Nicola Gobbo | |
|---|---|
| Born | 16 November 1972 Melbourne, Australia |
| Nationality | Australian |
| Other names | Nikki Gobbo, Lawyer X, Informer 3838 |
| Alma mater | University of Melbourne |
| Occupation | Struck off the Roll of Legal Practitioners [1] |
| Partner | Richard Barkho |
| Relatives | Sir James Gobbo (uncle) |
Nicola Maree Gobbo, sometimes known as Nikki Gobbo, [2] (born 16 November 1972) [3] is an Australian former criminal defence barrister and police informant. [4] [5]
In 1993, while she was a law student, police raided a house owned by Gobbo and found amphetamines, marijuana, and weapons. Gobbo, her boyfriend, the drug dealer Brian Wilson, and another man were charged with drug possession and pleaded guilty. Gobbo was given a good behaviour bond. Two years later, another raid turned up more amphetamines. Gobbo was concerned that another drug conviction would destroy her law career. No charges were laid, and soon afterwards, she was registered as police informer G395 [6] although she claimed to be unaware of the fact until finding it out through the media. [7]
Gobbo first came to public attention during the 1996 Australian federal election. In the last week of the campaign, Labor Treasurer Ralph Willis used letters purportedly from Jeff Kennett criticising Liberal leader John Howard. The letters were quickly exposed as forgeries. [8] Gobbo, then a Young Labor member, publicly claimed that the forger was then-Liberal staffer and later Senate president Scott Ryan, who had intended for the forgery to pass initial inspection then rebound on Labor. [9] [10] Despite Gobbo's signed statutory declaration, Ryan denied the claim. [11]
Gobbo, under the pseudonym Witness F, [12] was a witness against Paul Dale, a former policeman accused of corruption. [13] [14] [15] [16] She asserted that Australian authorities have not fulfilled assurances made to her about protecting her safety. The Australian Broadcasting Corporation repeated that Gobbo asserted she had received death threats due to her planned testimony. [17] On 16 April 2008, Gobbo's parked car was engulfed in flames. [6] After the death of Carl Williams on 9 April 2010 and Gobbo refused to testify, the case was withdrawn. [18] Shortly afterwards Gobbo revealed in an interview with the ABC that she was Witness F in the Paul Dale case. [6]
In February 2019 a 2016 affidavit written by Inspector Brooke Hall stated that Mick Gatto and Horty Mokbel and others had threatened to kill Gobbo if it was proven that she had been providing information to Victoria Police. At the same time it was also revealed that a threat was made against her oldest child. [19]
It was reported in 2019 that Gobbo had declined to enter witness protection as "she feared police more than her former clients" [7] and was using the name Nikki Gobbo. [2]
Whilst originally understood to be a registered police informant from 2005 to 2009 it was later revealed that Gobbo was recruited as a registered police informant in 1995, 1999 and again in 2005 and was still providing information in 2010 [20] [21] at which time police were instructed that they could no longer accept information from her. Despite this Gobbo continued to offer police information until 2012. [22]
Between September 2005 and January 2009 Gobbo was responsible for more than 5,000 reports and regularly spoke to Purana Taskforce detectives [23] whilst working as a defence lawyer for many of Melbourne's organised crime figures. [24] She passed to Victoria Police information about her clients whilst representing them, leading to the prospect of many convictions being overturned. During media coverage of the scandal in 2018 and 2019, Gobbo's identity was subject to a suppression order, and she was referred to as EF, Lawyer X or Informer 3838. [21] [25] The suppression order was lifted in December 2018 when it was reported that she had represented convicted criminals, Carl Williams and Tony Mokbel. [11] On 3 December 2018, the Premier of Victoria Daniel Andrews ordered the Royal Commission into the Management of Police Informants. As part of its inquiry, the Royal Commission examined the number of, and extent to which, criminal cases may have been affected by the conduct of Gobbo. [26] The commission was due to report to the Government in July 2019; however, as the inquiry proceeded it became clear that this timeline was not achievable. In May 2019 the commission received $20 million in additional funding and a twelve-month extension to July 2020. [21] The commission delivered the final report and recommendations to the Governor on 30 November 2020. [27]
In May 2019, it was reported that some of Gobbo's clients who received criminal convictions could be potentially overturned on appeal, on the basis that Gobbo may have provided information to police that led to the conviction of her clients, whilst at the same time representing her clients as their defence lawyer. [28] At the time of lifting the suppression order to reveal Gobbo's identity, the High Court found that [Gobbo] covertly informing on [her] clients was a "fundamental and appalling breach" of the barrister's obligations. [29] In handing down their decision on appeal from the Supreme Court of Victoria, Appeals Court, the judges commented: [30]
Generally speaking, it is of the utmost importance that assurances of anonymity of the kind that were given to EF [Gobbo] are honoured. If they were not, informers could not be protected and persons would be unwilling to provide information to the police which may assist in the prosecution of offenders. That is why police informer anonymity is ordinarily protected by public interest immunity. But where, as here, the agency of police informer has been so abused as to corrupt the criminal justice system, there arises a greater public interest in disclosure to which the public interest in informer anonymity must yield.
