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The decision 18 years ago to register barrister and the loosest of loose cannons c as a police informer has proved to be the most ill-considered and expensive in Australian legal history.
Five inquiries, a legal battle fought to the High Court, quashed convictions, ruined reputations, a $100 million Royal Commission and, in the end, no-one issued as much as a parking infringement.
Barrister-turned-police-informer Nicola Gobbo, pictured in 2008.Credit: Joe Armao
No one would be silly enough to say that this week’s decision to disband the Office of Special Investigator is the last chapter. It’s just the latest in a story of good intentions, manipulation and a futile determination to find a smoking gun.
To recap for anyone who has just arrived in Victoria or who has been in a coma for a decade: Gobbo was a defence barrister who ran too close to gangsters. Around the time she became a person of interest in the 2004 double murder of police informer Terence Hodson and his wife Christine, Gobbo changed sides and became a snitch for Purana – the police gangland taskforce.
Gobbo wasn’t much good at it, mostly handing over gossip but in the process provided information she acquired under client-lawyer privilege. When finally exposed this resulted in some convictions being overturned and others that still remain in doubt.
It was, the courts found, dirty pool.
In 2018, the High Court that included Justice Geoffrey Nettle found: “Victoria Police were guilty of reprehensible conduct in knowingly encouraging [Gobbo] to do as she did and were involved in sanctioning atrocious breaches of the sworn duty of every police officer.”
Three years later, Justice Nettle was appointed Special Investigator to find if charges should be laid. Nettle believed he had sufficient evidence and sent his opinion to the person who would make the final decision: Victorian Director of Public Prosecutions, Kerri Judd, KC.
She found there was insufficient evidence to reach the threshold that there was a reasonable prospect of conviction and refused to prosecute. Nettle, quite reasonably asked, “what’s the point of this shambles?” and suggested his office be closed, or he would quit.
The government agreed. Attorney-General Jaclyn Symes said: “Prosecutorial decisions are a matter for the [Director of Public Prosecutions] and it is critical that the Office of the Public Prosecutions operates independently of government and statutory bodies like the [Office of the Special Investigator].”
She is right. Those who criticise Judd have not read the brief of evidence and simply won’t accept it is a decision for the Office of the Public Prosecutions and that should be the end of it.
But if we know anything about the Gobbo matter, it won’t be. Many will point out that Nettle is a respected judge of the High, Supreme and Court of Appeal. That is a CV, not evidence.
Some say we have spent all this money and so it should go to court. That is accountancy, not evidence.
If the government had changed the law to allow Nettle to lay charges it would have destroyed the independence of the Office of the Public Prosecutions, just to quiet the baying of blue-nosed barristers.
What the police did was unlawful, but that does not make it criminal. In 2020 the Royal Commission found insufficient evidence to charge, in 2015 IBAC found insufficient evidence to charge and in 2023 the Office of the Public Prosecutions found the same.
It is not a cover-up, it is a f***-up.
Where do you want to go next? The AFL tribunal? Judge Judy? Utopia?
Some estimate that with the Royal Commission, the Office of Special Investigator, sundry other probes, Supreme Court appeals and quashed convictions the true cost has been around $200 million.
As the eminent jurist Kenny Rogers once remarked:
You got to know when to hold ’em,
Know when to fold ’em,
Know when to walk away,
And know when to run.
You never count your money
When you’re sittin’ at the table.
There’ll be time enough for countin’
When the dealing’s done.
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