Lawyer X royal commission recommends special investigator into Nicola Gobbo, police

Final report recommends special investigator be appointed to determine if Nicola Gobbo, officers broke the law.

Royal commission chair Margaret McMurdo QC said Victoria Police’s use of high-profile criminal defence barrister Nicola Gobbo represented a ‘systemic failure’.

A special investigator will be appointed to examine if lawyer-turned-informant Nicola Gobbo and a raft of current and former senior Victoria Police officers, including Simon Overland and Graham Ashton, broke the law.

Handing down her final report on Monday, royal commission chair Margaret McMurdo QC said Victoria Police had corrupted the criminal justice system in its unacceptable willingness to tolerate rule bending to solve crime.

“The breach of her obligations as a lawyer was inexcusable, her behaviour in concert with Victoria Police undermined the administration of justice, compromised criminal convictions and damaged the standing of Victoria Police officers involved in this debacle,” she said.

“It has shaken public trust and confidence in the Victorian legal profession and criminal justice system.”

An extraordinary 1011 accused offenders had their cases impacted by the double-dealing criminal barrister, Ms McMurdo found, in her mammoth report that made more than 100 recommendations, many of which call for unprecedented new oversight of Victoria Police conduct.

Victoria Police Chief Commissioner Shane Patton said using Ms Gobbo as a human source was a “profound failure” and announced Taskforce Reset would be established to respond to the findings of the royal commission.

“As Chief Commissioner, I have apologised to the courts and to the community for what occurred, and I do so again today,” he said.

“I also apologise for our failure to identify and disclose what was occurring at the time.”

Ms McMurdo found there were around 100 former and ­current senior police officers who knew Ms Gobbo was a ­registered informant while she simultaneously provided legal representation to underworld heavies at the height of Melbourne’s gangland wars in the mid-2000s.

These include then assistant commissioner of crimes Mr Overland, former chief commissioner Mr Ashton, former bosses of gangbusting Purana Taskforce, Jim O’Brien and Gavan Ryan, legal services director Fin McRae, current commander Stuart Bateson as well as Ms Gobbo’s former handlers from the source development unit.

In her recommendations, Ms McMurdo said the Victorian government should “refer the conduct of current and former Victoria Police officers named in this report … or the complete and unredacted submissions of counsel assisting to the Special Investigator … to investigate whether there is sufficient evidence to establish the commission of a criminal and/or disciplinary offence or offences connected with Victoria Police’s use of Ms Nicola Gobbo as a human source.”

Ms McMurdo said if Victoria Police was internally flawed, it was because its senior leaders lacked moral clarity, vision and the ability to fix those flaws.

“Several officers, including those responsible for leadership of the organisation, knew enough about the risks and the potential consequences of using Ms Gobbo as a human source to have taken a different and more appropriate course.”

Ms McMurdo said Mr Overland should have immediately sought legal advice and considered the extraordinary step he was taking when he learned Ms Gobbo had been registered as an informant.

“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 Gobbo to help solve the gangland wars,“ she said.

Similarly with Mr Ashton, then head of the now defunct Office of Police Integrity, Ms McMurdo said he should have sought legal advice on the “inherently problematic situation”.

“Mr Ashton’s omission to investigate the propriety of Ms Gobbo’s use as a human source was a lost opportunity for the OPI to perform its independent oversight function,” she said.

Ms McMurdo said the royal commission had written to 124 people whose cases may have been directly impacted by Ms Gobbo, describing her conduct as “inexcusable” with the fallout to be felt within Melbourne’s legal fraternity for years.

“That so many convictions — many concerning allegations of violence or homicide, large-scale drug trafficking and organised crime — may have been marred by Ms Gobbo’s conduct is staggering,” she said.

Rejecting Ms Gobbo’s defence that she felt compelled to snitch on clients by a deep need to feel validated, Ms McMurdo identified an additional 887 people whose conduct may have been tainted by the lawyer-turned-informant between 1993 and 2009, when she was deregistered.

Zlate Cvetanovski and Faruk Orman have both been acquitted after Ms Gobbo’s role in convincing a key gangland witness to give evidence against them in separate trials, while former drug baron Tony Mokbel is seeking leave to appeal.

Victorian Attorney-General Jill Hennessy immediately accepted all 111 recommendations made by the royal commission, saying what had emerged from the inquiry was “truly appalling”.

“As a society and as a Western liberal democracy, we rely on having a justice system that acts with integrity, with fairness and with honour,” she said.

The royal commission recommended a range of reforms to Victoria Police’s management of human sources, including establishing an independent watchdog to encourage officers to use their powers ethically and lawfully.

The final report comes after two years of hearings and a four-year investigation by the Herald Sun newspaper.

ADDITIONAL REPORTING: RACHEL BAXENDALE