Gangland barrister-turned-informer Nicola Gobbo maintains she did not know Tony Mokbel was planning to flee in the middle of his drug importation trial.

The drug kingpin appeared normal when he left court on a Friday afternoon in March 2006, Ms Gobbo told the Victorian Supreme Court.

Mokbel was bailed to return on the following Monday but never turned up, instead absconding to Greece and evading arrest for more than a year.

At the time of his 2006 trial, Ms Gobbo was both one of Mokbel's lawyers and a police informer.

(Nicola Gobbo says she is embarrassed how willingly she followed instructions of her police handlers. (HANDOUT/ABC)

The 51-year-old, known as Lawyer X or Informer 3838, is suing the State of Victoria for damages over claims police acted negligently after they "groomed" her to become a source in late 2005. 

The state is fighting all the claims in a judge-alone civil trial.

During his own Supreme Court hearing in February, Mokbel claimed Ms Gobbo encouraged him to flee to Greece because he was about to be charged with three counts of murder.

Ms Gobbo was not asked about Mokbel's allegations, but maintained did not know about his escape plans. 

"I wasn't aware he was intending to skip bail," Ms Gobbo said in her evidence on Monday.

She claims she wanted to disentangle herself from Mokbel and his associates, believing the only way she could do so was by becoming an informer.

"It was for (police) to take steps to extract me from that situation or extract the people so I wouldn't have to deal with them," Ms Gobbo told the court.

Ms Gobbo said she was now embarrassed by how willing she was to follow the instructions of her police handlers.

"If they said jump, I didn't ask how high - I just did it," she said.

"I look back now and think what an idiot."

Ms Gobbo told the court the handlers were aware she was experiencing increasing paranoia, stress and physical health issues while she was an informer. 

Her evidence before Justice Melinda Richards continues.