Lawyer X inquiry: Gobbo handler disputes ‘ill-informed’ report

A member of the secret police team which dealt daily with Nicola Gobbo has disputed an “ill-informed” report.

Then-Victorian Police Commissioner Neil Comrie in March, 2001. Picture: News Corp

One of Nicola Gobbo’s police handlers says an ill-informed report into the Lawyer X scandal authored by Victoria’s former top cop Neil Comrie “infected” damning judgments reached by the Supreme Court and High Court about the affair.

A former member of the highly secretive Source Development Until which dealt daily with Ms Gobbo at the end of Melbourne’s gangland war defended his conduct to the Lawyer X Royal Commission.

“I was greatly surprised to hear our behaviour described as atrocious and reprehensible,’’ said the former SDU member, known by the pseudonym Mr White.

“I think probably, on the facts that the High Court was given, they were entitled to come to that conclusion but I think the High Court’s wasn’t made aware of all the facts and ultimately made a decision based on a lack of information,’’ he said.

“I absolutely dispute that our behaviour was reprehensible or atrocious.’’

Under questioning from counsel assisting Chris Winneke, Mr White admitted that he hadn’t read the full judgment of the High Court, the Victorian Supreme Court, or the 2012 Comrie report, and was relying on a summary of the judgments provided by his lawyer.

The High Court in a 2018 judgment which finally lifted the lid on Ms Gobbo’s secret role as a police informant after a four year legal battle waged by Victoria Police to cover up the scandal found that Victoria Police engaged in “reprehensible” conduct by “knowingly encouraging” her to provide information against the interests of her clients.

The court found that Victoria Police command, by approving the use of a prominent defence barrister as a snitch, sanctioned “atrocious breaches of the sworn duty of every police officer.’’

Counsel for the SDU members, Geoff Chettle QC, has previously told the Royal Commission that Mr Comrie compiled his internal report without talking to any of his clients, who felt they had been “thrown under a bus’’ by the Victoria Police top brass.

The Comrie report was relied on by an Independent Broad-Based Anti-Corruption Commission conduced by retired judge Murray Kellam and the three courts which all ruled against a police bid to keep the Lawyer X scandal buried; the Victorian Supreme Court, the Court of Appeal and High Court.

‘Comrie is wrong’

Mr White described the Comrie report as “very inaccurate.’’

“I think that report infected the judgement by the Supreme Court which took as gospel Mr Comrie’s comments that we failed to discourage Ms Gobbo from providing information that could be subject to legal professional privilege,’’ he said.

“Comrie is wrong on that point and I think Mr Kellam from IBAC accepted what he said. As a consequence, the High Court found that our behaviour was basically wrong.”

The Royal Commission has previously heard that the Comrie report influenced a decision by Victoria Police to disband the SDU, a specialist unit established shortly before Ms Gobbo was registered as a police informant in September 2005.

Mr White is the first former member of the SDU to provide testimony to the Lawyer X Royal Commission and is expected to be followed from a rainbow of codenamed witnesses; Mr Green, Mr Black, Mr Fox and Mr Smith.

Their evidence will be crucial to establishing what Ms Gobbo told her police handlers and how that information was used to secure the convictions of some of Victoria’s most notorious criminals including drugs kingpin Tony Mokbel.

Trade of information

The SDU was also involved in the trade of information which resulted in a young gangland naïf, Faruk Orman, being wrongly convicted of the 2002 murder of Victor Peirce. Mr Orman was a client of Ms Gobbo and the case against him was built on the unreliable evidence of another of her clients, a supergrass witness who cannot be named for legal reasons.

Mr Orman was last week freed from jail after his 2009 conviction was quashed by the Court of Appeal. He was present at the Royal Commission to hear the testimony of Mr White.

Lawyers for John Higgs and Pat Barbaro, two convicted drug traffickers currently serving lengthy jail sentences, were also at today’s hearing.

Mr Chettle tendered a mountain of material to the Royal Commission relating to his clients. This includes tapes and transcripts of all recorded meetings between Ms Gobbo and her handlers and thousands of information reports and informant contact reports based on the information she provided over a four-year period.

One document missing from the Commission is Mr White’s police diary for the crucial period covering Ms Gobbo’s recruitment and registration as a police information.

Mr White told the hearing that the diary had been provided to the Comrie inquiry and had since gone missing.

“That is the most important diary from my point of view,’’ he said.

The Royal Commission continues.