Lawyer X royal commission: ‘I was preyed upon by predatory cops’, says Nicola Gobbo

Nicola Gobbo says she was preyed on by the ‘master manipulators’ of Victoria Police.

Nicola Gobbo is appearing at the royal commission into police informants for the first time on Tuesday. Picture: ABC

Nicola Gobbo says she was preyed on by the “master manipulators” of Victoria Police, with the supergrass claiming her naivety saw her fall victim to smooth talking detectives.

Giving evidence at the royal commission into the management of police informants on Tuesday, Ms Gobbo said disgraced drug squad detective Wayne Strawhorn flattered her into disclosing information over coffee meet ups in south Melbourne in 1998.

Ms Gobbo said she was simultaneously petrified and impressed by Mr Strawhorn, who she said coaxed information out of her in a “manipulatory, predatory fashion”.

“Looking back I'm embarrassed at my level of naïveté and stupidity,” she said.

NICOLA GO BB O ON . . .

Mr Strawhorn was jailed in 2006 for supplying a commercial quantity of pseudoephedrine, a precursor for the manufacture of amphetamines, to slain drug dealer­ Mark Moran.

Ms Gobbo was a criminal ­defence barrister who represented underworld heavies such as Tony Mokbel while simultaneously snitching on them to Victoria Police at the height of Melbourne’s gangland wars.

On Tuesday, she said then assistant commissioner of crime Simon Overland had ordered detectives to ensnare criminals in their own networks by going after their associates, including their lawyers.

Ms Gobbo told the commission that in the early 2000s she was again targeted by another smooth talking Victoria Police operative, this time “master-manipulator” Peter De Santo, who was then an investigator in the Ethical Standards Department.

“I know it may sound pathetic to say … [but] he made me feel important and no doubt (built) my self-esteem in the same way that, or a similar way to Wayne Strawhorn,” she said.

“But De Santo was a lot … smoother about it.”

“I can just recall some phone conversations with him where he was incredibly clever in the way he cryptically answered things.”

Mr De Santo was at the time investigating corruption in the drug squad.

On Tuesday, she said her Victoria Police handlers told her “everything was OK” when she was informing on her clients and treated her concerns “like a joke”, despite her fearing a future royal commission.

“It became, not a joke, but the way they treated it as … a joke,” she said.

“Because I would say, basically, if you people don’t know what you’re doing then I’ll end up dead and there will be a royal commission.”

Ms Gobbo said she became increasingly concerned she’d been crossing lines with the information she was passing on to Victoria Police and sought assurances her double-dealing had been cleared by police hierarchy.

“Each and every time I was assured that … it was either assured that it wasn’t a matter for me or not to ask questions,” she said.

“And given the impression that everybody who needed to know, knew, and that everything was OK.”

The royal commission has already identified scores of cases that may have been tainted by Ms Gobbo’s informing with Faruk Orman the first person to be released after Lawyer-X was unmasked.

Ms Gobbo told the commission that in 1998 she had ambitions to undertake a masters researching the relationship between Victoria Police and informants.

"Looking back (from) where we are now, it’s laughable in a horrendous way," she said.

She told the commission that in 1998 she had several “drunken interludes” with an officer from the now defunct National Crime Authority who she was attempting to pass information on her then employer, who she believed was laundering money.

The commission has previously heard Ms Gobbo was registered as an informant three times: in 1995, 2005, and 2009.

The first time was when her then boyfriend Brian Wilson was busted with a large amount of amphetamines in the Carlton house she owned but Ms Gobbo said she didn’t realise she’d been registered as a human source until it was reported.

Ms Gobbo was then a promising law student and on Tuesday she admitted she did not disclose the whole truth about her double-dealing ex-boyfriend to the board of examiners.

When counsel assisting Chris Winneke QC asked that if she had, she might not have been admitted, she said: “Anything is possible.”

When asked by Mr Winneke on the statement she made on the legal values she must uphold when she became a member of the Victorian bar, she said: “Obviously … I have failed in that regard because look where we are.”

Ms Gobbo is expected to give further evidence on Wednesday.