Victoria Police knew of Lawyer X in 2005 as Former Police Chiefs cross swords
News emerged this week that Victoria Police knew of Lawyer-X as early as 2005, this claim was not made by some low ranking official but none other than Victoria Police Chief, Simon Overland who claims his predesesor Christine Nixon knew in 2005.
Simon Overland APM is the former Chief Executive Officer at the City of Whittlesea and a former Chief Commissioner of Victoria Police in Australia and Christine Nixon APM is an Australian former police officer who was the chief commissioner of Victoria Police from 23 April 2001 to 27 February 2009, being the first female chief commissioner in any Australian state police force.
Those that have been following the scandal would remember that during the Royal Commission, Simon Ocerland couldn't remember if he told his former boss that Gobbo was also a police informant, so now it seems his diaries have helped with his memory, three diaries were found in a Melbourne storage facility late last year days after he said he never kept any diaries! Mr Overland apologised for not remembering the diaries existed, claiming he was "convinced they didn't exist".
On Tuesday Mr Overland returned to the witness box to change his evidence in previous sworn testimony
"Having now reviewed my diary, I note that I was involved in 14 meetings with Ms Nixon
regarding Purana Task Force matters and I believe that I did,
in fact..inform her of Ms Gobbo's registration as a Human Source know as 3838 in 2005," he said.
Meanwhile Ms Nixon (former police chief) claimed in her own evidence that the first she knew of Ms Gobbo was when she was publicly identified when the news broke! The Current Police chief makes conflicting statements that Ms Nixon knew of Ms Gobbo's registration
as a human source soon after he learned of it himself.
It's not clear if Ms Nixon will be recalled to respond to the claims, however Overland denied any "self-serving secrecy" stating that :
"Any suggestion that my conduct at Victoria Police ... was corrupt, perverted the course of justice,
was dishonest or facilitated any dishonesty in the court system,
or sought to cover up the use of Ms Gobbo is completely denied by me
and does not accord with my conduct as reflected in my contemporaneous diary notes,".
With such an emphatic statement by Victoria Police Chief are you as convinced now as when he was that the diaries didn't exist?
Footnotes
This article was inspired by the one posted in AAP titled "Nixon knew of Lawyer X in 2005: Overland" by
Karen Sweeney published on the 21.01.2020.