EF's actions in purporting to act as counsel for the Convicted Persons while covertly informing against them were fundamental and appalling breaches of EF's obligations as counsel to her clients and of EF's duties to the court. Likewise, Victoria Police were guilty of reprehensible conduct in knowingly encouraging EF to do as she did and were involved in sanctioning atrocious breaches of the sworn duty of every police officer to discharge all duties imposed on them faithfully and according to law without favour or affection, malice or ill-will. As a result, the prosecution of each Convicted Person was corrupted in a manner which debased fundamental premises of the criminal justice system.
In 2020, whilst the Royal Commission was still in progress, Victoria Police offered to arrange and pay for her to move to a country without an extradition treaty with Australia so that she would not be able to be investigated or prosecuted for her actions in the Lawyer X matter. [31]
After the end of the Royal Commission, Gobbo told the ABC that she was concerned that Victoria Police might attempt to stop her from working with the special investigator appointed to examine if charges should be laid in connection with the matter. [32]
The actions of Gobbo in acting as an informant for Victoria Police whilst acting as a lawyer has caused a number of convictions, believed to be over 1,000, to be affected, with several people subsequently set free. Shadow Attorney-General of Victoria Edward O'Donohue said that the Victorian Government must explain how it is going to manage the convictions that are being overturned. [33]
As a consequence of the actions of Gobbo, as disclosed in the AB v CD case and the Royal Commission, there are multiple people who may have been denied a fair trial, [34] with 124 convictions called tainted, [35] others having their convictions reviewed, [36] and more than 1,000 case possibly affected [37] as Gobbo represented or gave legal advice to 1297 individuals [38] with the Royal Commission putting the number at 1,011. [39]
On 8 August 2008, Australian Federal Police announced the arrest of 17 people New South Wales, South Australia, Tasmania and Victoria and the seizure of in relation to an attempt to import 4.4 tonnes of ecstasy in what was described by Australian Customs as the world's largest ever ecstasy seizure. The 15-16 million pills were discovered by Customs in Melbourne packed in over 3,000 tomato tins inside a container from Italy on 28 June 2007. This was followed in 2008 by the 24 June 2008 seizure of 150 kg of a white powder that testing indicated was cocaine. [48] By December 2008 the number of people who had been arrested in relation to the attempted importations had reached 26. [49]
At the Royal Commission it was revealed that the drug operation was uncovered due to information provided by Gobbo which she had gotten from her client Rob Karam. [50] [51] Gobbo also provided police with phone numbers which were used to gain additional information on the group. [52] It was also noted that police had concluded that the convictions were tainted in 2011 but even though Chief Commissioner Graham Ashton testified that prosecutors would normally be told, that information was not given to Commonwealth prosecutors. [53]
As information was made public before and during the Royal Commission there was widespread discussion in public comment and scholarly publications.
