Court of appeal orders former getaway driver be immediately released due to miscarriage of justice caused by his lawyer Nicola Gobbo

This article is more than 1 year old

This article is more than 1 year old

Melbourne gangland getaway driver Faruk Orman will be immediately released from jail because of a “substantial miscarriage of justice” caused by his double-agent lawyer Nicola Gobbo, also known as Lawyer X.

Victoria’s court of appeal ordered Orman be released without delay after a hearing in Melbourne on Friday found he should be acquitted due to Gobbo’s actions while she was representing him.

She is alleged to have encouraged a key witness, whose evidence was central to securing Orman’s conviction, to talk to police.

It’s the first conviction to be overturned in the wake of the Lawyer X scandal, uncovered when police were forced to reveal that Gobbo had been acting as their informant.

Lawyer X: getaway driver convicted of gangland murder granted right to appeal Read more

The scandal sparked a royal commission, which is ongoing.

Orman wiped away tears in the courtroom as the decision was announced.

Orman, 37, was jailed for 20 years in 2009, with a minimum of 14 years, after a supreme court jury convicted him of murdering Victor Peirce in 2002. He has always protested his innocence.

The appeal could serve as a test case for more than 20 other convictions that have been placed in doubt since Gobbo’s role as a police informer was revealed last year.

Victorian director of public prosecutions, Kerri Judd, told the court of appeal at its first mention hearing on Friday that there had been a serious miscarriage of justice, and that despite there being enough evidence to support the charge it would be unjust to demand a retrial because Orman had already spent 12 years behind bars.

The witness, allegedly encouraged by Gobbo, gave evidence that Orman had confessed to being the getaway driver for hitman Andrew “Benji” Veniamin, who shot Peirce and was himself murdered two years later.

Judd conceded as much in the court on Friday. She did not concede that the witness’s evidence would therefore be inadmissible, only that a retrial would be unjust.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Faruk Orman leaves court on Friday. Photograph: David Crosling/AAP

In a joint statement, court of appeal president Chris Maxwell and judges Richard Niall and Karin Emerton said that by conceding that fact, even though other allegations of fact made by Orman’s lawyers were contested, the DPP had prevented the court from having to undertake its own factual investigation.

“Self-evidently, that conduct was a fundamental breach of [Gobbo’s] duties to Mr Orman and the court,” they said.

“On the facts as conceded, Ms Gobbo’s conduct subverted Mr Orman’s right to a fair trial, and went to the very foundations of the system of criminal trial. There was, accordingly, a substantial miscarriage of justice. The appeal must therefore be allowed.”

They ordered Orman’s conviction for murder be set aside, with no retrial issued.

Before the scandal over Gobbo’s role as a police informer broke, Orman had already exhausted his last avenue of appeal. He was refused special leave to appeal by the high court in 2011.

Victoria Police spent $4.52m in legal fees attempting to prevent Gobbo’s identity as a police informer from being revealed to her former clients or the public, but was overruled by the high court in December.

Counsel for Orman emphasised the role of police in their submissions to the court.

“There has been a substantial miscarriage of justice in this case, a substantial miscarriage which has now come to light in spite of the steps that Victoria Police – in many proceedings over many years – have taken to resist disclosure,” they said.

Attorney general Jill Hennessy referred Orman’s case to the court of appeal last month after receiving a petition of mercy from his lawyers in February.

She said there was “credible evidence that there may have been a miscarriage of justice” and it was not necessary to wait for the royal commission’s final report.