Cops will kill me: informer lawyer

SNITCHING lawyer Nicola Gobbo’s secret police informing put gangland clients behind bars for decades, but she now says she’s the victim and fears she’ll be killed by Victoria Police.

The woman known as Lawyer X is reportedly preparing to sue the force, claiming she’s been left stateless overseas facing the removal of her children if she returns to Australia.

Her informing is “a complicated story”, she’s told the ABC’s 7.30 program, breaking her silence despite a year of requests from a royal commission for her to share her story.

“It’s been grossly misreported and is perhaps misunderstood,” she said from an undisclosed location.

“I have been snookered by Victoria Police.”

Ms Gobbo said she was sick, exhausted and in fear of her life from others and her “greatest fear is police themselves” who might “either try to kill me or to lead to a position where I am killed”.

She said Victoria Police warned that if she returned to Australia her two children would be removed from her custody for their safety.

The state’s top policeman Graham Ashton has defended the force against Ms Gobbo’s claims, saying if she had an issue she should raise it with the anticorruption watchdog IBAC.

The chief commissioner was in the witness box for his second day of evidence at an inquiry into the underworld lawyer’s informing.

Mr Ashton was a top corruption investigator at the independent police watchdog when he learned Ms Gobbo was a secret police snitch, but claimed he didn’t think he’d done anything wrong by not investigating her use at the time. He admitted yesterday he’d never before heard of a lawyer being used as an informer and conceded it was a concern, but he stood by his decision not to raise questions.

IT’S BEEN GROSSLY MISREPORTED AND IS PERHAPS MISUNDERSTOOD. I HAVE BEEN SNOOKERED BY VICTORIA POLICE NICOLA GOBBO

“What I did at the time was reasonable and I don’t think there was anything driving me at the time to want to probe into it,” he said.

He said Ms Gobbo was a police informer in July 2007 when she was called to give evidence at an inquiry into suspicions about a then-policeman’s links to two deaths.

Mr Ashton cited one officer’s concerns about her appearance at the compulsory hearings, noting fears for her safety if she was exposed as a snitch.

Ms Gobbo has been ordered to give evidence to the commission by phone from January 29, despite maintaining that she’s too unwell to do so.