The actions of Gobbo have also prompted a wider discussion of the responsibility that lawyers have to their clients. [73]
When the TV show Desperate Housewives first premiered in Australia in 2004, Gobbo was one of the Australian women from whom The Age sought a reaction. [4]
Gobbo's involvement in the Melbourne gangland killings has been dramatised in the Nine Network Australian television series Informer 3838 , produced by Screentime, which premiered on 20 April 2020.
Journalist Adam Shand also hosted a six-part Australian crime podcast series in February–March 2020 about Gobbo called Understate: Lawyer X. [80]
The 9 episodes of season two of the ABC investigative podcast Trace covers the actions of Gobbo and includes interviews with her. [81]
Gobbo is the cousin of a Melbourne barrister, Jeremy Gobbo KC . She is also the niece of Sir James Gobbo, a former Governor of Victoria and a former Supreme Court judge. [11] [82] [6]
Gobbo's partner is Richard Barkho; the couple have two children. As of March 2019 [update] , Barkho was serving a five-year custodial sentence for drug trafficking. [83]
The Melbourne gangland killings were the murders of 36 underworld figures in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, between January 1998 and August 2010. The murders were retributive killings involving underworld groups. The deaths caused a power vacuum within Melbourne's criminal community, and rival factions fought for control and influence. Many of the murders remain unsolved, although detectives from the Purana Taskforce believe that Carl Williams was responsible for at least ten of them. The period culminated in the arrest of Williams, who pleaded guilty on 28 February 2007 to three of the murders.
Ella Scott Lynch is an Australian actress. Her notable roles include Shirley Ryan in the series Love Child and Melbourne gangland barrister Nicola Gobbo in the Channel Nine mini-series Informer 3838.
Carl Anthony Williams was an Australian convicted murderer and drug trafficker from Melbourne, Victoria. He was a central figure in the Melbourne gangland killings as well as their final victim.
Victor George Peirce was an Australian gangster from Melbourne, Victoria. Peirce was a member of the Pettingill family, which was headed by matriarch and former Richmond brothel owner Kath Pettingill.
Antonios Sajih Mokbel is an Australian criminal who has been convicted of a number of offences, most prominently commercial drug trafficking. He has spent most of his life in Melbourne, Australia. Operation Purana alleged that he is the mastermind behind the Melbourne amphetamine trade. He has been linked to Carl Williams, and charged but not convicted of two murders in the Melbourne gangland war. He disappeared from Melbourne while on trial in March 2006, and was arrested by Greek police in Athens on 5 June 2007. Since being brought back to Australia he has remained incarcerated.
Christopher Murray Maxwell is an Australian jurist. He succeeded Justice John Winneke as President of the Victorian Court of Appeal on 16 July 2005.
Zarah Garde-Wilson is an Australian solicitor in Victoria who rose to prominence after she acted for many persons under investigation by Victoria Police in relation to the Melbourne gangland killings of 1998–2006.
Simon James Overland is the former Chief Executive Officer at the City of Whittlesea and a former Chief Commissioner of Victoria Police in Australia. He previously worked with the Australian Federal Police and then with Victoria Police focusing on Melbourne's gangland wars. On 2 March 2009 he was named by the Premier, John Brumby, as Victoria Police Chief Commissioner. He resigned from this position on 16 June 2011 after intense public pressure from critics who questioned his performance. In July 2011, he was appointed the chair of the Board of Management of the Tasmania University Union and was responsible for overseeing the direction of the student union.
Underbelly is an Australian television true crime-drama series which first aired on the Nine Network between 13 February 2008 and 1 September 2013, before being revived on 3 April 2022. Each series is based on real-life events. There have been six full series, with season 7 being a miniseries. A 2014 series titled Fat Tony & Co is a sequel to the first series but is not branded under the Underbelly title.
Margaret Anne McMurdo is the former president of the Queensland Court of Appeal. Appointed on 30 July 1998, she was the first female president of an appellate court in Australia. She resigned effective 24 March 2017 after more than 18 years as a justice of the Court of Appeal.
Jill Hennessy is a former Australian politician. She has been a Labor Party member of the Victorian Legislative Assembly between February 2010 and November 2022, representing the seat of Altona. She was Minister for Health in the Andrews Ministry from December 2014 to November 2018, and was Attorney-General from November 2018 to December 2020, the second female Attorney-General in Victoria's history.
