Nicola Gobbo to give evidence from secret location in Lawyer X trial

Nicola Gobbo’s lawyer has told the opening day of her civil ­action against the state of Victoria the former gangland barrister was lured by police to provide information on her criminal clients.

Melbourne lawyer Nicola Gobbo. Picture: ABC News

Victoria Police has been accused of laying “bait” to keep Lawyer X, Nicola Gobbo, “talking” to them on the opening day of her civil ­action against the state of Victoria in the Supreme Court.

Lawyer Jessie Taylor, for Ms Gobbo, told the court that the former gangland barrister was lured by police to provide information on her criminal clients.

Ms Taylor said her client was induced “to provide information to Victoria Police in exchange for matters that were extraordinarily important to her at the time – protection, help, a situation she found herself in”.

“She asked the police for help, they laid the bait and she kept talking,” Ms Taylor told the court.

The gangland barrister turned police informer will have her image and location hidden from the public when she gives evidence in her civil trial against the state of Victoria.

The former lawyer, who represented some of the biggest names in the underworld, including Tony Mokbel and Carl Williams, is suing the state and 12 police officers for undermining her safety while allegedly encouraging her to supply them with information on underworld figures she had been legally representing.

Ms Gobbo was exposed as a police informer, known as Lawyer X, in December 2018 when a suppression order was lifted in a High Court ruling in March 2019.

She had been in hiding since.

She claims police officers put her safety at risk and that her exposure as an informer had damaged her health and career.

The state is defending the suit, claiming Ms Gobbo willingly chose to disclose information with full knowledge of risks involved.

While preliminary issues of confidentiality were being dealt with on the first day of the judge-only Supreme Court trial on Monday, Ms Gobbo’s barrister, Tim Tobin SC, revealed his client would be in a better position to give evidence remotely via video link with her image hidden from the court’s public gallery.

Judge Melinda Richards said the court would make arrangements to ensure Ms Gobbo’s image was not shown in public, while making arrangements to change her voice as well. “We will need to spend longer than usual testing and have a dress rehearsal to make sure those of us who need to see and hear Ms Gobbo, and those who need to hear and not see her, can also do that,” she said.

Barrister Bernard Quinn KC, for the state, did not object.

Ms Gobbo, who was known as informer 3838 until her identity was revealed, was registered three times as a police informer in the 1990s and early 2000s, when she gave handlers information about underworld figures including those she represented legally.

A royal commission found that her position as both an informer and a barrister could have affected more than 1000 convictions.

Subpoena issues related to documents held by the Director of Public Prosecutions were also raised during pre-trial discussions.

Ms Taylor said the documents were “absolutely crucial” to their case that police had groomed their client into becoming an informer.

When Ms Gobbo began providing information to police in 2005, Ms Taylor said her client received assurances she would be safe and her identity would remain secret. “It’s absolutely been breached and absolutely breached from the get go,” she said about the assurances.

The material would show police owed Ms Gobbo a duty of care, she said, a claim the state of Victoria denies. “She said that she’d be killed if someone found out … she needed assurances.”

Former clients Mokbel, Faruk Orman and Zlate Cvetanovski have had convictions overturned since her role was uncovered.