Barrister Nicola Gobbo and the Victoria police officers who recruited her as an informer during Melbourne’s gangland war will not face charges over the scandal as the agency appointed to build criminal cases against them is being disbanded.
The state attorney general, Jaclyn Symes, on Tuesday confirmed the office of the special investigator (OSI), headed by former high court judge Geoffrey Nettle, will wind down its operations.
It comes just days after Nettle issued an ultimatum to the government to disband his office or he would resign, citing frustration with the director of public prosecutions, Kerri Judd, refusing to approve criminal charges against those involved in the matter, known as the Lawyer X scandal.
He argued any further work would be a “waste of time and resources” given the chances of prosecution were “effectively nil”.
Symes said in disbanding the OSI, the government was acting on Nettle’s advice and that of the Lawyer X royal commission implementation monitor, Sir David Carruthers.
“I would like to thank Geoffrey Nettle for his work and wish him well for the future,” she said.
“Prosecutorial decisions are a matter for the DPP and it is critical that the office of the public prosecutions operates independently of government and statutory bodies like the OSI.”
The shadow attorney general, Michael O’Brien, who had previously called on Symes to give the OSI powers to prosecute cases itself, instead of requiring the office of public prosecutions to do so on its behalf, described the decision as “appalling” and “weak”.
“Labor is giving a free pass to all of those who engaged in what our highest court condemned as ‘reprehensible conduct’,” he said in a statement.
“The worst legal scandal in Victorian history will end with a whimper because a weak Labor government does not want to give the OSI the power to authorise charges.
“It is perhaps fitting that the scandal which shockingly undermined Victoria’s justice system will remain unpunished because of the insipid weakness of the Andrews government.”
O’Brien said the Lawyer X scandal has cost taxpayers “hundreds of millions of dollars” and ended with no sanctions. This included $39.5m on setting up the royal commission, $25m on the OSI and another $60m spent by Victoria police in defending its actions.
In a special report tabled in parliament last week, Nettle said he had prepared three separate prosecutions, which included charges of perjury, perverting the course of justice and misconduct in public office.
One investigation, known as Operation Spey, involved a 5,000-page brief of evidence he said “established a powerful case of offending”.
The case relied on an unnamed individual – understood to be Nicola Gobbo – pleading guilty to perverting the course of justice and testifying against police officers.
But in a response, also tabled in parliament, Judd said she had “no confidence that the individual would in fact agree to plead guilty and give evidence as contemplated by the OSI”.
Neither Nettle’s report nor Judd’s response named Gobbo, the gangland lawyer at the centre of the scandal, who was recruited by police to inform against her own clients.
However, correspondence between the two parties contains information that identifies her, including the years Gobbo was registered as a police informant and the fact she fled the country.
The OSI was created after a recommendation by the Lawyer X royal commission to investigate laying criminal charges against those involved in the scheme.
The use of Gobbo as an informer broke the convention of lawyer-client privilege and resulted in the overturning of three criminal convictions, including that of drug kingpin Tony Mokbel.
The government has said staff will continue to be supported after the decision to wind down the OSI, with legislation to be tabled in parliament to formally decommission it.
