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Three of former Victoria police boss Simon Overland's work diaries have been discovered in a storage facility, days after he claimed he did not keep any. Mr Overland emphatically denied on Monday at the royal commission into police use of informers that he had kept any diaries. But on Friday diaries from 2003, 2004 and 2007 were found at an archive facility in Laverton after a tip from Mr Overland's former chief of staff. The discovery, hours before the inquiry wraps for the year, means Mr Overland will be back in the witness box next year. The heat was turned up during his fifth day of evidence on Friday when Geoffrey Steward, a lawyer representing former policeman Paul Dale, accused him of "self-serving secrecy" and his "naked ambition to become chief commissioner". Mr Overland said the claims were "simply untrue" and rejected that he was prepared to put Ms Gobbo at risk. He earlier faced accusations he hid the risks around using gangland lawyer Nicola Gobbo as an informer so he could be promoted. He said he knew using her could pose long-term risks to the force, unsafe verdicts and possible appeals, but denied seeing a January 2009 risk analysis by police handlers who had the same concerns. Mr Overland admitted the evidence suggested he had seen the document and while he could not exclude that, he had no recollection of seeing it. He was a deputy commissioner at the time and had interviewed for the top job. Counsel assisting, Chris Winneke QC, said if the concerns in the analysis were based in fact they "would effectively mean that you would never be chief commissioner". But Mr Overland rejected any assumption it influenced his decision making. "It just simply didn't," he said. Mr Overland became chief commissioner two months later. The risk analysis was one of a series of documents produced around that time. Some of the documents had Mr Overland's handwriting on them, including a strategic analysis briefing based on the risk analysis and a timeline of the investigation into the gangland murder of informer Terence Hodson and his wife Christine. His handwriting was also on a Q&A document which included the question, "Does this now prove the culture of corruption that only a royal commission could effectively deal with?". "I can't say with certainty, other than documents where my handwriting appears, what I have seen and what I haven't," Mr Overland said of the documents. He has accepted limited responsibility for the Lawyer X scandal, which he described as an "irregularity in police procedures". "It is not what I've stood for all my life. It is not what I've worked to achieve and I understand from a command point of view that I have to accept some of the responsibility for that," he said. Mr Winneke accused him of blaming the officers who reported to him. "I'll leave it for others to judge whether they've failed Victoria Police or not, that's not my role," Mr Overland replied. The inquiry is set to resume on January 21. Australian Associated Press

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