The woman who took down Melbourne’s drugs kingpins
HOW ONE OF AUSTRALIA’S MOST PROMINENT BARRISTERS DOUBLE-CROSSED HER CLIENTS – WITH MURDEROUS CONSEQUENCES
As a top criminal defence lawyer, Nicola Gobbo’s job was to keep her clients out of prison. But, while she represented some of Australia’s biggest gangsters in court, she was also the one who put them behind bars – by informing on them. For 15 years on and off, Gobbo acted as a registered informant for Victoria Police, while working on behalf of Melbourne’s biggest crime lords.
Herald Sun journalist Patrick Carlyon – co-author of new book Lawyer X, with Anthony Dowsley – tells us, “Nicola was a police informer who used her barrister job as a mask. What she did cuts across every ethical no-go zone in the law. It was flagrant, indiscriminate, and wrong. She got close to bad men, then systematically went about putting them away by secretly informing on her own clients to the police. At the same time, she accepted their fees and made a lot of money.” He adds, “She was doing this every day for years. We’re unaware of any other lawyer or systemic corruption near this extent in the world.”
CLOSE TO CRIMINALS
When Gobbo decided to study law, there were high hopes for her, as she was born into an illustrious legal family. Her uncle, Sir James Gobbo, was a judge of the Supreme Court of Victoria – serving 16 years on the bench, before becoming Lieutenant-governor and later Governor of Victoria – while her cousin Jeremy Gobbo is a QC. However, she soon proved much less reliable. “She came from a regal legal family, but she was the black sheep,” says Patrick. While studying law at Melbourne University in 1993, she was arrested alongside her boyfriend after large amounts of methamphetamine and cannabis were found at her home during a drugs raid. She was given a good behaviour
bond after pleading guilty to drug possession. Two years later, Gobbo instigated a raid against her boyfriend, her first stint as a police informer.
She got a taste for it, but Victoria Police did not officially take her up on her repeated offers to inform again for a number of years. In the meantime, Gobbo went on to become one of the youngest women to pass the bar in Victoria, qualifying as a defence solicitor and barrister. Soon after, she found herself representing local drug kingpins Tony Mokbel and Carl Williams, and their associates. Before long, she had become their confidante in a way that went beyond professional boundaries – she even acted as MC at Williams’ daughter’s christening. “Gobbo dealt with all the major drug lords and bosses of Melbourne’s crime scene, and really entrenched herself with Mokbel, Williams and their crews,” says Anthony.
But, in 2003, Melbourne’s simmering gangland turf war escalated, when mobsters Jason Moran and Pasquale Barbaro were gunned down in front of children playing football, including Moran’s own kids. That year, Victoria Police finally took Gobbo up on her offer to begin informing again, and she was officially registered as a source in 2005.
IN TOO DEEP
Gobbo claimed she turned informer for moral reasons, saying in 2015,
“My assistance to Victoria Police began informally via Purana [Victoria Police’s Purana Task Force, set up to investigate organised crime and end
‘SHE DIDN’T CARE WHO SHE GAVE INFORMATION TO’
the gangland war]. I helped because I was motivated by altruism, rather than personal gain.” However, Patrick believes she thrived on the drama, saying, “There was a puppeteering quality to how she would get secrets – some over the pillow.”
And it was clear Gobbo – described by those who knew her as brash, confident and fearsome – revelled in her new role. “She was an information superhighway, and it didn’t matter who it was she was giving information to – cops or criminals. She would feed information back both ways.
Information was power to her,” Anthony explains. Patrick adds, “She needed to be wanted, she wanted to be liked, and she needed the police force’s endorsement. All of this led to a dangerous game of power and secrets.” Her work was even thought to have added fuel to the gangland war. Around 30 deaths of major crime players happened within a five-year period in Melbourne, with Gobbo in the middle of it all. And it wasn’t long before the deaths began mounting up, as she fed secrets between her criminal clients and the police – some of whom could not be trusted.
The horrific killing of informer Terence Hodson, who was executed beside wife Christine as they watched TV at home in 2004, remains unsolved to this day. But Hodson, who was one of Gobbo’s clients, had been due to testify against two police officers accused of corruption – drugs squad detective David Miechel, and Detective Sergeant Paul Dale. Both were accused of stealing $1.3millionworth of drugs during a botched raid.
