By The Guardian (World News) | Created at 2024-10-02 06:15:13 | Updated at 2024-10-02 08:25:50
2 hours ago
Melbourne’s underworld wars have returned to the courtroom as Nicola Gobbo described her earliest interactions with gangland clients like Tony Mokbel.
The barrister-turned-informer began giving evidence to the supreme court in Melbourne on Wednesday for day three of her judge-alone civil trial against Victoria police.
The 51-year-old has not been seen since she went into hiding after being outed as ‘Lawyer X’ in 2019.
Gobbo’s image was hidden inside court and on a live stream, as she gave evidence by video link from a secret location about her earliest interactions with police and high-profile clients.
Only Justice Melinda Richards and lawyers from either side at the bar table could see Gobbo’s face.
She said her first interaction with police, while studying law at Melbourne university in her early 20s, had petrified her.
She was living in Carlton with her boyfriend, Brian Wilson, who was later convicted of drug trafficking, when their home was searched.
Gobbo was given a good behaviour bond after she said police found some “green vegetable matter” and a small amount of amphetamines
“I admitted that I was petrified and freely admitted that I had tried both,” she told the court on Wednesday.
“I mean, they put the fear of god in me.”
After this, Gobbo was registered as a police informer for the first time – in 1995 – although she claims she did not find out about this until a royal commission.
She was registered a second time, in 1999, which she also did not know about until the commission.
Gobbo signed the bar roll at 25, becoming the youngest woman in the state to do so, and quickly found herself representing gangland clients.
She described her first interaction with Tony Mokbel at the registry on the second floor of Melbourne magistrates court as he was signing a bail surety for his brother Horty.
“Even as I sit here now I can still remember,” she said.
“I almost couldn’t have a conversation with him because he was constantly on his phone in his usual loud voice.
“It was difficult to know if he was listening to what I was saying.”
Gobbo said she became known for her success in getting bail for clients charged with major drug trafficking, and worked mostly with the Mokbel family and Carl Williams’ clan.
When she was approached to do a bail application for rival Lewis Moran, she was pressured by Williams and Mokbel to “not partake in any activity” to assist him or his crew, she said.
“It was quite extraordinary,” she told the court.
“A lot of screaming kind of phone calls … I was apparently part of the Mokbel crew.
“Some of those were aggressive, terse conversations.”
She went ahead with Moran’s bail application and her name was reported in the media.
A few days later, she said Andrew “Benji” Veniamin – an associate of Mokbel and Williams and one of Australia’s most notorious hit men – visited her home.
“He was literally parked on the nature strip where I was living and was in a screaming rage,” she said.
“I can’t recall now his exact words but I do recall being frightened.
“I remember at the time thinking how lucky I was [that] my sister’s car had come around the corner at that time because Mr Veniamin was just so irate.”
Gobbo is suing the State of Victoria for damages over claims police acted negligently when they “groomed” her into becoming a source.
Her lawyers have claimed police offered Gobbo protection, support and made her promises including that her identity would be protected in exchange for her providing information on her gangland clients.
The state is fighting each of Gobbo’s claims as the trial continues.