In 2004 the murders of Terence and Christine Hodson caused the Victorian government to establish the Office of Police Integrity to investigate probable Victoria Police involvement in the murders and to investigate the leaking of sensitive police information to the Melbourne underworld.
Graham Leonard Ashton is an Australian police officer who was the Chief Commissioner of Victoria Police from 2015 to 2020. He also served in the Australian Federal Police for a long period.
The Independent Broad-based Anti-corruption Commission (IBAC) is Victoria's anti-corruption agency with jurisdiction over the public sector. It does this by:
Informer 3838 is an Australian television series focusing on criminal barrister-turned police informer Nicola Gobbo and her involvement in the Melbourne gangland killings. It is a spin-off of the Underbelly franchise, with various actors reprising their role from previous series. Commissioned by the Nine Network and produced by Screentime, it was broadcast between 20 and 27 April 2020.
AB v CD; EF v CD is a decision of the High Court of Australia.
Joseph Acquaro also known as Joe Acquaro or Pino was a Melbourne lawyer, businessman and former president of Melbourne's Italian Chamber of Commerce and the Reggio Calabria Club who was shot to death on 15 March 2016 at age 54.
John Cain is an Australian lawyer who has acted as the Government Solicitor for the State of Victoria, the solicitor for Public Prosecutions in Victoria, and State Coroner for Victoria. He is the son of John Cain, the 41st Premier of Victoria, and grandson of John Cain, the 34th.
The Royal Commission into the Management of Police Informants - An inquiry into Victoria Police’s use of Nicola Gobbo as a human source, referred to in the press as Lawyer X Royal Commission, was a royal commission in Victoria, Australia set up to examine the actions of Nicola Gobbo and Victoria Police whilst Gobbo, also referred to as Informer 3838, Lawyer X (media), and EF (litigation), was working as a lawyer and acting as a registered informer. It was announced on 3 December 2018, in response to the High Court AB v CD; EF v CD judgement, and was established on 13 December 2018 under Hon Margaret McMurdo to examine the adequacy and effectiveness of the processes of Victoria Police for the recruitment, handling and management of human sources who are subject to legal obligations of confidentiality or privilege and the effect of using such sources on past cases.
The Kellem review was an Independent Broad-based Anti-corruption Commission (IBAC) inquiry undertaken by Murray Kellam from July 2014 to February 2015 into Victoria Police human source management. The review was initiated in response to newspaper reports about the actions of lawyer Nicola Gobbo in providing information to police.
Melbourne barrister Nicola Gobbo said: "What a fantastic program. I'm already a fan... It's always good to be able to laugh at reality and it's reality TV for the suburbs. I'm not a suburban housewife but I think it's fabulous."
After Mr Dale was charged over the burglary, Ms Gobbo visited him at Port Phillip Prison. Ms Gobbo was later asked to pass messages between Mr Dale and gangland killer Carl Williams. Ms Gobbo later gave a statement to police after recording a conversation she had with Mr Dale at an Albert Park coffee shop.
In April, Ms Gobbo issued proceedings in the Supreme Court against the state of Victoria, Chief Commissioner Simon Overland and his predecessor, Christine Nixon. In her statement of claim, she alleges she was induced by police to make a statement against Mr Dale and her security and safety as a witness were not properly managed.
Nicola Gobbo, a former criminal barrister, had issued Supreme Court proceedings against the State of Victoria, Chief Commissioner Simon Overland and his predecessor, Christine Nixon, alleging police had failed to comply with an agreement to protect her after she agreed to testify against former detective Paul Dale and put her safety at risk.
Gobbo also claims she passed on messages between Dale and Carl Williams under the noses of the police who were trying to put them away, as well as between Dale and Terrence Hodson - a crim and police informer, who, along with his wife, was executed in May 2004.
A barrister who has represented several Melbourne underworld figures has been dropped as a prosecution witness in a case against a former drug squad detective because of concerns for her safety. Nicola Gobbo received death threats over her involvement in the case against Paul Dale.
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