Commission given until July 2020 to deliver findings, after inquiry period for Nicola Gobbo-related cases goes from five years to 18

Victoria’s royal commission into the management of police informants has been given an extra seven months to deliver its final report along with $20.5m in additional funding, after commissioner Margaret McMurdo said meeting the original deadline would be “impossible”.

The commission, ordered by the Victorian premier, Daniel Andrews, is examining the number of cases might have been affected by the conduct of Nicola Gobbo, a criminal defence barrister who represented some of Melbourne’s most notorious underworld figures while also acting as a police informant.

For decades, Gobbo was referred to as “Lawyer X” by the media because of a court suppression order on her identity; she had also been referred to in court cases as ‘“EF” and “informant 3838”.

Gobbo’s identity had been well known in criminal and legal circles, but was made public after longstanding suppression orders were lifted in December.

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As well as the extent of her role and the impact of her conduct, the commission is also examining the adequacy and effectiveness of Victoria Police’s current processes for disclosures about recruiting, handling and managing informants generally, who are subject to legal obligations of confidentiality or privilege.

McMurdo was originally due to deliver an interim report on informants in July and a final report on all other aspects of the inquiry by December. But on Saturday the government said the deadline would be extended.The final report will now be delivered 1 July 2020.

When the inquiry was announced, it was understood Gobbo had been registered as Informer 3838 from 2005 to 2009, but was still providing information until 2010.



But it was revealed in January that she had first been recruited in 1995 and then again in 1999.

McMurdo said: “The increased span of inquiry into Gobbo’s activities from five to over eighteen years, coupled with a multitude of suppression orders and numerous other information delays has made reporting on our first term of reference by 1 July 2019 impossible.”



The inquiry’s close link with the conduct of current and former members of Victoria Police in their disclosures about recruitment, handling and management of informants also made things more difficult.

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“Those inquiries and any resulting reports cannot be efficiently separated,” McMurdo said.

Gobbo’s former clients include gangland killer Carl Williams and drug lord Tony Mokbel, who is already seeking to appeal against a 30-year sentence on the basis of the information Gobbo passed on.



The Victorian attorney general Jill Hennessy said the commission had also requested an additional $20.5m in funding, which had been approved.



“The complexities of dealing with a large volume of sensitive material that requires timely and detailed analysis, as well as security of the evidence, has resulted in the need for additional funding,” she said. This is in addition to the $7.5m in funding allocated towards the commission when the inquiry was announced in December.



Former detective Paul Dale, who handled Gobbo before being charged with murdering her former client and fellow police informer Terence Hodson and his wife Christine, will give evidence when the hearings resume on 17 June.



Charges against Dale were later dropped.