A former detective who was once a suspect in the murder of a police informer has been called to give evidence at the Lawyer X royal commission.
Paul Dale was a member of the Victoria Police drugs squad in the 1990s and early 2000s but left the force under a cloud.
He is expected to give evidence about his complex relationship with Nicola Gobbo, the gangland lawyer who was secretly passing information on her clients to police.
She was once Mr Dale's lawyer and allegedly his lover, but Ms Gobbo turned on him, eventually becoming a police witness in a case against him.
In 2008, she wore a wire to record a conversation with Mr Dale in which she quizzed him about the murders of police informer Terence Hodson and his wife Christine.
He was charged with the murder of Terence Hodson, but the case was later dropped after convicted murderer Carl Williams was killed in jail.
Mr Dale maintains his innocence and has indicated he is keen to front the commission to give his side of the story.
A commission spokesperson said Mr Dale would be among a number of current and former police officers to attend hearings later this month.
Ms Gobbo has been revealed as the informant at the centre of a 15-year Victorian legal scandal that sparked the royal commission into the police use of informants.
