Police to Lawyer X: ‘Do whatever it takes’

Barrister-turned-informer Nicola Gobbo was told people ‘high up’ in Victoria Police wanted ‘results through any means necessary’.

Nicola Gobbo.

Barrister-turned-informer Nicola Gobbo was told people “high up” in Victoria Police wanted “results through any means necessary” during Melbourne’s gangland war, including sleeping with underworld figure Mick Gatto.

She also described former top cop Simon Overland as “evil, corrupt and dishonest”.

In “conversations” with the Lawyer X royal commission ­­— without being under oath — Ms Gobbo said one of her police handlers told her to “take one for the team” by sleeping with Mr Gatto in the hope of gaining his trust.

Ms Gobbo has yet to make a sworn statement and has been ­ordered to give evidence via phone next month.

But in one so-called conversation with the commission earlier this year, Ms Gobbo said former head of the Purana taskforce Jim O’Brien wanted to target Mr Gatto and she was asked to help.

Ms Gobbo claimed that in order to gain Mr Gatto’s trust she believed she would need to sleep with him — and her handler, known by the pseudonym Sandy White, encouraged her to do so.

“Mick’s ultimate test for not being an informer and being someone he could trust, as in really trust, was to sleep with him and I really didn’t want to have to go down that path,” Ms Gobbo said during one conversation in June, adding that she never slept with him.

“Sandy White was actively ­encouraging me, in his words, take one for the team, you know, if it’s got to be done, it’s got to be done.

“His view was if it didn’t … break the law, and I didn’t need an indemnity for it, then I should do whatever was necessary.”

Mr Gatto did not respond to a request for comment via his lawyer.

He had been charged over the 2004 death of underworld ­hitman Andrew “Benji” Veniamin, but was acquitted the following year after arguing self-defence.

In another conversation in March, Ms Gobbo said she was led to believe from her handlers that Mr Overland was “specifically aware of what I was doing and that he had approved of it”.

“They often were quite direct, particularly from Sandy White who was in charge, that there was no … shortage of support from high up in the police hierarchy in terms of getting results through any means necessary,’’ she said.

Asked about what she thought of the conduct of Mr Overland, whom she has never met, Ms Gobbo said: “Evil, corrupt and dishonest.”

Mr Overland gave evidence to the commission this month that while he knew Ms Gobbo was an informer, he was unaware at the time that she was ­providing information about her clients.

Efforts to contact him for comment were unsuccessful on Monday.

Ms Gobbo also said she had no idea that she had been registered as a police informer in 1995 until she read about it in media reports and that she had no knowledge of her handlers ever seeking legal advice about her activities during her period of informing from 2005-2009.

She spoke of sexual relationships — including with police ­investigators — and at one point said: “All my dignity is long gone with all of this so I’ll just tell it how it is”.

She said that she engaged in sexual activities with former handler Jeff Pope, now a former assistant commissioner, “probably three or four times” in 1999 and “he wasn’t particularly ­secretive about it”.

While giving evidence to the commission, Mr Pope denied ever having a sexual relationship with Ms Gobbo.

Her legal team had argued that the transcripts of the conversations should not be released publicly or used, as they were ­unsworn statements of a woman in ill physical and mental health who had been asked to help the commission prepare for the appearance of other witnesses.

But royal commissioner Margaret McMurdo said last month that they would be released ­despite the “valid concerns” about the weight that can be given to something that was “unsigned, unsworn and given in circumstances which may have been difficult for her”.

“Whilst I accept there is considerable weight in the issues raised by Ms Gobbo’s counsel … I am also conscious that during the interviews she was engaged and responsive,” Ms McMurdo said.

“It seems appropriate to me that the commission should ­receive the material and inform itself of them.”