Informer ‘loose cannon’

Royal Commission hears of doubts over ‘Lawyer X’

A VICTORIA Police officer identified Nicola Gobbo as a “loose cannon” at least 14 years before the force stopped using the defence barrister as an informer.

Another detective dismissed her as unsuitable two years later. She was “too overt” in her desire to provide information, he concluded in an official report. Her relationships with officers were “inappropri- ate” and she held drugs for her clients.

Oh, there was one other problem, he said. Nicola Gobbo, who became known as ‘Lawyer X’ was a solicitor, and solicitors ordinarily cannot inform on their clients.

Several themes emerged from the first day of testimony at the Royal Commission into the Management of Police Informants yesterday.

One goes that Gobbo was betraying people who trusted her before she qualified as a lawyer. The other is that her opening forays as a police double agent failed.

She duped her once boyfriend Brian Wilson by introducing him to an undercover officer posing as a drugs customer. The sting went nowhere, as did claims of money laundering against her employer. In 1999, the officers who recruited her, as Informer MFG13, stated she had no known history of informing.

Yesterday’s evidence, by Assistant Commissioner Neil Paterson, gave hints on points of interest ahead.

He agreed he would assume that the steering committee of the Petra Taskforce, which investigated the killings of Terry and Christine Hodson, would have known she was a practising lawyer.

The committee included two later chief commissioners, Graham Ashton and Simon Overland, as well as the detective who had identified Gobbo as a “loose cannon” in 1996.

The evidence began twoand-a-quarter hours after the royal commission opened. Lawyers wanted to wrangle about orders first.

Seven QCs were among 20 lawyers named as representatives of six interested parties, each charging like a poker machine jackpot for their services.

Counsel assisting, Chris Winneke, asked about Mr Paterson’s training in “disaster management”.

Mr Paterson was largely illplaced to address the specifics posed by Mr Winneke. But his evidence showed police obstructionism cannot disguise a growing checklist of historical errors.