Mokbel, Gobbo and Overland secret ‘will destroy police’
Lawyer X letters reveal Nicola Gobbo wrote to Simon Overland warning him about what would happen if their secret leaked.
It’s 15 years since Nicola Gobbo wrote to Simon Overland warning him about the “difficulties Victoria Police will encounter” if their secret ever got out.
In the letter, dated January 21, 2010, Gobbo finishes by pleading with the chief commissioner to see her; “Will you meet with me? Yours sincerely, F.”
It may have taken a decade and a half, but the nightmare prediction in the correspondence marked “urgent and confidential” by the gangland barrister — then known by police simply as “F” — to Overland was proven spectacularly true on Friday when Victoria’s Court of Appeal freed jailed drug lord Tony Mokbel.
The historic decision to release Mokbel plunges Victoria Police deeper into what has been a rolling crisis over the Lawyer X scandal which has been devouring the force for years.
The freeing of Tony Mokbel represents a profound moment of shame for Victoria Police. He wasn’t just some boneheaded street gangster who followed orders. He was one of the godfathers of Melbourne’s bloody gang war that claimed 30 lives with gangsters executed in pubs and sitting in cars with the kids at Auskick on a Saturday morning.
Mokbel is today free (albeit on strict bail terms) at least six years before his decades-long sentence was to end. That’s not because he’s innocent of being an industrial-scale drug dealer.
He’s free because of the police commanders who thought it was a good idea to recruit Gobbo to spy on him and her other criminal clients.
It’s worth repeating the central point of this story again; the institution Victorians trusted to enforce the law chose to break the law based on what senior cops justified as “noble cause corruption”. In other words, we’re entitled to do whatever it takes to end the gang war.
Mokbel has joined an expanding list of former gangwar figures who have walked from jail early with convictions thrown out because of the Lawyer X scandal. A handful of men including Faruk Orman — serving 20 years for murder — are now free. And there’s a bunch more appealing for freedom based on Gobbo. Had Carl Williams not been murdered in a maximum security jail its reasonable to assume he’d be trying to get out early too.
And how many police commanders and officers are in jail or facing charges?
None.
Not a single cop has faced any serious consequences.
It’s not even clear if any have been demoted or suffered any form of internal Victoria Police punishment.
And this is despite a $125m royal commission, mountains of evidence such as Gobbo’s 2010 letter that was flushed out during the judicial inquiry, countless court hearings and the establishment of a special investigator.
The collapse of the Office of Special Investigator is perhaps the most outrageous instance of the “system” looking after those who were part of this club. The OSI was, in fact, set up to fail by the Labor government. It was not armed with the power to unilaterally lay criminal charges against police officers. It had to convince the Director of Public Prosecutions to lay charges on its behalf.
After tens of millions of dollars and several years working up briefs of evidence no charges were laid and the OSI collapsed. It’s almost as if Labor realised it really wasn’t in its best interests for anyone to be facing a criminal trial over Lawyer X.
It’s true Labor premier Dan Andrews called the Lawyer X royal commission in 2018. But it’s important to note that the High Court of Australia left him no option but to act.
A Liberal government was in office when the Herald Sun published its first Lawyer X story in March 2014. But through the critical years of 2015-2018, it occurred to those of us at the newspaper (I edited the Herald Sun during this period) the Labor government seemed more than comfortable with Victoria Police blowing millions and millions on legal action to shut the story down.
A decade on, the reasons for Labor’s approach have still not emerged. But there are some clues in a couple of letters from 2010 between Simon Overland and Labor police minister Bob Cameron. They reveal a level of knowledge within the Labor government that something dodgy was going on between the police and Nicola Gobbo.
The letters, jarred free by the royal commission, establish that Cameron personally signed off on an ex-gratia payment of almost $3m to Gobbo, who by this stage had launched legal action against Victoria Police. This ended the chances of a damaging civil law suit dredging up the full story.
On August 8, 2010, Overland wrote to Cameron seeking permission for an “instrument of authorisation” to settle the writ which “contains allegations that gobbo was approached to assist police with investigations into ex-member Paul Dale and that promises were held out to her which were not kept”.
Overland did not explicitly refer to Gobbo’s broader role as a police agent in the letter. But Cameron’s response, dated the next day, authorising the payment makes interesting reading.
“Given the issues involved in this litigation ... I would ask that you return advice to me on the strategies that Victoria Police will deploy to mitigate the risk of such an issue arising again,” the minister wrote.
“The settlement amount ... is a significant financial amount and I would ask that you liaise with my Department of the measures taken to improve governance of such matters.”
The letter falls short of confirming that senior members of the Labor government knew the full scale of Lawyer X conspiracy, but there’s enough in it to suggest some in Labor knew enough about this crazy and corrupt scheme to do a lot more, a lot sooner, than it did.
As Gobbo’s 2010 letter clearly shows, the potential risk to Victoria Police and the justice system was well and truly canvassed with the police brass.
More than four years before she became known as Lawyer X, Nicola Gobbo was known simply by police command by the codename “F”.
In her 2010 letter to Simon Overland, Gobbo clearly lays out - albeit in understated terms - the dire consequences Victoria Police faced if her secret double life ever leaked.
In the letter, dated Gobbo writes;
“As a former Deputy Commissioner for Crime, I am sure that I need not remind you of the difficulties that Victoria Police will encounter if some or any of my past assistance is disclosed in the court of the prosecution of (former detective Paul Dale).
“Leaving aside the impact such disclosure will have on me personally (including but not limited to my future safety) the difficulties Victoria Police will encounter will extend well beyond the obvious embarrassment and damage that will be done to the Dale prosecution.”
Gobbo then doubles down on Overland in the letter.
“Despite not having personally met you, I find it incomprehensible that you, having been fully appraised of the entirety of my circumstances, have sanctioned Victoria Police’s decision,” she writes, before listing several areas she feels betrayed on including her personal safety, breaching her trust and blocking her bid to enter witness protection.
“In one final attempt to avoid what I suspect will otherwise be an irreparable and intractable situation for all parties, I am imploring you to please read the attached correspondence, particularly in light of the incredible sacrifices I have made for Victoria Police.
“I beseech you to reconsider the stance that has been adopted by Victoria Police to date and do so appealing to your professionalism, decency, humanity and conscience. Will you meet with me? Yours sincerely, F.” Nine years later, Simon Overland would tell the Lawyer X royal commission “at the outset I wish to make it totally clear that I have never met or spoken with Ms Gobbo”.
Tony Mokbel, the former pizza chef who made so much dough he ended up driving a red Ferrari, is enjoying his first weekend of freedom since he was arrested wearing a bad wig in Greece in 2007. And for that, he has Nicola Gobbo and Victoria Police to thank.
