Lawyer X: Simon Overland ‘unaware Nicola Gobbo snitching on mob clients’

Simon Overland says he didn’t know Nicola Gobbo was informing on her clients.

Barrister turned police informant Nicola Gobbo. Picture: ABC

Former Victorian Police chief Simon Overland says he wasn’t aware criminal barrister turned snitch Nicola Gobbo was informing on her underworld clients, despite running the force’s gangland strategy at the time.

Mr Overland, who between 2003 and 2006 was Assistant Commissioner of Crime and led the gang-busting Purana Taskforce, also told the Royal Commission into police informants on Monday that he’d kept prosecutors in the dark about Ms Gobbo’s status as a police informer.

In the first of two days of evidence, Mr Overland blamed police handlers working with Ms Gobbo for not telling him she was informing against her clients.

“I remember having conversations with my investigators about that issue and at no time did I believe that she was acting for people against whom she was informing,” he said.

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“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. Had I been aware I’d have taken action,” Mr Overland said.

Former Victoria Police Chief Commissioner Simon Overland. Picture: Mark Stewart

He said the decision to recruit Ms Gobbo was partly designed to protect her, after she crossed professional boundaries with her gangland clients.

“The alternative, of leaving her out where she was, was worse because I thought, in all likelihood, she’d get killed,” he said.

Ms Gobbo’s information was used in dozens of high profile criminal prosecutions during the gangland era, many of which now face appeal because she both represented the crooks as a barrister and provided evidence against them.

Mr Overland told the commission he not keep a diary or a day book during the period under examination and said he didn’t “have a recollection” about whether he had told his boss, then Chief Commissioner Christine Nixon, about the use of Ms Gobbo as a human source.

Mr Overland’s testimony that he didn’t know Ms Gobbo was informing on her clients sits at odds with some earlier testimony.

Current Chief Commissioner Graham Ashton said on Tuesday that when he was a director of the now-defunct Office of Police Integrity he believed that the “highest levels” of Victoria Police were aware of Ms Gobbo’s status as an informant.

“I took some comfort from the fact that, you know, you’ve got the highest levels of the police force are aware that she’s a human source, the fact that she’s giving information,” Mr Ashton said.

Sandy White, one of Ms Gobbo’s former police handlers who was giving evidence under a pseudonym, told the inquiry in August that the decision to register Ms Gobbo as an informant in 2005 was discussed with Mr Overland.

On Friday, former Victoria Police Assistant Commissioner Sir Ken Jones told the inquiry Mr Overland fostered a “toxic” bureaucracy in which he could avoid accountability.

“There was a strong culture to loyalty, your supervisor [or] boss was all [and]I thought that was wrong, very toxic,” Sir Ken said

Mr Overland told the Commission he never informed Victoria’s Office of the Public Prosecutions that Ms Gobbo was providing information against her clients because he assumed the detectives were doing it.

“I assumed the investigators dealing with those matters would make appropriate disclosures,” he said.

The Royal Commission heard that in early 2006, Ms Gobbo was attempting to “roll” one of her clients, identified only as Witness 3, on instruction from Victoria Police.

Assisting Counsel Chris Winneke QC asked Mr Overland: “Are you suggesting that you informed the Director of Public Prosecutions … that Ms Gobbo was an informer?”

Mr Overland replied: “No.”

Mr Winneke then asked: “So you didn’t give them the full knowledge?”

Mr Overland replied: “No.”

Mr Overland rejected the suggestion that Police had endangered Ms Gobbo’s life by signing her up as an informant, arguing that her informer status offered her some protection.

“She actually had become a facilitator of criminal conduct, not a legal adviser,” he said.

“She was being directed by Mr Mokbel around how she should represent other people who were part of his network.”

Convicted drug lord Tony Mokbel. Picture: Jon Hargest

Mr Overland, who would climb the ranks to become deputy commissioner in 2006 and then succeed Ms Nixon as Chief Commissioner in 2009, said Ms Gobbo’s double dealing was illegal.

“It would have raised my concerns if she was doing that because that probably would be a criminal offence,” he said under cross-examination by Counsel Assisting the Commission Chris Winneke QC.

Mr Overland said he couldn’t recall if he was aware Ms Gobbo represented ganglord Carl Williams, who was killed in a jailhouse slaying in 2010, or if he knew when the high profile barrister began representing Tony Mokbel.

“I didn’t necessarily read a lot of articles published by the Herald Sun or The Age,” he said

Ms Gobbo, who has been ordered to give evidence at the Royal Commission in January, was a high profile criminal defence barrister who represented underworld heavies such as Tony Mokbel at the height of the gangland wars in the mid-2000s.

The Royal Commission, which has already cost the taxpayer millions, has identified dozens of cases that may have been tainted by Ms Gobbo’s relationship with Victoria Police.

Faruk Orman was released in July after spending more than a decade behind bars for his role in the 2002 murder of hitman Victor Peirce.

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

Mr Overland was sensationally sacked as CEO of Whittlesea Council last Wednesday, just under a week before he was due to give evidence.