Cancer faker Hanna Dickenson released on appeal bail after scamming thousands of dollars
A WOMAN who scammed $42,000 from people believing she had cancer and was described as having a “Walter Mitty” fantasy lifestyle has been released from jail — without even having to show up at court.
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A WOMAN jailed for scamming tens of thousands of dollars out of people who believed she was dying of cancer has been bailed, pending an appeal.
Hanna Dickenson, 24, of Port Melbourne, was sentenced on April 10 to three months in prison and a 12-month community corrections order for her con act.
But the former property manager, who pleaded guilty to seven charges of obtaining property by deception, was this week cut loose without even having to lob into court.
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Chief Magistrate Peter Lauritsen ordered she be released from the women’s prison, Dame Phyllis Frost Centre, until her appeal is heard on June 19.
Dickenson blew $42,000 raised by her parents from friends and wellwishers, after she told them she would die of cancer within months unless she could pay for costly treatment abroad. She spent the money raised on booze, drugs and holidays.
She was not in court to hear of her release on bail because her previous lawyer failed to make an application for her to be brought to court.
Her new lawyer said he was surprised Dickenson’s appeal application hadn’t been made on the day she was locked up.
The County Court appeal date is near to what would have been her full jail term.
Police prosecutors did not object to Dickenson being bailed to live with her mum in Port Melbourne. Mr Lauritsen agreed the fraudster should be released immediately. “It would be perverse of me not to grant bail,” he said.
During her sentencing, Magistrate David Starvaggi described Dickenson’s offending as “despicable”. “It smacks of a Walter Mitty-kind of lifestyle,” he added.
Her offences were a breach of social trust, he said.
“People’s conscious desire to assist has been touched ... that’s the social trust.
“I couldn’t think of a worse case to manifest itself, needing both specific and general deterrence.”
Dickenson, 19 at the time of her offending, was partying constantly and hard-up for cash, so convinced her parents that, having had cancer treatment at the Epworth and Peter MacCallum hospitals and medical trials, she urgently needed costly treatment in Thailand and New Zealand.
She later told a doctor in country Victoria that she had been diagnosed in 2012 with Leomyosarcoma and that she needed to stop the trials because of her intolerance to the drugs. She asked to be referred to an oncologist, which she used to convince her parents that she was not responding to cancer treatment.
Her farmer parents, already under financial strain, went to their neighbours for help to assist in the treatment.
Contributors became suspicious after viewing photos of the supposedly terminally-ill woman on Facebook.
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