People are surprised that gangster lawyer and police informant Nicola Gobbo is 'still alive'.
People are surprised that gangster lawyer and police informant Nicola Gobbo is 'still alive'.
Nicola Gobbo, known as 'Lawyer X" who defended some of Melbourne's biggest gangsters and informed on them to police has "signed her own death warrant" a new documentary claims.
On the first of two nights, the Sky News documentary Lawyer X: The Untold Story reveals Gobbo's brazen double life as both a lawyer for the Melbourne underworld and a registered informer for Victoria Police.
It shows how a barrister from one of Victoria's most respected families became a double-agent and police informer, handing over secret information on her high-profile gangster clients.
Nicola Gobbo, above with hit man Andrew 'Benji' Veniamen and Carl Williams, both since murdered, is at risk herself, the documentary warns.
Gobbo defended some of the biggest criminals in Victoria, including drug lord Carl Williams who has since been slain in prison, drug baron Rob Karam, and gangland boss Tony Mokbel.
The 'Lawyer X' scandal has rocked Victoria's police and legal establishments and prompted a royal commission into the state police force's conduct during the Melbourne gangland war and its dealings with informants.
Ms Gobbo is expected to appear before the commission.
The Sky News show investigates how Gobbo charmed Melbourne gangsters into believing she was on "on their side".
But all the while she was a paid informant for Victoria Police, earning an "allowance, concert tickets, trips overseas" and in the end a A$2.88m taxpayer-funded payout after she sued the police for failing to protect her.
The first episode of the two-part series concentrates on the 2004 murder of police informant Terry Hodson and his wife, Christine, who were executed in their suburban living room.
The team of Herald Sun journalists and Sky News behind the documentary reveal that this proved Gobbo's undoing.
Mr Hodson was implicated in a 1993 robbery of a drug house and was due to testify against former Victorian drug squad detective Paul Dale.
People are surprised that gangster lawyer and police informant Nicola Gobbo is 'still alive'.
Mr Hodson was Ms Gobbo's client, and she was in a relationship with Paul Dale.
Mr Dale, who appears on episode one of Lawyer X, denies the allegations.
But Terry and Christine Dodson's grieving daughters say they want the truth to come out at the Royal Commission about what exactly Ms Gobbo knew or did.
Solicitor Michael Pena-Rees told Sky that he had become aware in 2011 Ms Gobbo was a double agent and that she had more than one relationship with a police officer.
In previous interviews with Ms Gobbo, she says she has lived "with a degree of hyper vigilance and fear" since being exposed as a police informant.
Nicola Gobbo with gangster Carl Williams at his daughter Dhakota's christening party at Melbourne's Crown Casino in 2003.
Veteran journalist Derryn Hinch told the documentary: "I'm amazed she's still alive."
In a teaser for the show's second episode, an associate of Ms Gobbo's says he told her that on signing a certain document "Nic ... I think you sign your death warrant".
Sky News chief executive Paul Whittaker said that Victoria Police had contacted Sky a fortnight ago and requested a viewing of the documentary series tapes in advance.
The documentary says Gobbo, the niece of former Governor of Victoria Sir James Gobbo, once had "the potential to become a Supreme Court judge".
