It’s a matter of pride for lawyers that they are free and able to work both sides of the street. In particular the cab-rank rule for barristers dictates as much. One day as a prosecutor, next for an accused; for the state and against it. And in the civil sphere there’s much swapping of hats while working for plaintiffs and alternatively for defendants.

Now we have the Victorian police informer and former barrister known variously as Lawyer X, Informer 3838 or in judicial proceedings as EF, working “both sides of the street” to new and previously unexplored levels. She was shopping her clients to the police who were prosecuting them, notably when she acted as counsel for Melbourne crime figure Tony Mokbel and his associates while simultaneously providing information to the police about her clients. About eight years ago Victoria police paid her almost $2.9m in compensation for her troubles.

In November last year the high court lifted suppression orders that had kept the story under wraps for years, while imposing other orders to protect the identity of EF.

As is often the case with suppression orders in an era of porous information, the story got out. There’s hardly a Melbourne lawyer, judge or convicted criminal who doesn’t know the identity of Informer 3838.

On 4 February, the Victorian court of appeal extended the suppression orders and to be sure there’ll be more of them emerging from the inquiry now under way, which has the benign name of “royal commission into management of police informants”.

More appropriately, it might be called royal commission into the corruption of the criminal justice system. The terms of reference already have to be tweaked because Victoria police has discovered that Informer 3838, aka Lawyer X, aka EF was informing from 1995, 10 years earlier than first suspected.

Royal commissioner Malcolm Hyde fell on his sword because of a perceived conflict of interest, having been a senior Victorian police officer during this earlier period. The commission soldiers on with the former president of the Queensland court of appeal, Margaret McMurdo, at the helm.

It is now apparent that this perversion of justice runs deeper, wider and longer than was first imagined. Other lawyers are said to be involved in dishing-up their clients to the police, and not just in Victoria. How far it has spread is for now a matter of conjecture. Are any judges in on the racket? Perish the thought.

This will continue to unravel painfully, damaging the so-called independence of the legal profession, and betraying a criminal justice system supposedly designed to give every advantage to the citizen against the state. The Victorian Bar has been quick to quarantine the fallout, saying there is nothing to suggest other barristers are involved and that what has been uncovered so far is “wholly aberrant”.

At its heart this is a story about secrets, and the struggle in the courts over the past four years to keep the lid on them.

In 2014 Victoria’s independent broad-based anti corruption commission (IBAC) had former supreme court judge Murray Kellam conduct an investigation into Victoria police’s “management of human sources and in particular the issue of whether or not such management has complied with appropriate ethical and legal obligations”. This was Operation Leven.

By February 2015, Kellam had completed the report examining how Lawyer X came to work as defence counsel for Mokbel and six of his criminal associates in the drug trade, while simultaneously working with the police to secure their convictions. This had the potential to undermine the defences of the accused, quite apart from keeping relevant information from the prosecutors.

In July 2012 Mokbel had been was sentenced in the Victorian supreme court to 30 years in prison, to serve a minimum of 22 years.

The IBAC report was not made public, but it went to the Victorian police who then sent it to the DPP. Ever since those two agencies have been engaged in lengthy and expensive litigation. The DPP believes he had a duty to disclose the report’s findings to the convicted clients of Lawyer X, while the police have strenuously opposed the release of the information, saying it would result in the “almost certain” death of their informant.

The police commissioner started proceedings in the supreme court on 10 June 2016 seeking a declaration that disclosure of the information was against the public interest – known to lawyers as public interest immunity.

On 11 November 2016, Lawyer X was added as a plaintiff and she also started separate proceedings on the grounds that she was owed an obligation of confidence.

The case was heard in secret with publication suppressed.

In June the following year, Justice Timothy Ginnane dismissed the proceedings, finding that while there was a public interest in preserving the anonymity of EF’s identity, there was a stronger public interest in favour to disclosure of the information in the anti-corruption commission report.

Confidence in the criminal justice system demanded no less.

On 21 November 2017 the appeals were dismissed and in May last year the police and Lawyer X went to the high court where in November their case was thrown out to the accompaniment of scathing comments.

The lawyer’s breach of professional duty was “appalling”; the Victoria police were guilty of “reprehensible conduct”; the prosecution outcomes had been “corrupted in a manner which debased fundamental premises of the criminal justice system”.

It follows that the convictions be re-examined by the DPP. It was only then that the world at large became aware of the deeds of Informer 3838 and the inevitable fallout followed in quick order.

Throughout, the courts expressed concern for the informant’s safety, yet she has refused to go into a witness-protection program with her children. Indeed, there are reports she has been seen around Melbourne and delivering her children to school. She is a member of a prominent Victorian family and is widely known.

In a dark twist, the high court noted that she is anxious to avoid witness protection because she believes the “Victoria police cannot be trusted to maintain confidentiality”.