Gobbo ‘felt pressure’ to inform

GANGLAND lawyer Nicola Gobbo has admitted she knew her informing was wrong and she did it to impress people.

She says she is not trying to make excuses for her years of wrongdoing, but claims she felt pressure to collect information and share what she knew.

In hindsight, she would have done things differently, Ms Gobbo told a royal commission into her informing.

“Was I accumulating information and, on one level, trying to impress people? Yes I was,” Ms Gobbo said yesterday.

Even when she was not officially informing, Ms Gobbo was juggling multiple conflicts.

She would represent multiple clients over the same matter and encourage them to turn on each other.

In 2003, two now-former police, David Miechel and Paul Dale, were caught up in a burglary at a drug stash house in the Melbourne suburb of Oakleigh, along with career criminal Terence Hodson.

Miechel, caught at the scene, was jailed. Mr Hodson turned informer and Mr Dale was charged months later.

Those charges were dropped after Mr Hodson was murdered. Mr Dale was later charged over his execution, but those charges were dropped when the key witness, Carl Williams, was also murdered.

Ms Gobbo (pictured) represented several people charged over the burglary and gave legal advice to others, including Mr Dale.

Ms Gobbo said the house was part of a drug operation run by another client, Tony Mokbel.

The break-in was being investigated by an officer named Peter De Santo. Ms Gobbo said he manipulated her to gain information.

“I felt pressure from all around. I should have walked away,” she said.