Ghost of Nicola Gobbo to scare the smile off ex-top cop Simon Overland

The police uniform is long gone. Burnie City Council’s new general manager has dropped the tie and is even wearing a smile for his executive team photo.

Former Victoria Police chief commissioner Simon Overland. Picture: AAP

The police uniform with its braid and crown-studded epaulets is long gone. Burnie City Council’s new general manager has dropped the tie and is even wearing a smile for his executive team photo.

Simon Overland’s transformation into amiable Tasmanian northwest coast council boss may be complete but, no matter how hard he tries, the former chief commissioner of Victoria Police cannot escape the ghost of Gobbo.

The final report of the Lawyer X royal commission screamed across Bass Strait with a ferocity that shredded his personal credibility and that of the organisation he led as its gang war-busting hero.

Royal commissioner Margaret McMurdo’s has dismembered Mr Overland’s detailed defence and it’s now likely he faces referral to a special investigator and potential criminal charges.

“Having considered Mr Overland’s contentions, the commission is of the view that the most likely reason that he did not obtain legal advice was that he feared it would limit the information he hoped to obtain from Ms (Nicola) Gobbo to help solve the gangland wars,” the royal commissioner concluded.

Mr Overland, appointed as Burnie’s general manager only a few weeks ago, declined to respond to the findings from the two-year judicial investigation.

About 100 officers, according to the royal commission, were aware of the dirtiest secret in the history of Victoria Police, but Ms McMurdo is particularly critical of senior officers over the calamity.

“It is no answer to criticism for police officers, particularly those in senior, supervisory roles, to say that responsibility lay elsewhere or that matters were outside of their chain of command,” she states. “Once they knew of the grave risks of the situation and the questionable conduct of both Ms Gobbo and other police officers, they were obliged to either address it, or satisfy themselves that others were appropriately doing so.”

Ms McMurdo repeatedly dismisses Mr Overland’s version of events, saying the commission favoured diary notes from another officer that shows he was aware of her registration as a police informer earlier than he admitted to:

“The commission is satisfied (Detective Sergeant Jim) O’Brien probably did discuss Ms Gobbo’s registration with Mr Overland on 12 September 2005. Both he and Mr Overland should have identified … the grave risks involved in, and the need to carefully consider, the extraordinary step of registering a criminal defence barrister as a human source.”

The final report focuses on the use of Ms Gobbo in the case of two major criminals, given the pseudonyms “Mr Thomas” and “Mr Cooper”.

“Mr Overland knew or should have known that Ms Gobbo was acting for Mr Thomas and that this required legal advice and the most expert management … without interfering in the administration of justice. It was incumbent upon Mr Overland to ensure that those very high risks were satisfactorily ameliorated. It seems unlikely that Mr Overland would have been so imprudent as to not keep abreast of Mr Cooper’s progress in becoming a prosecution witness, given the strategy adopted to use him and Ms Gobbo to dismantle the Mokbel syndicate.”

Ms McMurdo was particularly critical of Mr Overland over his conduct while he was briefing a former Labor police minister over paying Ms Gobbo $2.8m to settle a civil case. “The commission considers Mr Overland’s response unsatisfactory. While operational and safety concerns are rightly front of mind for a chief commissioner, they should not be used to deflect scrutiny by the responsible minister,” she found.

“The commission considers that principles of transparency and accountability required Mr Overland to fully brief the minister on Ms Gobbo’s long history with Victoria Police and the resulting grave risks, not just to her safety but also to the organisation, the administration of justice and the government. The minister seems to have been let down by his chief commissioner.”