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The Royal Commission into the Management of Police Informants will resume for two weeks and is expected to hear from key Victoria Police detective sergeants, handlers, officers, superintendents and commanders – and maybe even barrister Nicola Gobbo.
The RCMPI will resume today after a week-long break from hearings and will continue “to explore interactions between Victoria Police and Nicola Gobbo between 2005 and 2009” – which, so far, has seen some major points of interest.
Following Mr Bateson, the commission will hear from detective sergeant Paul Rowe, superintendent Jason Kelly, acting inspector Mark Hatt, former Victoria Police officers Geoff McLean and Ian Thomas, and officers Richard, Evans and Rains (pseudonyms).
When the hearing’s last round concluded, commissioner Margaret McMurdo had been addressing whether Ms Gobbo will be appearing before the commission to provide her side of the events. The psychologists working with Ms Gobbo failed to report whether she would be permitted to speak, but the commission should know by end of week.
The commission then heard from superintendent Mark Porter, who admitted there was a conflict of interest and Victoria Police should have handled the situation better. Mr Flynn, an investigator at the time, then said it was a “systematic fault” of the force.
Prior to this, officers under pseudonyms, Fox and Smith, both refused to admit it was “irresponsible” of Victoria Police to use Ms Gobbo, despite it coming out that Ms Gobbo had broken in and stolen documents from a fellow barrister’s chambers.
The secret police report read: “Ms Gobbo says that when she was going through Ms [Sharon] Cure’s office, she found a list of phone records from Barwon Prison, obtained under a subpoena, about [a prisoner] and records daily contact with Ms Gobbo and Purana.”
This came out just after it was revealed Ms Gobbo also turned on clients and destroyed evidence. She bragged to her handlers she edited statements of key witnesses which were crucial in bringing about convictions, including that of Carl Williams.
“I edited them,” she said. “I corrected them but no one ever knows about that, it would never come out, even [he] doesn’t know I did. He could never reveal it.”
She said she went to the offices with an officer who was not connected to the case so she would not be asked for evidence of what they did. Ms Gobbo added it might have been the idea of former Purana Task Force lead James O’Brien.
On the same day, Ms Gobbo admitted to being “long past” legal professional privilege in her role with Victoria Police. She told her handler: “When I sit here and say to you ‘this is exactly what [redacted] will do, this is what he will say to you’, I mean of what his communication, well, mine with him, is privilege, but I’m way past that now.”
Follow along with Lawyers Weekly today and over the next two weeks for more.
Naomi Neilson is a senior journalist with a focus on court reporting for Lawyers Weekly.
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