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Lawyer X’s life in hiding · The Front

• 0:05
  Speaker 1: A note before we start. This episode contains mention of
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: suicide from The Australian. Here's what's on the front. I'm Kristanami.
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: It it's Friday, October four. The identity of an activist
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: who led a pro Hesbela march through Melbourne on the
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: weekend has been revealed as a Rashi Rabari. The Iranian
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: national chanted pro Hamas and pro Houti slogans as he
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: waived a flag bearing Hesbela insignia at the rally. Rabari
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: has previously called Australia a tyrannical terrorist regime on social media.
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: That exclusive story is live right now at the Australian
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  Speaker 1: dot com dot a U. She's the criminal barrister who
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: double crossed her gangland clients to help police convict them.
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: Now Nicola Goobbo is back in court. She's suing the
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  Speaker 1: State of Victoria for compensation after years in hiding. That's
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  Speaker 1: today's story.
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  Speaker 2: My youngest child became incredibly angry. He understood that they
• 1:16
  Speaker 2: were police around, He understood that they were Victorian police.
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  Speaker 2: He expressed at times.
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  Speaker 3: That he wanted to kill them.
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  Speaker 2: He often expressed his fear that his mother would be
• 1:27
  Speaker 2: taken from him. These are the words spoken in Victoria's
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  Speaker 2: Supreme Court by former gangland barrister Nicola Goobbo. They're being
• 1:35
  Speaker 2: read by a voice actor. My oldest child said she
• 1:39
  Speaker 2: didn't feel right in her head and expressed her desire
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  Speaker 2: to kill herself. Both of them had separation anxiety. Neither
• 1:46
  Speaker 2: of them would go upstairs by themselves to the isolated
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  Speaker 2: farmhouse because they were scared. Neither of them could understand
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  Speaker 2: why there were cameras in the trees watching them.
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  Speaker 3: It was awful.
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  Speaker 1: Speaking publicly for the first time in several years, Gobbo
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: recalled a period of time in twenty nineteen when she
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: returned to Australia with her young children to attend to
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: health concerns and answer questions arising from a Royal inquiry
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: into the handling of informants by Victoria police at the
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: height of Melbourne's infamous gangland War. Gobbo was one of
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: those informants, known famously as Lawyer X, and her identity
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: had been sensationally revealed earlier that year. She likened the
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: constant police surveillance to prison.
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  Speaker 2: I couldn't even step out on the front of the
• 2:34
  Speaker 2: property without being told to get back inside. At times
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  Speaker 2: they would be sitting in a car directly across the
• 2:40
  Speaker 2: road from the house, watching the house.
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  Speaker 1: Now Nicola Gobbo is back in court, this time as
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  Speaker 1: the plaintiff. She's suing the state for compensation in the
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: Victorian Supreme Court. She claims she suffered serious loss, injury
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: and damage stemming from the fifteen years she spent as
• 2:58
  Speaker 1: an informant for law enforcement in the early two thousands
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  Speaker 1: and the extraordinary fallout that followed. Niccola Goobbo had represented
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: some of Melbourne's most notorious underworld figures, Jason Moran, Tony Mockbell,
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: Carl Williams. At the height of Melbourne's gangland War, Victoria
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: police are under pressure after a series of shootings and
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: a fire bombing in Melbourne's Normans going everywhere and ending
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: up even in playgrounds.
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  Speaker 3: Local residents are afraid they're getting caught in the middle
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  Speaker 3: of a gangland.
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  Speaker 2: Law is once again facing the specter of gangland war
• 3:32
  Speaker 2: with a crime family patriarch.
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  Speaker 1: Thirty six people had been killed by the time the
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  Speaker 1: Victorian Police Force formed the Piranha Task Force in two
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: thousand and three in a bid to restore peace. As
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: part of those operations, it cultivated a network of informants
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: that included Nicolo Goobbo. She was given the pseudonym of
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: Lawyer X, and she covertly passed information about her clients
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: to police while she was representing them in court.
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  Speaker 3: This is a breach of a key tenet of the
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  Speaker 3: justice system, which is that everyone's entitled to fair legal
• 4:05
  Speaker 3: representation and that that lawyer must work in the best
• 4:08
  Speaker 3: interests of his or her client.
• 4:10
  Speaker 1: Damon Johnston is the Australian's Melbourne Bureau chief. He spoke
• 4:14
  Speaker 1: about the lawyer ex legal saga on a previous episode
• 4:17
  Speaker 1: of The Front.
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  Speaker 3: Clearly Nicolo Goobo was working in the best interests of
• 4:21
  Speaker 3: Victoria police.
