Nicola Gobbo Biography
- Born: November 16, 1972 Melbourne, Australia
- Nationality: Australian
- Other names: Lawyer X
- Alma mater: University of Melbourne
- Occupation: Lawyer
- Known for Barrister in criminal defence litigation & police informant
- Partner(s): Richard Barkho
- Relatives: Sir James Gobbo (uncle)
Drug charge at law school
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.
1996 election scandal
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.
Gobbo, then a Young Labor member, publicly claimed that the forger was then-Liberal staffer and current Senate president Scott Ryan, who had intended for the forgery to pass initial inspection then rebound on Labor. Despite Gobbo’s signed statutory declaration, Ryan denied the claim.
Witness
Gobbo was a witness against Paul Dale, a former policeman accused of corruption. She asserted that Australian authorities have not fulfilled assurances made to her about protecting her safety. The Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) repeated that Gobbo asserted she had received death threats due to her planned testimony.
Lawyer X scandal
Between 1995 and 2009, Gobbo was a registered police informant, whilst also working as a defence lawyer for many of Melbourne’s organised crime figures. 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 in the media only as Lawyer X or Informer 3838.
The suppression order was lifted in December 2018 when it was reported that she had represented convicted criminals, Carl Williams and Tony Mokbel.
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.
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.
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. 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. In handing down their decision on appeal from the Supreme Court of Victoria, Appeals Court, the judges commented:
“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.
— High Court of Australia
Personal life
When the TV show Desperate Housewives first premiered in Australia in 2004, Gobbo was one of the prominent Australian women from whom The Age sought a reaction.
Gobbo’s partner is Richard Barkho; the couple have two children. As of March 2019, Barkho was serving a five-year custodial sentence for drug trafficking.
Gobbo is the cousin of a Melbourne barrister, Jeremy Gobbo QC. She is also the niece of Sir James Gobbo AC, CVO, QC, a former Governor of Victoria and a former Supreme Court judge.
In popular media
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.