Nicola Gobbo

Nicola Maree Gobbo, sometimes known as Nikki Gobbo, (born 16 November 1972) is an Australian former criminal defence barrister and police informant.

In 1993, while she was a law student, police raided a house owned by Gobbo and found amphetamines, marijuana, and weapons.

Gobbo, her boyfriend, the drug dealer Brian Wilson, and another man were charged with drug possession and pleaded guilty.

Gobbo was given a good behaviour bond.

Two years later, another raid turned up more amphetamines.

Gobbo was concerned that another drug conviction would destroy her law career.

No charges were laid, and soon afterwards, she was registered as police informer G395 although she claimed to be unaware of the fact until finding it out through the media.

Gobbo first came to public attention during the 1996 Australian federal election.

In the last week of the campaign, Labor Treasurer Ralph Willis used letters purportedly from Jeff Kennett criticising Liberal leader John Howard.

The letters were quickly exposed as forgeries.

Gobbo, then a Young Labor member, publicly claimed that the forger was then-Liberal staffer and later Senate president Scott Ryan, who had intended for the forgery to pass initial inspection then rebound on Labor.

Despite Gobbo's signed statutory declaration, Ryan denied the claim.

Gobbo, under the pseudonym WitnessF, was a witness against Paul Dale, a former policeman accused of corruption.

She asserted that Australian authorities have not fulfilled assurances made to her about protecting her safety.

The Australian Broadcasting Corporation repeated that Gobbo asserted she had received death threats due to her planned testimony.

Whilst originally understood to be a registered police informant from 2005 to 2009 it was later revealed that Gobbo was recruited as a registered police informant in 1995, 1999 and again in 2005 and was still providing information in 2010 at which time police were instructed that they could no longer accept information from her.

Between September 2005 and January 2009 Gobbo was responsible for more than 5,000 reports and regularly spoke to Purana Taskforce detectives whilst working as a defence lawyer for many of Melbourne's organised crime figures.

She passed to Victoria Police information about her clients whilst representing them, leading to the prospect of many convictions being overturned.

On 16April 2008, Gobbo's parked car was engulfed in flames.

After the death of Carl Williams on 9April 2010 and Gobbo refused to testify, the case was withdrawn.

Shortly afterwards Gobbo revealed in an interview with the ABC that she was WitnessF in the Paul Dale case.

Despite this Gobbo continued to offer police information until 2012.

During media coverage of the scandal in 2018 and 2019, Gobbo's identity was subject to a suppression order, and she was referred to as EF, Lawyer X or Informer 3838.

The suppression order was lifted in December 2018 when it was reported that she had represented convicted criminals, Carl Williams and Tony Mokbel.

On 3 December 2018, the Premier of Victoria Daniel Andrews ordered the Royal Commission into the Management of Police Informants.

As part of its inquiry, the Royal Commission examined the number of, and extent to which, criminal cases may have been affected by the conduct of Gobbo.

In February 2019 a 2016 affidavit written by Inspector Brooke Hall stated that Mick Gatto and Horty Mokbel and others had threatened to kill Gobbo if it was proven that she had been providing information to Victoria Police.

At the same time it was also revealed that a threat was made against her oldest child.

It was reported in 2019 that Gobbo had declined to enter witness protection as "she feared police more than her former clients" and was using the name Nikki Gobbo.

The commission was due to report to the Government in July 2019; however, as the inquiry proceeded it became clear that this timeline was not achievable.

In May 2019 the commission received $20 million in additional funding and a twelve-month extension to July 2020.

In May 2019, it was reported that some of Gobbo's clients who received criminal convictions could be potentially overturned on appeal, on the basis that Gobbo may have provided information to police that led to the conviction of her clients, whilst at the same time representing her clients as their defence lawyer.

At the time of lifting the suppression order to reveal Gobbo's identity, the High Court found that [Gobbo] covertly informing on [her] clients was a "fundamental and appalling breach" of the barrister's obligations.

In handing down their decision on appeal from the Supreme Court of Victoria, Appeals Court, the judges commented:

The commission delivered the final report and recommendations to the Governor on 30 November 2020.

In 2020, whilst the Royal Commission was still in progress, Victoria Police offered to arrange and pay for her to move to a country without an extradition treaty with Australia so that she would not be able to be investigated or prosecuted for her actions in the LawyerX matter.

After the end of the Royal Commission, Gobbo told the ABC that she was concerned that Victoria Police might attempt to stop her from working with the special investigator appointed to examine if charges should be laid in connection with the matter.

The actions of Gobbo in acting as an informant for Victoria Police whilst acting as a lawyer has caused a number of convictions, believed to be over 1,000, to be affected, with several people subsequently set free.

Shadow Attorney-General of Victoria Edward O'Donohue said that the Victorian Government must explain how it is going to manage the convictions that are being overturned.

As a consequence of the actions of Gobbo, as disclosed in the AB v CD case and the Royal Commission, there are multiple people who may have been denied a fair trial, with 124 convictions called tainted, others having their convictions reviewed, and more than 1,000 case possibly affected as Gobbo represented or gave legal advice to 1297 individuals with the Royal Commission putting the number at 1,011.