Lawyer X boyfriend given jail payback

Lawyer X’s jailhouse boyfriend has been savagely attacked in an apparent payback for her double life as a police informant.

Barwon Prison, where Tony Mokbel was allegedly attacked.

The jailhouse boyfriend of Lawyer X has been savagely attacked in an apparent payback for her double life as a police informant.

Richard Barkho, a convicted drug trafficker romantically linked to the gangland barrister, was repeatedly slashed in the face after his partner’s role as a police snitch was revealed.

News of the attack, confirmed by police sources, emerged as drug baron Tony Mokbel, a high-profile former client of Lawyer X, recovers in hospital from Monday’s alleged murder attempt inside Victoria’s Barwon Prison and a royal commission prepares to open hearings into the police informant scandal.

Today’s opening, expected to run for an hour, will be addressed by the chairwoman of the royal commission, ­Margaret McMur­do, and counsel assisting Chris Winneke. It will be live-streamed into jails where clients of Lawyer X have been ­incarcerated since the end of Melbourne’s gangland war.

The hearing will be attended by defence lawyer Zarah Garde-Wilson, who is acting for Robert Karam, a convicted drug dealer serving a 37-year sentence for ­ecstasy importation.

Ms Garde-Wilson said she was seeking “complete disclosure’’ of information that Lawyer X provided to police about her client. “The extraordinary thing is this came to head at least two years ago, and it’s still at a standstill,’’ she said.

“Despite the High Court’s ruling last year, we are still at a standstill. There are dozens of people sitting in custody saying ‘What do we do now?’ ’’

The High Court last year found Victoria Police debased the criminal justice system by using a defence lawyer as a registered source.

Following the decision, the Victorian Office of Public Prosecutions wrote to former clients of Lawyer X telling them their barrister was a police informant.

Ruth Parker, a solicitor who is pursuing a petition of mercy for Faruq Orman, a convicted murderer previously represented by Lawyer X, said neither police nor prosecutors had responded to her requests for further information.

“The DPP and the Victoria Police have an obligation to disclose the materials they have that shed more light on what she was doing,’’ she said.

The case of Orman is one of several gangland convictions that will be closely scrutinised by the royal commission. He was convicted of the murder of Victor Peirce, a notorious career criminal, and sentenced to 20 years in jail.

Orman was represented by Lawyer X. The case against him was heavily reliant on the testimony of a gangland murderer and supergrass who, according to Lawyer X, became a police ­informant and prosecution witness on her advice.

A question for the royal commission is whether Lawyer X sabotaged Orman’s defence by passing on information known only to his defence team to either police or the supergrass witness.

Ms Parker suspects but cannot prove that the information allowed the supergrass witness to change a key detail in his original statement and avoid being exposed as an untruthful witness in front of the jury.

“She gives him advice and ­assists him to roll against Faruq, who she then goes on to represent knowing all the while she was the one who set up the only witness against him,’’ Ms Parker told The Australian.

“All these questions are in the hands of Victoria Police. They have the documents.

“They know what she did. There are people in custody who probably shouldn’t be.’’

Orman has suspected for ­several years that his lawyer was a police informant. He was 20 when Peirce was killed and has 2½ years left to serve on his minimum, 14-year sentence.