The Court found that Ms Gobbo was in a lawyer/client relationship with the applicant during the committal period and had a professional obligation to disclose her status as a former registered police informer, her personal relationship with the informant Paul Dale, her introduction of the prosecution's informer Hodson to ESD, and her interview with Victoria Police in which she discussed the applicant. On the critical causation question (Question 5C), the Court held that the applicant would have pleaded guilty to counts 2, 3 and 4 regardless of disclosure, but was unable to say whether the applicant would have pleaded guilty to count 1 (the commercial quantity cannabis trafficking charge) had he received the information about Ms Gobbo's conflicts — the strength of the Crown case did not render conviction on count 1 inevitable, and the plea agreement was not shown to be necessarily an all-or-nothing deal. The Court rejected the respondent's contention that the applicant was independently advised before the plea agreement, finding that Ms Gobbo's conflicted advice materially contributed to the applicant's decision to plead guilty to count 1.
The full text is available to signed-in members.