her predicament – the Source Development Unit.

It was their opening offer that led, for the first time in Australia, to the recruitment of a criminal lawyer as an informer.

“(It was about) how they might be able to assist me, and that I might be able to assist them,” she testified.

The offer would be repeated later in much starker terms. “People like you end up in one of two places – in prison or the gutter, dead. That would be a good outcome but we can assist you,” she claims she was told.

Not long after, Gobbo would be signed up as Informer 3838.

Gobbo will continue her testimony tomorrow in a trial that is expected to last a month.

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