Lawyer X: Royal commission recommends special investigator consider possible criminal charges

The royal commission into the ‘Lawyer X’ scandal has laid out what should happen to restore faith in Victoria Police and the state’s justice system.

A special investigator should be appointed to explore whether those involved in using barrister Nicola Gobbo as a police informer should face criminal charges, a royal commission has found.

The Royal Commission into the Management of Police Informants handed down its final report on Monday, almost two years after it was first called to examine the “Lawyer X” scandal.

CRIMINAL PROSECUTION POSSIBLE

Commissioner Margaret McMurdo AC said the Victorian government should appoint a special investigator to determine if there was sufficient evidence to prosecute both Ms Gobbo and “current and former members” of Victoria Police for criminal offences.

If the special investigator thinks there is sufficient evidence to take Victoria Police officers and Ms Gobbo to court, they should prepare a brief for the prosecutor, she said.

The investigator should have “the necessary powers and resources”.

The recommendation is among 111 aimed at helping to restore and maintain public confidence in Victoria Police, the legal profession and the criminal justice system.

“Police are not entitled to pursue suspects at any cost – they must comply with the law and use their powers in a fair and ethical way,” Ms McMurdo wrote.

She said Victoria Police’s management of informers had created “risks of misconduct and corruption”, and “inappropriate and sometimes corrupt” relationships between informers and police officers.

Chair of the Royal Commission into the Management of Police Informants Margaret McMurdo AC handed down her recommendations on Monday.

Ms McMurdo also said in her report there were 11 other informers registered by Victoria Police with apparent connections to the legal profession between 1990 and 2016.

However, police refused to hand over their files because they were “extremely sensitive”.

She said the government should appoint a person with “full and unfettered access” to source files to investigate the other 11 police informers with ties to the legal profession.

If those informers had also breached legal privilege they and their police handlers should be also be referred for prosecution, she recommended.

The royal commission was called by Premier Daniel Andrews to examine the explosive revelations about Ms Gobbo that rocked the legal world and shocked the public.

It cost taxpayers almost $40 million.

Victorian Attorney-General Jill Hennessy said on Monday the government would implement all of the royal commission’s recommendations.

“We’ve got to have a justice system that is not tainted,” she said.

Victoria Police’s top cop Shane Patton on Monday also said the force would “co-operate fully with any further criminal and/or disciplinary inquiries”.

“I have apologised to the courts and the community,” he said.

Nicola Gobbo and Carl Williams at his daughter Dhakota's glitzy christening party at Melbourne's Crown Casino in 2003.

Tony Mokbel with his then-lawyer Nicola Gobbo outside the Melbourne Magistrates Court in 2005. Mokbel is now trying to get out of jail, arguing Ms Gobbo’s informing tainted his conviction and 30-year jail sentence for drug trafficking.

THE LAWYER X SCANDAL

Nicola Gobbo was a barrister for some of Victoria’s highest-profile criminals, including underworld bosses Tony Mokbel and Carl Williams.

But she was secretly informing on her clients to Victoria Police.

Everyone in Australia has the right to legal privilege, which allows those accused of crimes to speak frankly with their lawyers without fear of that information being used against them.

But Victoria Police still signed up Ms Gobbo as an informer and used what she told them to put her own clients behind bars.

Victoria Police has since called the decision “indefensible” and “profoundly wrong”.

It was slammed by the Victorian Court of Appeal as a “miscarriage of justice” and by the High Court as “reprehensible conduct” involving “atrocious breaches” by police.

Nicola Gobbo speaking to ABC’s program 7.30 in 2019.

Nicola Gobbo leaving the Melbourne County Court in 2008 with client Justin Gatto.

The royal commission found more than 1000 legal cases could have been tainted by Ms Gobbo’s involvement.

Several convicted criminals have already begun bids for freedom, arguing they should never have been put behind bars because of the police’s use of Ms Gobbo in their cases.

Faruk Orman, jailed for murder, and Zlate Cvetanovski, jailed for drug trafficking, have walked free in the past two years after successful appeals.

Faruk Orman leaves the Victorian Court of Appeal on July 26, 2019, after successfully appealing his 20-year jail sentence for the murder of Victor Peirce. Picture: AAP Image/David Crosling

Others trying to get out of jail include Mokbel, one of Victoria’s highest-profile drug kingpins, and Saverio Zirilli, jailed for the infamous 2007 “tomato tins” ecstasy bust.

The royal commission sat for 127 days and heard from more than 200 witnesses through written and spoken testimony.

Ms Gobbo was first registered as a police informer in 1995 but was most active between 2005 and 2009, in the midst of Melbourne’s bloody gangland wars.

THE ROYAL COMMISSION’S RECOMMENDATIONS

Along with appointing a special investigator to prepare a brief for criminal charges, Ms McMurdo made 110 other recommendations.

They included that:

• Lawyers be required to report the suspected misconduct of other lawyers through mandatory reporting laws.
• The Victorian government introduce specific legislation to govern Victoria Police’s use of informers, rather than relying on Victoria Police’s internal policies.
• Victoria Police change their policies around managing informers, including having a “maximum time in position” requirement to “reduce the risk of corruption”.
• Anti-corruption body IBAC monitors Victoria Police’s use of informers with six-monthly inspections of their relevant records with full access, accompanied by appropriately redacted public reports.
• Police informers be told they can confidentially complain to IBAC if they are unhappy with their treatment.
• External oversight is brought in whenever police want to register a police informer with access to confidential or privileged information, so that a monitor outside of Victoria Police must make submissions on the use of the informer before their registration is approved.
• Police officers be better trained in legal privilege, including what jobs attract legal obligations of confidentiality or privilege.
• Police officers be better trained in human rights.
• Lawyers be better trained in confidentiality requirements.
• The government remove the current right for police officers — or anyone — to refuse to give information to a royal commission because of a claim of public interest immunity.
• An ‘implementation taskforce’ is created within three months to co-ordinate the actions set down.