Stefanovic to unveil Lawyer X doco

The veil cloaking criminal defence barrister Nicola Gobbo is set to be lifted in Sky News documentary Lawyer X: The Untold Story tonight.

Peter Stefanovic in Sydney’s Surry Hills before joining Sky News. Picture: Adam Yip

The veil cloaking criminal defence­ barrister Nicola Gobbo, who double-crossed Australian gangsters and police, is set to be lifted tonight in the Sky News documentary Lawyer X: The Untold­ Story.

The premiere of the documentary comes as Victorian and federal police have attempted to hinder the broadcast, demanding advanced copies of the documentary.

Sky News chief executive Paul Whittaker said that Victoria Police had contacted Sky a fortnight ago and requested a viewing of the documentary series tapes in advance of tonight’s broadcast of the first episode in the two-part series.

Sky declined to provide the tapes.

Mr Whittaker also confirmed that Victoria Police had written a warning letter to lawyers for Sky News last Thursday, the day of an exclusive sneak peek of the documentary and Q&A session at the Old Melbourne Gaol. The event was hosted by Sky host Peter Stefan­ovic and feat­ured the Herald­ Sun journalists who broke the Lawyer X story, Anthony Dowsley and Patrick Carlyon.

Mr Whittaker also confirmed that the Australian Federal Police had contacted Sky News’s lawyers on Friday seeking inform­ation about the series.

Stefanovic, the new co-host of Sky News’s flagship breakfast show First Edition, has interviewed a string of insiders, including former police officers, lawyers and Ms Gobbo’s former friends, about her brazen double life as a lawyer for the Melbourne underworld, including gangland boss Carl Williams, and a registered informe­r for Victoria Police.

Stefanovic says he also spoke to Ms Gobbo's sister “very, very briefly”.

The Herald Sun, News Corp Australia’s Melbourne newspaper, was the first to reveal Ms Gobbo’s double life almost five years ago, and Dowsley and Carlyon­ have fought dozens of suppression orders forbidding the publication of her identity as Lawyer­ X.

The steady stream of revel­ations rocked Victoria's justice system, and triggered a royal commission, which is looking into cases that may have been affected by Ms Gobbo’s conduct as a police informant between January 1995 and January 2009.

Ms Gobbo is expected to appea­r before the commission.

“A lot of people are aware of Lawyer X and Nicola Gobbo from Anthony and Pat’s reporting, but no one has really seen her story on screen, so basically what they will find out is who she is, where she’s come from and how she ended up betraying the clients she was supposed­ to protect, and also the information from police that she was supposed to keep quiet,” Stefano­vic told The Australian.

“It will describe how she came to betray the cops and the crooks, and be heavily involved in that world.

“They’ll also find out a few police officers, who became aware of who she was well before anyone else, and Carl Williams before he died had strong suspicions she was a double agent, which is interesting.”

Stefanovic spoke to former homicide squad detective Charlie Bezzina, former police detective Ron Iddles, criminal defence barriste­r Zarah Garde-Wilson, and lawyers Michael Pena-Rees and Ruth Parker. He also spoke to Mandy Hodson and Nikki Kom­iazyk, the daughters of murdered couple Terry and Christine ­Hodson.

Stefanovic, along with prod­ucer Richard Andrews, cut about 12 hours of interviews into two hours of TV.

They were helped by Carlyon and Dowsley, who have been “well entrenched in the story”, Stefanovic said.

As well as the two-part documentary, a tell-all book about Ms Gobbo will be published by Harper­Collins in October and a Foxtel miniseries is in the works.

Stefanovic is enjoying being back at work as co-host of Sky News’s four-hour weekday breakfast show, First Edition, after parting ways with the Nine Network in December.

“I'm loving it, I’m having a gas,” said Stefanovic, who started the new gig alongside Laura Jayes on July 1.

“The content is very different, it’s a lot harder, harder news-focused­. Most of it, barring a bit of sport and a bit of weather, is hard news, and news that is topical that people are talking about, and there is a lot of it to get across so there is a bit of analysis as well on all of those breaking news stories.

“I might be biased but I think we do a fantastic job. Ours is as good as anywhere else.”

Before taking on the gig at Sky News, Stefanovic was given some advice from fellow journalists, his wife Sylvia Jeffreys and big brother and Nine’s former breakfast TV co-host Karl Stefanovic.

Jeffreys, a reporter on Nine's A Current Affair program, told her husband to be himself and to “use all of the experience that I've gained over the years because I've got a fair bit”, he said.

Karl Stefanovic, who was sacked from Today in December after 14 years, also offered him similar advice.

“He's been watching on and off as well, he’s got a great interest in breakfast TV for obvious reasons … and given me a few pointers — he’s always done that though” Peter Stefanovic said.

“He's always been very good and very generous with his advice and I'd be crazy not to take that advice because he's one of the best there is, the same for Sylvia too.

“I’m very lucky in the television minds that I can draw from.”

Stefanovic was Nine’s US and Europe correspondent for three and five years respectively.

On his return to Australia, he worked at 60 Minutes on and off for a couple of years, and was co-host of Weekend Today.