Cop denies Lawyer X relationship

A Victoria Police assistant commissioner was taken off a murder case after he was accused of having sex with Nicola Gobbo.

Witness Jeff Pope (left) arrives at the Victorian Royal Commission into Lawyer X. Picture: AAP

A Victoria Police assistant commissioner was removed from a highly sensitive murder investigation after he was accused of having a sexual relationship with the defence barrister known as Lawyer X, Nicola Gobbo.

The Royal Commission into the Management of Police Informants was told that former assistant commissioner Jeff Pope was investigated for misconduct after Ms Gobbo claimed they’d had an on and off affair.

Mr Pope, now a cabinet-appointed deputy electoral commissioner with the Australian Electoral Commission, told the royal commission the allegation was false.

In a 2011 affidavit sworn shortly after the allegation was first put it him he declared: “I have never had a sexual, personal or any sort of inappropriate relationship with Witness F (Gobbo).’’

Documents tendered to the royal commission show that Ms Gobbo was secretly recorded making the allegation in a conversation with two police detectives in October 2011.

At the time, Ms Gobbo had fallen out bitterly with Victoria Police command and had settled a multimillion-dollar law suit against former chief commissioner Simon Overland for mismanaging her as a police witness.

Mr Pope, the assistant commissioner for intelligence and covert support, was on the steering committee overseeing the Driver taskforce investigating the jailhouse murder of Carl Williams.

He was previously a member of the steering committee overseeing the Petra taskforce established to investigate former drug squad detective Paul Dale for the 2004 murder of police informant Terence Hodson.

Melbourne lawyer Nicola Gobbo, who has been revealed as Lawyer X. Picture: ABC

Williams and Ms Gobbo were to be witnesses against Mr Dale but the case collapsed when Ms Gobbo refused to testify and Williams was bludgeoned to death in prison.

In her taped conversation with detectives, Ms Gobbo claimed her affair with Mr Pope, one of her handlers when she was a registered informant, went on for several months.

She told the detectives: “Do you know who the assistant commissioner was who I only found out after the event, who was overseeing my handling when I was being looked after by Petra? Was Jeff Pope for a while, wasn’t it?’’

“Would you think it was appropriate if I had a sexual relationship with you if you looked after that committee? How’s that for (inaudible) for you?’’

Mr Pope stood down from the Driver taskforce while police conducted a high-level internal investigation. He was cleared of misconduct and there was no finding that he’d had an inappropriate relationship with Ms Gobbo.

However, he was unable to resume his position on the Driver taskforce and was prohibited from any further dealings with Ms Gobbo after legal advice provided to police command found that her allegation presented a conflict of interest. “The fact that the source has said that sexual relations occurred does create a potential or perceived conflict of interest for member C’s (Mr Pope’s) involvement in decision-making about the source,’’ assistant Victorian government solicitor Shaun Le Grand advised police in November 2011.

“This is so whether or not a personal relationship existed between them and is made more acute by the disagreement between them about the nature of their relationship.’’

Mr Pope decided to leave the Victoria Police a little over a year after he was investigated. He applied for the AEC role in February 2013 and formally quit the force in July that year.

He told the commission he left for personal health reasons and to pursue a less taxing career.

Rumours that Ms Gobbo was sexually involved with Mr Pope, a key figure in Mr Overland’s command, has dogged Victoria Police throughout the Lawyer X ­scandal.

Mr Pope said when he joined the Petra taskforce steering committee, he declared his previous role in managing Ms Gobbo as a police informant to Mr Overland, Deputy Commissioner Ken Jones and Findlay McRae, the Victoria Police legal services ­director.

In his evidence to the royal commission, Mr Pope recounted how he was introduced to Ms Gobbo in 1999 by drug squad detectives and how, based on information she promised to provide, police launched a fraud and money laundering investigation into a partner at the law firm where she started her legal career. In May 1999, Mr Pope registered Ms Gobbo as a human source and nominated himself as her handler.

No charges were ever laid as a result of the investigation. When asked whether Ms Gobbo was a reliable informant, Mr Pope told the royal commission: “She was reliable in terms of attending meetings and trying to provide information where she had access to that.

“But my recollection was she was also somewhat difficult to keep focused. She would talk an awful lot about a whole range of things.’’

Mr Pope said their strangest conversation occurred in 2000 after she was no longer providing information as a registered informant.

In his sworn affidavit tendered to the royal commission, he describes how he met Ms Gobbo by chance at the Melbourne Magistrates Court.

After they sat down for a coffee at a nearby pub, she told him her practice as a defence barrister was going well but she wasn’t happy. She then put to him a ­bizarre proposition, in which he would fly business class with her to Hawaii.

“She said that she would pay for all of the expenses of another person to have the right companion to go with her,’’ he said. “At the end of our conversation she asked whether our relationship was ever likely to develop into something more personal.

“I said no as I was happily married.’’ This was the last time Mr Pope spoke to Lawyer X.