Terence was murdered after a file revealing his informer status was leaked and passed around the underworld, and police probed Dale and Miechel over the killings. Gobbo denied being the source of
the leak, calling the claims “ridiculous”, but many are not convinced. She later agreed to become a key witness in the investigation into Dale, who she had slept with, after covertly recording him. But the case against him collapsed in 2010. Dale was never convicted of any of the charges laid against him and plans to sue Victoria Police. Miechel was jailed for 11 years for burglary.
TAKING A TOLL
Gobbo claimed to have been responsible for 386 people being charged with crimes, proving she was a highly valued source. But, as more criminals were captured and imprisoned, her double-dealing life took a physical toll, and she had a stroke in 2004. “That was the perfect opportunity to stop and get out, but she didn’t want to,” Patrick tells us. “She was informing to police from her hospital bed, while recovering with criminals around her – she enjoyed the thrill and the danger that went with it.”
Undeterred by her poor health, Gobbo kept up her life of secrets and lies. “She got very sick. Coupled with the stroke, she had constant chronic pain, stress-related issues and cancer. She was in a really bad way,” says Patrick. “Her weight fluctuated, she went from being quite big to feeble, and she looked unwell. Even if the authorities didn’t catch up with her, it was always going to end badly.”
By 2007, following the capture of Tony Mokbel, Gobbo had started to get regular death threats and her car was torched at one point. Despite these constant fears, she continued to inform until 2012, although her motives had changed. “As time went on, fear drove her. Carl Williams suspected her of double-dealing, and she was terrified by the end, so informing was a self-preservation strategy,” Patrick says. “She was in so hopelessly deep, that the only path she could see forward was to continue doing what she’d done in the past and keep
‘THIS HAS HAD HUGE LEGAL RAMIFICATIONS’
doubling down on the secrecy and the deception.” Eventually, though, Gobbo had enough. She dropped out of the legal fraternity limelight in
2010, after receiving a settlement of $2.88million from Victoria Police. She had sued them for failing to protect her as a witness in the Dale case.
Her double life caused mayhem within Victoria Police in 2012, when Gobbo’s role was raised in a review. By then, she was a mum. She had her first child in 2013, followed by a second a couple of years later. Both are thought to be fathered by drug trafficker Richard Barkho. “Her life had changed,” says Anthony.
“She wasn’t practising on the record any more, but she would give her underworld friends advice.” After receiving a tip-off about Gobbo in 2014, Anthony dug into the potential story and discovered her significant role in the gangland wars. He broke the story in the Herald Sun in 2014, referring to her as “Lawyer X”, which led to a wave of suppression orders to keep the whole story from being published. He was only able to name Gobbo in 2019, following a five-year legal battle. He and Patrick received multiple awards for their investigative work.
The disclosure of Gobbo’s informing has had huge legal ramifications, as many criminals – including Mokbel – launched appeals against their sentences. Gangsters Faruk Orman and Zlate Cvetanovski have since been acquitted, with other appeals pending.
A 2020 royal commission, triggered by Anthony and Patrick’s reports, found Victoria Police’s use of Gobbo was “inexcusable” with “systemic repercussions”, with over 1,000 convictions or findings of guilt possibly affected by her involvement. Retired High Court judge Geoffrey Nettle has been appointed as special investigator to decide if criminal charges against any police officers should be filed over the saga. “I watched police squirm during the royal commission. They stymied the truth to cover their own arses. There needs to be accounting,” says Patrick. “There are officers who need to lose their jobs or statuses, as a direct consequence of the unethical use of Nicola Gobbo. This is going to hang over their heads for years.”
As for Gobbo, she’ll have to live with a price tag hanging over her head for the rest of her life. Aside from an interview she did with ABC for their podcast Trace in 2019, she remains in hiding. “She will not have a day’s peace while she’s on this earth,” says Patrick. “It doesn’t matter if she’s in Melbourne, Bali or Rome, she will be looking over her shoulder every single day.”