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  Speaker 1: Police cut ties with Nicologobbo in two thousand and six,
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: but continued taking information from her in an unofficial capacity because,
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  Speaker 1: according to Gobbo's junior barrister, Jesse Taylor, it was too
• 4:35
  Speaker 1: good to resist. The whole time, Gobbo's true identity remained
• 4:40
  Speaker 1: under wraps. Then, in twenty fourteen, when Damon was the
• 4:44
  Speaker 1: newspaper's editor, the Herald Son came knocking. The jig was up,
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: so they.
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  Speaker 3: Knew Victoria Police knews that. When we ran that story
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  Speaker 3: on March thirty twenty fourteen. They knew that their secret
• 4:57
  Speaker 3: was getting out and I reckon. They thought they gotten
• 5:00
  Speaker 3: away with it, but they hadn't.
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: After a long legal battle with Victoria Police, the Herald's
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  Speaker 1: son did unmask the mysterious lawyer X and all hell
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  Speaker 1: broke loose.
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  Speaker 3: It was their dirty secret. This is the biggest legal
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  Speaker 3: scandal in Australian history.
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  Speaker 1: The revelation prompted a multimillion dollar royal inquiry, with the
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  Speaker 1: so called Office of the Special Investigator established on the
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  Speaker 1: inquiry's recommendation. It spent years pouring over tomes of evidence,
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  Speaker 1: but Victoria's Director of Public Prosecutions has so far declined
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: to prosecute anyone for their involvement with the informants. Nicolagobo
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  Speaker 1: entered the witness box via video link on Wednesday, her
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  Speaker 1: identity concealed once more. Her face was only visible to
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  Speaker 1: Justice Melinda Richards and a handful of barristers and lawyers
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  Speaker 1: present in the woodpaneled Supreme Court room where the trial
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  Speaker 1: is being held. In order to protect her location, Gobo
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: was placed into witness protection by Victoria Police after her
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  Speaker 1: identity was revealed and her barrister Tim Tobin sc argued
• 6:09
  Speaker 1: her life has been irrevocably changed by their alleged negligence.
• 6:14
  Speaker 1: We've used a voice actor.
• 6:16
  Speaker 4: What is concerning to the plaintiff is the psychological effect
• 6:20
  Speaker 4: that all this is having not only on her but
• 6:24
  Speaker 4: on her children, and the effect that is having not
• 6:27
  Speaker 4: only now, but the knowledge that it is likely to
• 6:30
  Speaker 4: continue for the rest of their lives.
• 6:33
  Speaker 1: Tobin told the court Gobbo has been given a new
• 6:36
  Speaker 1: identity and has lived in more than twenty different locations
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  Speaker 1: across multiple countries. For her safety, he said, she can't
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  Speaker 1: go back to work because potential new employers can't refer
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  Speaker 1: to her old identity to verify her experience. She can't
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  Speaker 1: transfer her to university degrees into her new name either.
• 6:54
  Speaker 1: She can't access email addresses, bank accounts or phone numbers
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  Speaker 1: held under her former identity unless she contacts the service provider,
• 7:02
  Speaker 1: and doing so would put her in breach of the
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  Speaker 1: Witness Protection Act. She was unable to sign lisas for
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  Speaker 1: new tenants in properties she owned in Melbourne or sell
• 7:11
  Speaker 1: property without a Supreme Court order. Gobbo can't access medicare
• 7:16
  Speaker 1: or superannuation, take out an insurance policy, or apply for
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  Speaker 1: a credit card, and her credit rating is shot, she
• 7:23
  Speaker 1: says for the first time in her life, due to
• 7:26
  Speaker 1: unpaid bills and premiums. When her children were born, she
• 7:30
  Speaker 1: retained their umbilical cords in case they were of use
• 7:33
  Speaker 1: for future stem cell treatment due to a family history
• 7:36
  Speaker 1: of non Hodgkins lymphoma, but she can no longer access them.
• 7:41
  Speaker 1: Gobo says her physical and mental health has suffered, and
• 7:45
  Speaker 1: she says she's been unable to be fully open with
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  Speaker 1: psychologists for fear of revealing her true identity. Doing so
• 7:52
  Speaker 1: would have seen her children removed from her custody.
• 7:57
  Speaker 4: As a consequence of what the plaintiff has been exposed
• 8:00
  Speaker 4: to over the last nearly five years, she suffered some
• 8:03
  Speaker 4: high level depression and anxiety.
• 8:07
  Speaker 1: In her evidence in chief on Thursday, Gobo said she
• 8:10
  Speaker 1: feels like she's stuck in a kind of holding pattern.
• 8:14
  Speaker 2: I remain really frustrated about not being able to move
• 8:18
  Speaker 2: forward and resolve all the personal things that I don't
• 8:20
  Speaker 2: seem to be able to resolve without effectively making an
• 8:23
  Speaker 2: application to a court and having some involvement of Victoria Police.
