Police advised Lawyer X to watch ‘movies about informers and secret police agents’
Barrister turned police informer Nicola Gobbo has told a court that police officers assured her the intelligence she provided about her underworld clients would not come back ‘to haunt’ her.
Lawyer turned police informer Nicola Gobbo has told a court how her police handlers advised her to watch “movies about secret informers and secret police agents” as officers assured her the intelligence she provided about her underworld clients would not come back “to haunt” her.
In the second week of her civil trial against the state, Ms Gobbo told the Supreme Court she was assured of her safety in early meetings with Victoria Police’s newly formed source development unit when she was registered as a police informer in September 2005.
“I was assured this was a special, highly trained, dedicated unit that was doing things vastly differently to the way it had be done before and that I shouldn’t have any concerns about safety or about any information coming back to haunt me, or in other words, being found out,” Ms Gobbo said.
Ms Gobbo, also known as Lawyer X, said the meetings would never occur in “police locations,” but rather at “seedy, broken down motels or three star hotels.”
Ms Gobbo said a handler would direct her to drive in a “convoluted way” to the covert locations in order to ensure no one was following or watching her.
In the months that followed, Ms Gobbo said she became “increasingly paranoid” and “trapped” in her role as an informer.
In December 2005, after a welfare note on Ms Gobbo’s police file said she was feeling “depressed” and “guilty”, Ms Gobbo said officers suggested she watch some “movies about secret informers and secret police agents.”
Ms Gobbo told the court that officers told her she was doing an “amazing job” as an informer and that as time went on, they began to treat her like she was “one of the team”.
“Frankly, it’s embarrassing,” she said.
“I was in circumstances where I could not see a way out and made to feel that what I was doing was so vital and important and the right thing to do.”
Ms Gobbo is suing the state of Victoria for compensation for loss, injury and damage she claims she suffered as a result of its alleged negligence in its use of her as a police informer.
The state is defending the claim. Among other things, it denies officers induced Ms Gobbo to provide them with information and says Ms Gobbo instead provided it voluntarily with full appreciation of the risks.
The state is also contending it should not be responsible for loss to the extent Ms Gobbo engaged in illegal activity by providing Victoria Police with confidential information about her clients and information that was subject to legal professional privilege.
Ms Gobbo told the court that in 2005 she was feeding police information about her client Tony Mokbel, who she was acting for in two upcoming trials.
Ms Gobbo said officers gave her “some assurance” that she “didn’t need to worry” about legal professional privilege.
“My belief was that I’m sitting in a room with two police officers… and they’re telling me everything will be OK,” she said.
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