Despite new identity and 20 different locations, safety not guaranteed for Lawyer X and family

A court has heard that Nicola Gobbo has a new identity and has lived in more than 20 locations with her family in a bid to ensure their safety since her role as a police informer was revealed.

Barrister-turned-police informer Nicola Gobbo is suing the state.

Barrister-turned-police informer Nicola Gobbo has a new identity and has lived in more than 20 locations in multiple countries with her partner and two children in a bid to ensure their safety following the revelation of her role as an informer, a court has heard.

Ms Gobbo’s barrister, Tim Tobin SC, told the Supreme Court on Monday his client would “love to go back to work” but had “no employment history” she could rely on because she was unable to refer to her old identity.

Ms Gobbo, also known as Lawyer X, is suing the state of Victoria for compensation for loss, injury and damage she claims she suffered as a result of its alleged negligence in its use of her as a police informer.

Police recruited Ms Gobbo who fed them information about her gangland war clients while acting as their criminal defence barrister in the 2000s, a practice that led to a multimillion-dollar royal commission into the management of police informants being called in 2018.

The court heard that in the years that followed, the force struggled to find Ms Gobbo and her family a country that would be safe to live in and that one of Ms Gobbo’s children, who was unable to go to friends’ houses and missed months of school, became suicidal.

In one incident in March 2021, Ms Gobbo’s family were whisked away from their Victorian home in the middle of the night after a “suspicious-looking” man wearing a leather jacket was seen walking past.

“What is concerning to the plaintiff is the psychological effect that all this is having, not only on her, but on her children, and the effect that is having not only now but the knowledge that it is likely to continue for the rest of their lives,” Mr Tobin told the court.

“As a consequence of what the plaintiff has been exposed to over the last … nearly five years, the plaintiff suffered some high-level depression and anxiety.”

Mr Tobin told the court Ms Gobbo was stuck in a “holding pattern” and had restricted access to medical treatment for her mental and physical health problems.

He said Ms Gobbo was unable to access her tax return, medical history, shares or properties in her former name due to constraints imposed by her arrangements.

Her junior barrister, Jessie Taylor, earlier told the court Ms Gobbo was assured by police that they would take “all steps available” to protect her safety in their use of her as an informer.

Ms Taylor said despite records of meetings between police officers about “exit strategies” for using Ms Gobbo as an informer in 2006 due to risks, officers kept taking information from her because “it was simply too good to resist”.

The state is defending Ms Gobbo’s claim, and has sought to limit any liability to Ms Gobbo to $1m through the recently enacted State Civil Liability (Police Informants) Act.

The trial continues.