Victoria Police tried to bury Lawyer X scandal

The extraordinary lengths Victoria Police went to try to stop the Lawyer X scandal from becoming public can be revealed.

Victoria Police Chief Commissioner Graham Ashton. Picture: AAP

Victoria Police spent $4.52 million trying to stop the Lawyer X scandal from becoming public and convicted criminals from learning their defence barrister was a snitch.

As the Victorian government prepares to appoint two eminent jurists from outside the state to conduct a royal commission into the Victoria Police use of a defence lawyer as a registered informant, the full cost of a two-year battle to keep the episode buried can be ­revealed.

Victoria Police initiated court action in 2016 to block Director of Public Prosecutions John Champion SC from informing drug baron Tony Mokbel and six members of The Company, his disbanded criminal organisation, that their lawyer had led a double-life as a police informant.

The state Government Solicitor’s Office, on behalf of Victoria Police, briefed Peter Hanks QC and three junior barristers to argue the case before the Victorian Supreme Court, before chasing its losses with a team of lawyers in the Court of Appeal and High Court.

It is understood police, and ultimately the taxpayer, also picked up the tab for Lawyer X’s brace of barristers, which include a QC. When the High Court this week publicly rejected a last-ditch special leave to appeal, the case had been secretly running for 2½ years.

A Victoria Police spokesman told The Weekend Australian the case cost the force $4.52m in legal fees. For that money, police command could have put another 67 first-year constables on the street.

The opposing parties in the case, principally the Office of Public Prosecutions, agreed to pay their own legal costs.

The Victoria Police spokesman said the court action was pursued to protect Lawyer X from violent retribution.

“Our priority … has been the safety of the lawyer and her family, who we feared would be murdered if identifying material was released,’’ he said.

“We are duty-bound to do all we can to keep people safe.’’

Lawyer X’s identity remains protected by court orders.

The legal bill means Victoria Police will have spent nearly $10m on Lawyer X since first registering her as a human source on September 16, 2005. After ceasing to act as an informant in 2009, Lawyer X sued police for failing to ­adequately protect her when she agreed to act as a prosecution ­witness against a former client charged with murder, Paul Dale.

That case reportedly ended in a $2.9m payment to Lawyer X.

Details of expenses paid by Victoria Police to Lawyer X ­obtained by Mr Dale’s legal team show that over the 10 months ­between March and December 2009, Lawyer X received a weekly allowance of $1000, $27,332 of business-class flights and $22,300 for hire cars. Victoria Police also paid for $344 worth of concert tickets, the $380 cost of her Victoria Racing Club membership and a $113 parking ticket.

In a 2015 letter to Victoria Police, Lawyer X said: “I, unlike any other informer, did not ­receive any financial assistance or support to enable me to work as an informer.’’

The case against Mr Dale collapsed when Lawyer X refused to testify and the key witness, gangland murderer Carl Williams, was bludgeoned to death in jail.