A convicted murderer (“SAM”) says his former lawyer Nicola Gobbo has more to fear from Victoria Police. He was a former client of Ms Gobbo – a criminal barrister and police informer: ‘there are enough blokes out there wishing her harm’, however, he’s not one of them.
SAM, who cannot be named for legal reasons, spoke exclusively to the ABC podcast Trace: The Informer (Tuesday 11 Aug 2020).
He believes that Ms Gobbo has every reason to fear: “I’m concerned about her because a lot of blokes are doing a lot of bloody jail [time] for her,” he said. “Believe me, there’s a lot of blokes who are filthy.”
SAM is serving a long jail term after killing a person during the gangland wars. He is also the first convicted criminal to speak openly about the involvement of Victoria Police in this context. It is alleged that police ‘groomed’ Ms Gobbo to turn on the so-called top-end players operating in Victoria’s criminal world.
A former client of Ms Gobbo’s has been released from jail, and another is on bail pending the hearing of appeals against conviction. Another seven have filed appeals against their convictions on the basis of what amounts to matters relevant to ‘Procedural Fairness’ and inadmissibility of evidence. And sometimes more generally referred to as ‘natural justice’.
The Royal Commission into the Management of Police Informants is investigating why Victoria Police recruited a criminal defence barrister given the illegality associated, with perverting the course of justice. This so-called legitimate activity or the handling of this human source is not acceptable on any standard the High Court of Australia determined as is witnessed by its reason for judgement.
Ms Gobbo has said that she trusts her former clients more in preference to police. SAM says the greatest threat posed to Gobbo’s life rests with Victoria Police.
“She’s got cops dirty on her, she’s got crooks dirty on her,” he said. “I’d be more worried about the cops doing something than the crooks because I believe heads are going to roll.
“I believe people are going to get charged at the end of this [royal] commission and some major scalps. Now that means she’ll have to testify.”
Ms Gobbo has responded to SAM’s statement by way of text messages to the ABC and said, she trusted SAM more than the police, despite not being able to tell him the whole truth when she acted as his legal representative.
“He is in the category of ‘violent dangerous criminals’ who the imbeciles in VicPol maintain will do me harm or try and kill me but the reality is the precise opposite,” she said.
“He would happily guard my children and I with his life and is eminently more capable and trustworthy than the police are.”
Ms Gobbo represented SAM when he was arrested and charged over his involvement with a commercial quantity of marijuana. His alleged co-accused were a number of Victorian police detectives.
“She was a bloody good barrister … intelligent, very switched on and at the time, I thought trustworthy,” SAM said. “I felt comfortable with her. I was never on my guard with Nicola. I used to defend Nicola when I was in jail.”
The Royal Commissioner heard Ms Gobbo was in a sexual relationship with a detective who had been charged, at the same time as she represented SAM.
“I was shocked. I used to defend Nicola, even in jail. I said, ‘Shut your mouths, I like her, so if you’re going to bag her, don’t bag her in front of me, otherwise it’s going to be on’,” SAM said.
Ms Gobbo’s conflict of interest was highlighted by the circumstance that SAM was being pressured by anti-corruption investigators to give evidence against his co-accused, Ms Gobbo’s lover.
Ms Gobbo’s denied to the Royal Commissioner that she told her lover that SAM was being asked to give evidence against him.
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SAM maintains he never cooperates with anti-corruption police.
“I was never going to give evidence,” he said.
The detectives charged alongside SAM were eventually acquitted. SAM entered a guilty plea to the drugs charge and later was convicted of a gangland killing.
“This is what hurts as much as it does,” he said. “She used to come to see me in the visit centre [in jail], kiss me on the cheek, ‘Oh hi, how are you?’ Then to cop this, it’s like the ultimate betrayal. I would never let her down … if she needed something tomorrow, if she needed a house or she thought someone was watching her or she felt safer here with her children, I would still give it to her.”
The Royal Commission has heard the threat to Ms Gobbo’s life is in the ‘highest-risk category’. Her habitual informing has assisted in the prosecution and conviction of former clients, including those involved in the importation of one of the biggest ecstasy consignments in Australian history.
The Royal Commission heard more than a thousand of Ms Gobbo’s former clients or people she came into contact with may have been affected by her informing.
Despite this, Ms Gobbo said that some of her former clients had contacted and had offered some support.
“[I] don’t know how I did it, how I managed to obtain such good results for so many people during that period of time,” Ms Gobbo said.
“There are many people. Some have contacted me and said, ‘Thanks, you still did an amazing job for us’,” she said.
Curiously and despite their significant role in the criminal justice system, no prosecutors, magistrates, or judges were called to give evidence before the Royal Commission. They are exempt from giving evidence regardless of the significant public speculation about who knew and what they knew about Ms Gobbo’s role as a police informer.
The former special gangland Crown prosecutor Geoff Horgan SC was involved with a number of the gangland trials i.e., Carl Williams. He also prosecuted Faruk Orman, (a murder trial), who was the first former client of Ms Gobbo to be released on the basis that there was a miscarriage of justice.
Mr Horgan is the first senior prosecutor to speak publicly on these matters. He was directly involved with a number of cases that are said to have been compromised by Ms Gobbo’s informing.
“I had absolutely no idea that she was a police informer,” Mr Horgan said.
He worked very closely with the investigators assigned to the gangland killings and said they were under an enormous amount of pressure to deal with the murders.
“I think police thought they had an urgent need to get information,” Mr Horgan said.
“I don’t think they thought they were the custodians of her [Ms Gobbo] ethical problems or issues.”
Ms Gobbo effectively challenges the veracity of whether a number of the prosecutors did not know about her police informing.
“A number of crown prosecutors and senior barristers and other lawyers who’ve since gone on to … be appointed as judges and, or magistrates, who I understand haven’t been questioned or won’t be giving evidence [to the royal commission],” Ms Gobbo said to the ABC.
Mr Horgan emphatically dismisses Ms Gobbo’s claims that prosecutors had knowledge of her informing. Prosecutors are not advised of any source of police intelligence.
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He went on to say that police had no need to advise him about Ms Gobbo’s role as an informer in order for him to discharge his obligations as a Crown prosecutor.
Mr Gavin Silbert another former Crown prosecutor advised Trace: the senior police who authorised the use of Ms Gobbo ought to face criminal charges.
Mr Horgan rejects the contention and defends the police handler’s election to use Ms Gobbo as a human source.
“They were acting, as they saw it in my opinion, in the public interest,” Mr Horgan said.
On 31 August, the Royal Commission will publish submissions – Counsel Assisting. This report may indicate what the Commissioner’s view is with respect to any criminal charges being laid against Victoria Police and/or Ms Gobbo.