Lawyer X applied to become a magistrate

Nicola Gobbo has told a court that she applied to become a magistrate while she was informing on her gangland clients to Victoria Police.

Nicola Gobbo is suing the state of Victoria.

Nicola Gobbo, the barrister-turned-police informer also known as Lawyer X, has told a court she applied to become a magistrate while she was informing on her gangland clients to Victoria Police.

Ms Gobbo is suing the state of Victoria for compensation in connection with its alleged negligence in its use of her as a police informer.

On Thursday, Ms Gobbo told the Supreme Court she submitted an expression of interest to become a magistrate in early 2007.

She said the former head of Victoria Police’s gangland-busting Purana taskforce, Jim O’Brien, supported her application.

Mr O’Brien knew she was a police informer at the time, Ms Gobbo said.

She said she discussed her application with her police handlers, and told the court it was a “foregone conclusion” her appointment as a magistrate would have ended her role as a police informer.

Earlier, Ms Gobbo told the court she became addicted like a “drug addict” to informing on her clients and was “spellbound” by her Victoria Police controller.

Barrister for the state, Bernard Quinn KC, asked Ms Gobbo in cross-examination about her decision to act for Tony Mokbel’s associate as his lawyer while simultaneously feeding police intelligence about him in 2006.

He asked Ms Gobbo whether her decision was contrary to the instructions of her controller, who was responsible for supervising her handlers within Victoria Police’s source development unit. Ms Gobbo said she was never told she shouldn’t act for Mokbel’s associate, labelling the assertion she would have disobeyed an instruction by her police controller as “ridiculous”.

Nicola Gobbo said she was never told she shouldn’t act for Tony Mokbel’s associate.

Nicola Gobbo said her Victoria Police controller was ‘very excited’ when she entered Melbourne’s underworld. Picture: Ian Currie

“This was a man who, frankly, I was kind of spellbound by,” Ms Gobbo said.

“If he said jump, I would have said how high? It wasn’t the dynamic or the relationship between me and him … he makes it sound like I’ve stood up to him and said get lost … that’s not how our relationship was.”

Ms Gobbo told the court her police controller was “very excited” when she entered Melbourne underworld figure Mick Gatto’s “orbit” and started socialising with him in 2006.

She agreed with Mr Quinn that Gatto saw her as part of his crew but said it was “not in the same way as the Mokbels or the Williamses had”.

Ms Gobbo said in late 2008, Gatto told her he had been tipped off by a police officer that someone close to him was informing on him.

“He indicated to me that he didn’t know who [the informer was] specifically, only that a police officer had told him it was someone close to him … and it wasn’t until later on that I worked out who had given him information,” Ms Gobbo said.

“But I did report it at the time because of my concern that police were leaking things.”

When asked why she didn’t consider walking away from Victoria Police at that point, Ms Gobbo said she had become addicted to her role as an informer. “I’m like a drug addict at this point,” she said.

The trial will resume on Monday.