Tell me everything you know about Mokbel: How Nicola Gobbo’s life began as Lawyer X

Asked about her underworld client Tony Mokbel, Nicola Gobbo sealed life as a snitch with her reply.

Lawyer X Nicola Gobbo and Tony Mokbel. Pictures: Supplied

Nicola Gobbo’s double life as a registered police informer began with a simple request: “Tell me everything you know about Tony Mokbel.”

At the time, police knew that Mokbel, the head of a drug cartel before the courts on serious charges, was being represented by the prominent defence barrister.

If they didn’t, Ms Gobbo made this clear enough when, on 16 September 2005, she told her police handlers she felt conflicted being Mokbel’s lawyer and being asked by Mokbel to represent another member of his cartel.

“Really, I have had enough,’’ she told them. “It is not about me saying I need help. I just want … I’ve had it. And I don’t know a way out.”

In a lengthy, rambling interview conducted by Ms Gobbo’s handlers as part of their initial assessment of her viability as s police informant, Ms Gobbo made a series of extraordinary claims.

She claimed she played a pivotal role in convincing a gangland supergrass to implicate Carl Williams and others in a series of unsolved murders, right down to “editing” his witness statements.

She told her handlers she did this to prove to sceptical members of the gang-busting Purana taskforce that she wasn’t a “stooge” for Williams and Mokbel.

She also expressed fear that, if the details of her involvement in convincing the supergrass to turn Crown witness ever became known, she would be killed.

Excerpts of an interview transcript read to the Lawyer X Royal Commission show that at the time Ms Gobbo was registered as an informant, her police handlers knew that she was compromised, conflicted, exhausted and paranoid of being exposed.

‘I still live in fear’

Ms Gobbo said the supergrass witness, a client of hers, had “turned on half the underworld” and the stress of her involvement becoming known had caused her to have a stroke.

“I still live in fear of that coming out,’’ she said.

“I know police protected me in the Magistrates Court in the first round of subpoenas. In the Supreme Court stage if a judge rules differently to a Magistrate, if that happens I’m f****d.’’

Counsel assisting the Royal Commission, Chris Winneke QC, put it to one of Ms Gobbo’s handlers, Sandy White, that it was clear from the beginning that Ms Gobbo was being asked to inform on her own clients.

Mr White, a former member of the highly secretive Source Development Unit established to manage high risk informants, said he did not keep a record of who Ms Gobbo’s clients were.

“As long as we stayed clear of the privilege issue, that information was fair game,” he told the hearing.

At the start of the assessment interview Mr White asks Ms Gobbo: “So where do we start?”

Ms Gobbo: “I guess you can start.”

Mr White: “Tell me everything you know about Tony Mokbel.”

Ms Gobbo: “How long have you got?”

At the time of the interview, Ms Gobbo had acted for various members of the Mokbel family for several years. She agreed to become a police informant shortly after Mr Mokbel instructed her to represent Darren Bednarski, a member of his cartel arrested on drug charges.

Ms Gobbo told her police handlers she couldn’t see a way of representing Bednarski without compromising Mokbel, who appeared to be beyond the reach of gangland rivals.

“That is why nothing will ever happen to Tony. Nobody will ever knock him off his perch even though he owes money all over town. Everyone knows if you kill Tony the brothers will kill you.”

The hearing continues.