Lawyer X inquiry: Former top cop Christine Nixon had no clue on Nicola Gobbo

Christine Nixon says she had no idea that Nicola Gobbo was Victoria Police’s prize informant.

Former Police Commissioner Christine Nixon leaves the Royal Commission. Picture: David Geraghty

Former police chief Christine Nixon had no idea that gangland lawyer Nicola Gobbo was ­Victoria Police’s prize informant, telling a royal commission she found out in media reports almost a decade after Melbourne’s bloody gangland wars ended.

The former chief commissioner said on Wednesday that then assistant commissioner of crime Simon Overland should have told her about the “entirely inappropriate” decision to use a barrister as an informant against her own clients.

But Ms Nixon, who is the third person to have served as chief commissioner to give evidence at the royal commission, refused to take responsibility for the actions of police officers involv­ed in the management of the barrister turned supergrass.

Under cross-examination by counsel assisting, Megan Tittensor, Ms Nixon said: “I think that I did the very best I could. I had the overall responsibility for Victoria Police.

“So I’m prepared to take broad responsibility for the system­s and practices in the organisation, but individual decis­ions of police officers are theirs.”

Ms Nixon served as chief commissioner from 2001 to 2009, during the peak of Melbourne’s gangland wars. She told the commission she kept no diaries or notes during this period.

When Ms Tittensor asked who Ms Nixon believed should have told her that Ms Gobbo was informant 3838, the former top cop replied: “I assume people like Simon Overland would have been one, he’s the person who has continuity through this proces­s … perhaps there were others.”

Christine Nixon during her time as chief commissioner. Picture: Getty

Mr Overland, who was assistant commissioner for crime and later deputy commissioner under Ms Nixon, has previously told the commission he didn’t recall­ telling Ms Nixon that Ms Gobbo was a registered police inform­ant.

On Tuesday, Mr Overland said Victoria Police may have “perverted the course of justice” by using Ms Gobbo to rat out her clients with information obtained under legal privilege. He said investigators had never made him aware that Ms Gobbo was informing on her clients.

“At no time was I made aware of the fact that Ms Gobbo was ­either breaching legal profess­ional privilege or acting for ­people against whom she was ­informing,” he said on Tuesday.

Ms Nixon said she was “very surprised” when Ms Gobbo was unmasked as Lawyer X in media reports in December last year.

“I don't have any recollection of people telling me … I was very surprised and when in fact when this commission … or before the commission, actually … when the whole material came out, I thought it was another lawyer, actually­,” she said. “I didn't know who the person was.”

Ms Gobbo, who has been ordered­ to give evidence at the royal commission next month, was a high-profile criminal defenc­e barrister who represented underworld heavies such as Tony Mokbel at the height of Melbourne­’s gangland wars.

Her tainted information was used in scores of cases to secure high-profile gangland convict­ions. Since the scandal emerged, one conviction has been overturned and more are expected to follow.

Nicola Gobbo. Picture: ABC

The royal commission heard on Tuesday that Ms Gobbo continued to represent drug kingpin Mokbel in late 2005 and early 2006 after she was registered by Victoria Police as a human source in September 2005.

On Wednesday, Mr Overland returned to give evidence and continued to defend registering Ms Gobbo as an informant and said becoming a source was the safest way for the gangland lawyer to escape the thralls of Mokbel and his crime syndicate.

“I thought it was the best option in the circumstances as they presented and that by removing the threat, that would allow Ms Gobbo to extract herself from the situation that she’d got in,” he said.

“She could move on with her career, I believed her life was at serious­ risk from these people.”

Ms Gobbo is living in hiding with her two children after receiving a $3m settlement from Vic­toria Police.

Ms Nixon said Ms Gobbo was an “extraordinary individual” in “extraordinary circumstances” and said there was nothing detectives could have done to prevent her from representing the client she was informing on.

“The fact is, unless they (detectiv­es) actually physically restrain­ed her from being there … she was going to pursue that no matter what,” she said.

Ms Nixon told the commission she didn’t take notes or keep a diary or a day book but said that potentially someone else in Victor­ia Police had.

“I understand the work you’re doing and difficulty you’re facing but that’s the way we operated,” she said. “It wasn’t the intention to cause problems.”

Mr Overland has also told the royal commission he kept neither a diary nor a day book and current Chief Commissioner Graham Ashton said he stopped keeping diaries for two years when he was overseeing whether Ms Gobbo would give evidence against former­ detective Paul Dale at the Office of Public Integrity.

Mr Ashton told the royal commission last week he took comfort in the fact that the most senior ranks of Victoria Police knew Ms Gobbo was an informant.

Ms Nixon said she led Victoria Police on a need-to-know basis and she didn’t have detailed involvem­ent with detectives handling Melbourne’s brawling underworld until the 2003 murder­s of Pasquale Barbaro and Jason Moran.

“Up until that point, I'd have to say I’d stayed out of the issues,” she said.

“I had to be the one to explain why we weren’t still making any great progress, I certainly became involved in that point, about resourc­es.”

Ms Nixon said the “spectre” of a potential royal commission into corruption followed her throughout her time at Victoria Police.