Fraudster former real estate Dirk Hertford who stole $600,000 freed from jail after two months

Crooked former real estate agent Dirk Hertford was jailed for 18 months in April for stealing almost $600,000 from clients. So why after just two months is he free to run errands in Randwick?

A former Sydney real estate agency owner jailed for stealing nearly $600,000 from clients – supposedly to pay a knife-wielding standover man – has walked out of prison just two months into his sentence and is “highly likely” to get home detention after convincing a court he was the only person who could care for his frail father.

Dirk Hertford started Wednesday working in the modular building team at Muswellbrook’s St Heliers Correctional Centre, where he was being paid 80 cents an hour.

But after a successful sentence severity hearing, the 49-year-old was released. By lunchtime yesterday he was running errands in Sydney’s eastern suburbs.

Last year Hertford was charged with a single count of dishonestly obtaining financial advantage by deception, which carries a maximum penalty of 10 years behind bars.

But because it was prosecuted in the local court, the upper limit was two years.

Dirk Hertford runs errands in Randwick on Thursday. Picture: Matrix

He pleaded guilty to taking $589,000 from the trust account of the real estate agency he owned in Coogee. The money was a mixture of rent and deposits belonging to clients.

He told the court that in December 2013, as he was closing up a home after an open inspection, a man with a knife demanded $20,000 or his family would “pay”.

Hertford claimed that between then and 2018 he paid the standover man and another person about $1.5 million. He did not go to the police.

The local court magistrate did not believe Hertford, who went to Scots College Bellevue Hill and has an economics degree with honours.

His offence was determined to be mid-range and he was sentenced to 18 months’ full-time jail with a non-parole period of nine months.

He went to prison in April.

Real estate agent, businessman and convicted fraudster Dirk Hertford.

Before that he was running technology businesses from a rental property while caring for his dad, who is incontinent and cannot use his hands or legs.

Since Hertford was jailed, his father has been in a nursing home.

Hertford appealed the severity of his sentence to the District Court, seeking an intensive correction order (ICO) served in the community.

During a hearing on Wednesday, Hertford said his dad’s medical conditions had worsened while he had been in jail, and that he was the only person in the family who could provide care.

He said his sister could not, because she had Down syndrome and lived in a group home.

Justice Garry Neilson initially pointed out that Hertford’s jail sentence in the local court should have been two years instead of 18 months.

The judge also said if real estate agents can take money from a trust account and only get an ICO “it’s not very good for general deterrence”.

But he went on to express concern for Hertford’s father.

“The way round the dilemma would be home detention,” Justice Neilson said.

Hertford would be required to wear an electronic monitor known as an ankle bracelet.

The judge then remarked that “there’s’ a certain federal minister who might cause a shortage of the things,” in a reference to embattled Immigration and Citizenship Minister Andrew Giles.

Justice Neilson ordered Community Corrections to prepare a report into Hertford’s suitability for home detention.

He said Hertford was “highly likely” to be eligible.

Hertford would be able to work from home, go shopping once a week and could “get himself an exercise machine” if he wanted to.

He told Hertford not to move his dad out of the nursing home until the assessment was done.

On Thursday, Hertford told The Daily Telegraph that he understood the need for his sentence to send a message of deterrence to others with access to client trust accounts.

He noted that he would have been eligible for parole from jail in January next year, but that his home detention would likely run until October 2025.

Asked why he deserved to get out of jail, he said a professor from Prince of Wales hospital had advised it was “in the public interest” to consider home detention because of the “extreme situation”.

The matter is due to return to the court on June 21.