Police perverted the course of justice in a "joint criminal enterprise" with Lawyer X Nicola Gobbo to take down her gangland client Tony Mokbel, a judge has found.
NSW Supreme Court Justice Elizabeth Fullerton issued a damning finding against police and former director of public prosecutions, current Victorian judge John Champion, as she ruled on legal questions relating to drug kingpin Tony Mokbel's appeal.
Mokbel, who is serving a 26-year prison term, appeared in court on Monday dressed in a suit.
He is asking for his drug trafficking and importation convictions to be overturned as he was represented by Ms Gobbo, whom he did not know was informing for Victoria Police.
Ms Gobbo, a registered police informer from 2005 to 2009, was acting as Mokbel's lawyer for four years before he fled to Greece in 2006, and continued to advise him when he was extradited in 2008.
Mokbel pleaded guilty to two counts of trafficking a drug of dependence for trafficking MDMA and methamphetamine in April 2011, after striking a deal with prosecutors.
He did not find out about Ms Gobbo's status as an informer until the High Court lifted gag orders in 2018.
Justice Fullerton read a summary of her 600-page judgment on 24 legal questions for determination before Mokbel's appeal can begin.
She found Justice Champion was told about Ms Gobbo's previous informer status in 2012, during a meeting with senior Victoria Police members, but failed to disclose this to her clients, including Mokbel.
The judge said this was the "most controversial question" referred to her, as she found Justice Champion made an error of judgment.
"I was satisfied the director had sufficient information, as at September 2012, to activate his independent duty of disclosure and that he failed to do so in breach of that duty," Justice Fullerton told the court.
"I was not satisfied that the necessary degree of rigour was applied by the director in this case."
She said it was not until 2016 that Justice Champion took steps to ensure Mokbel and others were informed of Ms Gobbo's role.
Three associates of Mokbel had a right to expect that when Ms Gobbo advised each of them to assist police by giving evidence against Mokbel, she was doing so in their best interests.
"Those three men were deceived by Ms Gobbo into believing her advice was independent legal advice when it was anything but that," the judge said.
Instead, the judge said Ms Gobbo assisted police in strategising their arrest so they would be "vulnerable to an approach" by police in assisting the prosecution of Mokbel.
Their statements and willingness to give evidence against Mokbel allowed police to charge and arrest him in Greece, she said.
Further, Justice Fullerton found "on the balance of probabilities" that Victoria Police attempted to pervert the course of justice by using Ms Gobbo.
"I was satisfied the elements of a joint criminal enterprise to attempt to pervert the course of justice were made out and that four members of Victoria Police participated with Ms Gobbo … to achieve that unlawful objective," she said.
The judge was critical of police's failure to obtain legal advice before Ms Gobbo was registered as an informer and on whether her clients should have been told.
She said ex-chief commissioner Simon Overland's evidence on this was "unworthy of acceptance".
"Were legal advice obtained … she would not have been used in the way she was used by Victoria Police in their pursuit of Mr Mokbel," she said.
Mokbel smiled and waved to his family in court as the judge delivered her decision, before he was walked out flanked by custody officers.
He will return to the Court of Appeal for a directions hearing on December 19.
