Informers included court clerk, secretary, royal commission told
Lawyers, a court clerk, a legal secretary and a legal adviser are among the six who possibly gave police information that has been disclosed to the Royal Commission into Management of Police Informants has been told.
The royal commission, in its directions hearing on Friday morning, heard that Victoria Police disclosed there were six possible police informers, in addition to 3838 or Lawyer X, who may have breached their legal professional privilege, Commissioner Margaret McMurdo AC said.
On Friday the royal commission was told that only one, a male solicitor who met with police in April 2014, was identified as possibly breaching this cornerstone of the criminal justice system.
Police listed him as a ‘‘community contact’’ and ‘‘given the risks posed by his profession’’, he was not approved as a police informer and his file was deactivated in May 2014 without intelligence being obtained, the commissioner said.
Police disclosed there was another lawyer, now deceased, who had provided information.
This lawyer’s death is the subject of an ‘‘ongoing homicide investigation,’’ the commissioner said.
Ms McMurdo detailed more about the others.
One was a court clerk who was registered from January 8, 2011 until May 11, 2016, she said.
The second, registered from 2009 until 2016, was possibly a court clerk or legal secretary with a law firm, but was not a practising lawyer.
Another was possibly a legal secretary in a corporation who was considered a ‘‘community contact’’ but not an informer, in 2015.
And another was a self-proclaimed legal adviser, but was not a registered legal practitioner.
More to come