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  Speaker 2: Yet again. I'm really frustrated in terms of medical treatment
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  Speaker 2: that I can't simply say to doctors that I see,
• 8:34
  Speaker 2: here's the number of my previous specialists, so they can
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  Speaker 2: be continuity. I spend a lot of time ruminating over this,
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  Speaker 2: and I've spent hundreds of hours driving lawyers insane to
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  Speaker 2: try and come up with solutions or resolutions to no avail.
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  Speaker 2: I've been diagnosed with PTSD, but equally told, it's very
• 8:51
  Speaker 2: difficult to process trauma when the past is still in
• 8:55
  Speaker 2: the present. I'm broken, I'm tired, and I'm broken. And
• 8:59
  Speaker 2: when I say broken, it's broken me to watch what's
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  Speaker 2: happened to the kids.
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  Speaker 1: Gobbo's voice cracked as she relayed how there are a
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  Speaker 1: few joyful moments left in her life.
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  Speaker 2: I have tremendous obligation to keep going, to be emotionally
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  Speaker 2: as well as physically present and supportive for the sake
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  Speaker 2: of my kids. If it wasn't for them or for
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  Speaker 2: my partner, I don't know that I would see your
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  Speaker 2: point in living. I've just had.
• 9:31
  Speaker 1: Enough coming up. Lawyer X reflects on her time on
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  Speaker 1: the other side of the witness box as a much
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  Speaker 1: younger lawyer. Nicola Gobbo said she found a niche filing
• 10:00
  Speaker 1: bail applications for drug arrests in Melbourne. In the early
• 10:03
  Speaker 1: two thousands, many of which implicated members of the warring
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  Speaker 1: Moran and Mockbell gangs, but that neither side was happy
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: about her representing the other. During her evidence in chief
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  Speaker 1: on Wednesday, she said she was under immense pressure to
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  Speaker 1: ensure members of the Mockbell clan were granted bail quickly,
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  Speaker 1: and she says she was directed to alter the bail
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  Speaker 1: conditions of crime bosses like Tony Mockbell and Carl Williams.
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  Speaker 2: Mister Mockbell and I had many aggressive, kind of terse conversations.
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  Speaker 2: The aggression and direction was coming from him, a lot
• 10:35
  Speaker 2: of screaming phone calls, a lot of directions, specifically being
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  Speaker 2: directed to not appear for mister Moran on the basis
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  Speaker 2: I was not part of his crew. I was apparently
• 10:43
  Speaker 2: part of the Mockbell crew.
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  Speaker 1: Gobo relayed an incident where she was threatened by Carl
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  Speaker 1: Williams standover man Benji Veneman after representing his boss's rival
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  Speaker 1: in court.
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  Speaker 2: I had a silk leading me in that bail application,
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  Speaker 2: but unfortunately he didn't come to caught that morning, and
• 11:01
  Speaker 2: that resulted in it being publicly known that I had
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  Speaker 2: appeared for mister Moran and that resulted in mister Venamon
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  Speaker 2: threatening me outside of my home.
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  Speaker 1: Gobbo alleged Venaman appeared in a screaming rage on the
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  Speaker 1: road outside her home a couple of days after that
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  Speaker 1: court appearance.
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  Speaker 2: I don't remember seeing a weapon, but I do recall
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  Speaker 2: being frightened.
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  Speaker 1: She said the appearance of her sister's vehicle inadvertently diffused
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  Speaker 1: the situation.
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  Speaker 2: It was a Friday, and my sister was picking me
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  Speaker 2: up to give me a lift to work, and I
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  Speaker 2: remember thinking at the time how lucky I was that
• 11:34
  Speaker 2: my sister's car had come around the corner at the time,
• 11:36
  Speaker 2: because mister Venamon was just so so rate and abusive.
• 11:42
  Speaker 1: Gobo's barrister, Tim Tobiness, jumped in, did you have.
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  Speaker 4: Any knowledge of his reputation at that time?
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  Speaker 2: I can't remember right now whether I knew at the
• 11:52
  Speaker 2: time that he was a murderer of people or that,
• 11:54
  Speaker 2: or a violent individual, but he was certainly a frightening
• 11:57
  Speaker 2: sight and he had a frightening demeanor.
• 12:00
  Speaker 4: Long after that event, did mister Veneman die.
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  Speaker 2: Recollection is that it was only a month or two later.
• 12:11
  Speaker 1: The State of Victoria is defending Nicola Goobbo's compensation claim
• 12:15
  Speaker 1: and has sought to limit any liability to one million
• 12:18
  Speaker 1: dollars under the Police Informance Act. The trial continues on Friday.
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  Speaker 1: For all the latest, visit the Australian dot com dot au.
• 12:27
  Speaker 1: Thanks for joining us on the front this week. Our
• 12:29
  Speaker 1: team is Claire Harvey, Leat, Samaglue, Jasper Leik, Tiffany Dimak,
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: Josh Burton and me Kristen Amiet