Lawyer X inquiry boss McMurdo slams police over secrecy

Lawyer X royal commissioner Margaret McMurdo says she is being forced to conduct her inquiry with one hand tied.

Margaret McMurdo says police suppression requests have made her feel like a ‘boxer in a fighting match with one hand tied behind his back and the other bruised and bleeding’

Lawyer X royal commissioner Margaret McMurdo says she is being forced to conduct her inquir­y with one hand tied behind her back because of constant attempts­ by Victoria Police to have information shielded from public view.

Ms McMurdo, a former president of the Queensland Court of Appeal, said she felt like a beaten and bloodied boxer but was determined to fight on. “Historical suppressi­on and non-publication orders and constant public-interes­t immunity claims sometimes make my task in moving this commission forward in public akin to a boxer in a fighting match with one hand tied behind his back and the other bruised and bleeding,’’ Ms McMurdo said.

“But I am still upright and focuse­d on a positive conclusion.’’

The comments came as it emerged that Victoria Police failed­ to provide to the commission a statement by homicide detect­ive Sol Solomon about his “close involvement” with Ms Gobbo when he investigated the gangland killing of police informant Terence Hodson.

Ms McMurdo said that, given Victoria Police’s resistance to disclosure, it would be reasonable to think Mr Solomon’s evidence had been deliberately withheld.

“Some people might think that Victoria Police didn’t want to provide­ it to the commission, that it is uncomfortable for it to be provide­d to the commission,’’ Ms McMurdo said. “It’s an inference that could reasonably be drawn.”

Counsel for Victoria Police Renee Enbom insisted that was not the case. “I understand the concern but Victoria Police’s approac­h to this commission to date has been to provide full co-operation,’’ Ms Enbom said.

Ms McMurdo: “Well, you keep telling us that.’’

There is growing frustration within the royal commission that its already difficult task — unravelling the implications of the use of defence barrister Nicola Gobbo as a police informant — is being aggravated by the failure of Victoria Police to make full and timely disclosures to the commission.

According to the terms of refer­ence and timelines set by the Andrews government, the commission is expected to provide a report by July 1 about the criminal cases impacted by Ms Gobbo’s secre­t role as a registered police informant. The commission is now in its third month of public hearings and is yet to examine the most critical period of Ms Gobbo’s activities as an informant from 2005-09, at the tail end of Melbourne’s gangland war.

Ms McMurdo’s frustration about the police response came in reply to an application by media groups including News Corp Australia, publisher of The Australian, to have greater scrutiny of materi­al police are seeking to hide from public view.

The royal commission was establi­shed after the High Court resolved a four-year battle waged by Victoria Police to keep Lawyer X under wraps. The court’s full bench, in a stinging judgment, found that Victoria Police, through its “reprehensible’’ conduc­t throughout the Lawyer X saga, sanctioned “atrocious breaches of the sworn duty of every police officer’’.

In an application to the commis­sion on behalf of media groups, solicitor John-Paul Cashen­ from Macpherson Kelley lawyers said the breadth of non-publication orders was an obstacl­e to the royal commission doing its job.

Yesterday’s hearing took evidence from retired police detective Steve Campbell, who told the commission he was sleeping with Ms Gobbo at the time she represented a gangland killer who had implicated him in serious drug charges. Mr Campbell was cleared of any wrongdoing. He said he was unaware that Ms Gobbo continu­ed to provide information to police about him for years after he retired from the force.

Today’s hearing is expected to hear from two former police who were at the centre of the Hodson murder case, David Miechel and Paul Dale.