The barrister also covertly recorded a conversation with drug squad detective Paul Dale, who was suspected of orchestrating the executions of informer Terence Hodson and his wife Christine. Loading On Monday, after the Supreme Court of Victoria and High Court of Australia separately handed down stinging assessments about the use of the informer to secure numerous major criminal convictions, Commissioner Ashton said he believed the police involved acted in good faith. "They can be expected to have my continuing support," he said. Commissioner Ashton said police would not comment further following the announcement that a royal commission was being launched into the scandal.

The terms of reference to the royal commission are expected to probe deeply into Victoria Police’s troubled history of managing informers, including Informer 3838’s role in at least these two high-profile police corruption cases. Executed: Terence Hodson and his wife, Christine. The operation of the registered informant was managed by officers from Victoria Police’s human source unit, which was disbanded in 2013 amid concerns about serious misconduct. But the overall investigations – code-named Taskforce Briars and Taskforce Petra – were overseen by a “steering committee” that included Mr Ashton, who was then deputy director of the Office of Police Integrity, current Victoria Police assistant commissioner Luke Cornelius and then-deputy commissioner Simon Overland. Mr Overland is now chief executive of the Whittlesea council. Sources said there was “no way” Mr Ashton would not have known about the use of the barrister given his senior position at the OPI and on the steering committee.

The veteran criminal barrister, whose name has been suppressed, had been informally cooperating with police since mid-2003, including conducting a series of interviews with Office of Police Integrity detectives. Loading She was officially enrolled in Victoria Police’s human source program from 2005 until 2009, ultimately providing intelligence in over 5000 police reports that implicated several hundred criminals and clients. The police hierarchy saw her information as crucial to helping end the gangland war, and then, trying to expose police corruption. Taskforce Briar was launched after allegations emerged that two police officers had a hand in orchestrating the 2003 shooting death of Shane Chartres-Abbott, a male sex worker who specialised in bondage sado-masochistic sex.

Chartres-Abbott, nicknamed the Vampire Gigolo, was killed the day before he was due to stand trial for raping and biting off the tongue of a woman, amid claims he was threatening to expose corrupt relationships with police. Shane Chartres-Abbott. Credit:Andrew De La Rue Informer 3838 had been used to try to elicit information from one of the officers under investigation, David "Docket" Waters. Then Deputy Commissioner Overland asked Briars investigator Ron Iddles to take a formal statement from the informer, who was then living in Southeast Asia. But Detective Iddles refused to allow the statement to be formally signed, fearing the use of the informer was so unethical it could lead to a royal commission.

Informer 3838 was also deployed during Taskforce Petra, sent to covertly record a conversation with Detective Dale who police believed was involved in the murders of the Hodsons in 2004. Paul Dale Credit:Michael Clayton-Jones MCJ Terence Hodson had been acting as a police informant and had given information implicating Dale and another drug squad detective in the burglary of a drug house, charges that were dropped after the Hodson murders. The working theory had been that Mr Dale brokered the hit through drug kingpin Carl Williams. Mr Dale has repeatedly denied any involvement. The recording and testimony of Informer 3838 was an important part of the prosecution against Mr Dale when he was charged for the Hodson slayings.

Loading That case, in turn, collapsed spectacularly after the prison murder of Williams, who had also turned police informer. In February 2013, the source development unit that cultivated and managed informers was disbanded. That move came more than a year before the Independent Broad-based Anti-corruption Commission began investigating the decision to employ the defence barrister as an informant despite the clear conflict of interest. Murray Kellam, QC, who conducted the IBAC probe, found the handling of Informer 3838 "had the potential to have adversely affected the administration of justice in Victoria". He stopped short of finding any criminal behaviour had occurred.

But it was clear that a significant amount of potential damage had already been done. Carl Williams. Credit:Jason South The work of Informer 3838 had been deemed so essential to police that her simultaneous involvement as an informer and barrister in the same cases over nearly a half decade was not disclosed to the Director of Public Prosecutions. It is still unclear who at police command authorised that decision. In the four years since the scandal began to erupt in the courts, Victoria Police has also spent what is likely to be millions of dollars on legal actions attempting to suppress the release of information.