Lawyer X: ignorance was not bliss for ex-top cop Christine Nixon

Christine Nixon ran the nation’s second largest police force without being told about Lawyer X.

Simon Overland, pictured as then newly appointed Victoria Police Chief Commissioner with past Chief Commissioner Christine Nixon at his first graduation ceremony.

As gangland bodies were being scraped off Melbourne streets, the popular perception was that Christine Nixon and Simon Overland were a united force at the forefront of the police response.

As it turns out, only one of them had an informed view of broadly what was going on. It wasn’t Nixon.

The royal commission on Wednesday heard startling evidence that no one ever told Nixon about the engagement of Nicola Gobbo as the force’s snitch-in-chief.

Overland certainly had plenty of opportunity to tell Nixon.

Nixon’s ignorance of the Gobbo strategy, we heard, was so profound that she didn’t even know who Lawyer X was after she left the force as chief commissioner in 2009.

Nixon’s best guess was that it was another female lawyer.

Given the nature of the gamble to engage Gobbo it seems incredible that Overland (and others) did not outline what the force was doing.

“In hindsight there clearly were opportunities all the way back that you’ve raised,’’ Nixon said when quizzed about whether she should have been told.

Credibility is often hard to judge, particularly in the fog that is a large-scale police force.

But, taking a punt nonetheless, Nixon came across as credible and honest in her evidence.

Unless a document emerges that shows she did know about Gobbo, her evidence was — in its own way — also damning of herself.

Why wouldn’t her underlings deem it necessary to tell her about the Gobbo decision?

Was it because they didn’t respect her or was it because they wanted to protect her?

Nixon has never been a great fan of royal commissions. She resisted political pressure for a royal commission into police corruption in Victoria and was savaged by the Black Saturday royal commission for going to the hairdresser, having dinner and meeting her biographer as fire took hold.

Wednesday’s questioning by counsel assisting Megan Tittensor included repeated examples of how Gobbo had been known to police through her legal work and connections with criminals.

Nixon was largely unaware of the repeated connections between Gobbo, the force and crooks.

The closest she came to Gobbo seems to have been watching her on the nightly news.

While Nixon expressed her concerns about being kept in the dark on Gobbo, it wasn’t a brutal slap down of Overland; more an expression of regret.

The commission appears to be somewhat frustrated by the failure of senior police to take notes. To that end, Nixon has joined the growing list of officers who did not record their activities.

“I don’t have a tradition of keeping a diary,’’ Nixon said.

Join the Vic Pol club.

Overland has been the star witness this week and finished the final hour in the witness box.

The most interesting aspect of that hour was the shift in Overland’s attitude.

He appeared more combative, definitely less willing to accept the narrative presented to the commission by counsel assisting Chris Winneke QC.

It might be that he now thinks he has nothing to lose.

Or he’s just worn out by the royal commission’s relentless scrutiny.