Lawyer X investigator threatens to quit as charges blocked

Special investigator says ‘it’s a waste of time’ after the state’s top prosecutor refused to lay multiple charges | READ THE REPORT

Lawyer Nicola Gobbo is suing Victoria Police.

Senior Victorian police officers and Nicola Gobbo are likely to ­escape criminal charges over their roles in the Lawyer X scandal, despite five years of legal investi­gations costing taxpayers an estimated $125m.

The investigative marathon to hold the masterminds of the greatest legal scandal in Australian history to account appears to have collapsed, with special investigator Geoffrey Nettle KC on Wednesday threatening to quit.

The former High Court judge tabled a special report in parliament revealing that Victorian ­Director of Public Prosecutions Kerri Judd KC had refused to lay criminal charges, despite his ­office recommending key players, including senior police, be prosecuted for offences including misconduct in public office.

The special report revealed Mr Nettle and Ms Judd had been locked in a long-running and ­increasingly tense stand-off over whether key Lawyer X players, ­including current and former police officers, should be charged with criminal offences.

Ms Judd’s refusal to lay ­charges triggered Mr Nettle’s special report in which he flagged his resignation and recom­mended that the Andrews government abolish the Office of Special ­Investigations.

‘‘I had concluded that the chances of director approving Charlie (an OSI investigation into multiple police officers) or any other charges that OSI might submit were now effectively nil, which made it a waste of time and money for OSI to persist,’’ Mr Nettle told parliament.

In the special report, Mr Nettle revealed he had recommended to Attorney-General Jaclyn Symes that the OSI be ‘‘wound up’’ ­because of the failure of the DPP to prosecute any of its cases.

‘‘I advised the Attorney-­General that, in those circumstances, any further investigation of relevant offences by OSI ­appeared to me to be a waste of time and resources and that I ­believed that the appropriate course was to recommend to parliament that OSI be wound up,’’ he said. ‘‘I suggested that OSI cease further investigation and assessment of evidence, and that the government propose to parliament the legislative amendment necessary for OSI to be wound up.’’

Mr Nettle said if the government decided to keep the OSI, he considered it best that he resign to make way for a replacement.

Creating the OSI to prepare criminal cases against Lawyer X figures had been a key recommendation from the royal commission.

The Andrews government had ordered the royal commission in late 2018 into the actions of Victoria Police, which had secretly recruited Gobbo, a high-profile criminal barrister, to inform on her gang-war clients from the 1990s to around 2009.

The Lawyer X royal commission cost taxpayers an estimated $39.5m; Victoria Police spent another $60m defending its actions; and so far the OSI has cost $25m.

Mr Nettle reveals in the special report that the OSI investigated one senior Victoria Police officer – who is not named – and wanted to charge them, saying the evidence ‘‘would sustain a charge against at least one senior police officer of misconduct in public office committed by knowingly failing to report, investigate and prosecute offences of attempt to pervert the course of justice’’.

Mr Nettle told parliament: ‘‘In light of the director’s past refusal of permission for OSI to file charges of relevant offences, and the director’s recent identification of considerations likely to result in her refusing to permit OSI to file any other charges of relevant offences, I consider there is no longer any point in OSI persisting with investigating and determining whether there is sufficient evidence to establish the commission of relevant offences.’’

The report reveals that the OSI wanted to charge multiple police officers with criminal offences.

Mr Nettle says in the report that the legal opinions ‘‘stand considerably apart’’ and are ‘‘unlikely to coalesce’’.

Although former chief commissioner Simon Overland and multiple other senior police and gang-war detectives were strongly criticised during the royal commission, Wednesday’s development suggests no criminal charges will be laid.

In a secretive and dangerous double game, Gobbo was a registered police informer while also associating with criminals such as Carl Williams at the height of the murderous gang war that claimed the lives of about 30 men.

After a five-year police cover-up fell apart and Gobbo’s secret role was exposed, some notorious gang-war figures launched successful legal bids for freedom, claiming that their convictions were tainted.

Among those is jailed drug lord Tony Mokbel, who remains behind bars but is fighting to be freed because of Gobbo’s betrayal.

The Office of Public Prosecutions said: “We are considering the special report of the Office of the Special Investigator, and will respond in due course.”

Ms Symes on Wednesday said no decision had been made about winding up the OSI. ‘‘The special investigator’s role was a vital recommendation of the royal commission – to continue examining and gathering the evidence against Victoria Police officers who exploited gaps in our justice system for their own benefit,’’ she said.

‘‘To lay charges against someone is a serious step and needs to be supported by the most robust brief of evidence possible to ensure it holds up in court.

“That’s why it’s critical that the OPP operates independently of government and statutory bodies like the investigator – to preserve and uphold this high benchmark.’’

Nicola Gobbo, pictured with Gangland boss Carl Williams and underworld hit man Andrew `Benji’ Veniamin.

Victorian opposition legal affairs spokesman Michael O’Brien called for the OSI to be given the same powers to bring charges as the Independent Broad-based Anti-corruption Commission.

“There’s no doubt from this report that if the OSI had those powers, people would be charged today with serious offences: conspiring to pervert the course of justice, perjury, and potentially a range of other offences,” Mr O’Brien said.

“It’s inconceivable that after all the scandal of Lawyer X, the perversion of the course of justice, the dodgy dealings between a rotten lawyer and crooked cops, no one gets charged … but it seems that this is something that Labor’s very happy with.

“Labor seems to be very happy with the idea that ‘a terrible scandal occurred, let’s have a royal commission’, and no one pays a price.

“There’s no accountability.”

Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews said he was yet to read Mr Nettle’s report, but “people are free to have their views”.

“They’re free to have opinions about the future of their role.

“What is really clear and important is that we have independent prosecutorial … decision-making in this state, and it’s for Director (of Public Prosecutions Kerri) Judd to make those sorts of decisions.

“It’s not for me or for any of us to determine who gets charged.

“I don’t think you’d ever want a situation where that happened. So there’ll be views from time to time about those independent prosecutorial decisions.

“I’m not here to be drawn on those things because it’s not ­appropriate.”

Asked whether it was concerning that a special office set up in response to a royal commission was saying it was being prevented from doing its job, Mr Andrews said decisions about issuing charges against people were not made by the government.

“They’re made by the Director of Public Prosecutions and I think that is a really important part of our system,” he said.

“It doesn’t mean everybody necessarily agrees with the decisions that the director of the OPP makes.

“Quite often, there’ll be people who don’t think that’s been done well, that is part of the back and forth of public policy, I suppose, and of the administration of ­justice.”