Vic cops ‘recruited mob rats’

POLICE actively recruited two solicitors and got information from a mob lawyer – who was later executed – after an internal review found the use of Lawyer X could jeopardise convictions.

The Lawyer X royal commission, which opened yesterday, heard the solicitors were among eight people from the legal profession police either tried to recruit or used as criminal informers.

News Ltd revealed last week one was slain mafia lawyer Joe Acquaro, who was killed in March, 2016 outside his Lygon St restaurant.

The $7.5-million royal commission was sparked after News Ltd revealed a gangland barrister, known as Lawyer X, had provided information to police on her underworld clients.

It is now said Lawyer X was registered as a police informer at least three times – in 1995, 1999 and 2005.

In her opening address, commission chair Margaret McMurdo said Victoria Police had told her there were more “possible police informants” who required assessment to ascertain “if there had been any possible breaches of legal professional privilege.”

They were either recruited or still informing after an internal review in 2012 by former police chief commissioner Neil Comrie found the use of Lawyer X had made clients’ convictions “open to claims of being unsafe”.

Police “declined” to provide further information on a lawyer – thought to be Acquaro – as this “matter is the subject of an ongoing homicide investigation”.

Representatives of Acquaro’s former clients say it is “outrageous” police are wilfully holding back information from the royal commission, with one saying: “Withholding it smacks of another cover up.”