Sobbing Brisbane cleaner pleads guilty to a whopping 94 charges

A 45-year-old mother fell into desperation and allegedly stole the identities of her cleaning customers, both living and dead.

A house cleaner who allegedly exploited several of her north Brisbane customers, both living and dead, will remain in prison until at least February after she was slammed with a whopping 94 charges at the Pine Rivers Magistrates Court today.

Hosanna Margaret Croker, 45, appeared dishevelled and distraught as she sobbed and clutched at her heart on the prison video link live stream.

The mother of two pleaded guilty to the 94 charges, which included 61 counts of fraud, 27 counts of attempted fraud and two counts of entering a dwelling to commit an indictable offence.

Due to the large number of charges the full schedule of events were not read in open court, however Magistrate Trevor Morgan noted Hosanna allegedly gained access to her victims through a home cleaning service.

Hosanna Margaret Croker as she appeared at the Gladstone Magistrates Court in 2016. On that occasion she was sentenced to nine months in prison with immediate parole after being found guilty of 15 charges of fraud while working as a babysitter.

“Croker has displayed over many years an extraordinary history of deceit,” Mr Morgan said, in reference to Croker’s prior fraud convictions in May 2016 and November 2018.

“She walked out (of court on a suspended prison sentence) and (allegedly) kept committing these offences and they’re very sophisticated with lots of different victims over a significant period of time.

“Two of those were deceased people.”

Police alleged Croker gained entry to people’s homes with a fake name, under the pretence of being a house cleaner, and stole their credit cards and photo identification to create credit card accounts, which she then used to fraudulently obtain money from them.

Lawyer Brianna McKenzie from Wilson Law told the court Croker had suffered from a life-threatening accident in 2010 that led her down a dark path of depression and desperation.

“ (Croker) fell off a second-storey balcony and when she woke from a coma three weeks later she couldn’t move from the waist down,” Ms McKenzie said.

“She could only return home under the care of a Blue Care nurse.”

The sob story continued as Ms McKenzie told the Magistrate of Croker’s recently born grandchild, who was born very premature and for whom she gave away her entire life’s savings.

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Mr Morgan was sceptical of Croker’s history, given both her repeated dishonesty offending and the lawyer’s inability to tender any evidence to support Croker’s claims.

He told Ms McKenzie he was minded to give Croker a three-year prison sentence, at which point the defence called for an adjournment to produce the requested evidence.

Croker will remain in custody until her next hearing on February 5.