Bicycle Bandit Kym Allen Parsons’ family to keep his $1.5 million estate as part of guilty plea bargain with SA prosecutors

The details behind the Bicycle Bandit’s shock confession, after 20 years of hiding, have emerged – and his sentence guarantees his family’s financial future.

The Bicycle Bandit agreed to confess to his crimes, stay alive until sentenced and repay the money he stole – so long as his family was allowed to keep the rest of his million-dollar estate.

The Advertiser understands that, under the terms of Kym Allen Parsons’ plea bargain, the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions will drop its bid to claim his estate as proceeds of crime.

It is further understood that the terms of that deal prompted Thursday’s attempt, by prosecutors, to have Parsons urgently sentenced after he expressed an intent to access his SA Health-approved voluntary assisted dying kit.

The Supreme Court was told, during a closed hearing, that Parsons had decided “on reflection” he wanted to wait until Justice Sandi McDonald “has passed sentence”.

The Advertiser understands Parsons’ deal with prosecutors may have been considered null and void, and his fortune back under legal challenge, if he opted to die before sentencing.

Bicycle Bandit Kym Parsons during one of his robberies, left, and outside court on Monday, right.

The plea bargain, and its interaction with VAD laws, has sparked controversy within the state’s legal circles.

Senior practitioners said they were “incredibly critical” of the deal as they had “never” seen such an arrangement struck before.

“It’s more than concerning that negotiations involving property and the like would be made involving a man who’s about to die and has had to make decisions literally overnight,” one said.

On Friday, the Office of the DPP declined to comment on Parsons’ plea bargain.

Parsons, 73, will be sentenced on Monday for 10 counts of armed robbery, one count of attempted armed robbery, and two firearms offences.

He pleaded guilty to having been the bandit who, between 2004 and 2014, robbed 10 banks and tried to rob an 11th, often fleeing the scene by pushbike.

Parsons, a former SA Police officer and MFS firefighter, has terminal stage 4 cancer – with which he had been diagnosed, and from which he was suffering, during some robberies.

He was arrested in October and, a month later, prosecutors filed District Court action to freeze his assets.

At the time, the court heard Parsons’ house at O’Sullivan Beach was worth $1.19 million, and that he and his wife had $339,000 in five bank accounts.

Parsons’ home at O'Sullivan Beach. Picture: Keryn Stevens

It heard the couple also owned a Hyundai Terracan station wagon and that, in Parsons’ shed, SA Police had located 252kg of silver bullion worth $277,000.

Under the terms of the freezing order, neither Parsons nor his family could sell or in any way devalue the property – nor could they benefit from it financially.

Those proceedings are next due to be heard in court in December.

Parsons pleaded guilty to his crimes on Monday, days after The Advertiser revealed he had been approved for, and received, his VAD kit while on home detention.

His counsel informed the Supreme Court their client had agreed to give back all $358,976.90 he had stolen, and that the money would be paid into the court’s holding account.

Parsons, meanwhile, gave a tearful apology in court to his victims, during which he stressed his identity had remained hidden even from those closest to him.

“No one – not my wife, family or any other person – had any knowledge of my committing the bank robberies,” he said.

“I was fearful of confessing my past and destroying their love and trust in the person they believed me to be.”

He was remanded in custody – after which, The Advertiser understands, he arranged through counsel for the stolen money to be repaid.

Members of Parsons’ family leave court in his Hyundai Terracan after he was remanded in custody. Picture: Mark Brake

It is understood that, under the terms of the plea bargain, that payment will see the remainder of his assets “returned to his family without any restrictions”.

Parsons will be sentenced on Monday by video link with the Adelaide Remand Centre – where, previously, he enjoyed the “best chocolate sponge cake” he had ever tasted.

On Friday, barrister David Edwardson KC – who represented Parsons when he was given bail – said the case was “always problematic”, in a legal sense, due to his illness.

Parsons’ resultant situation, he said, was “barbaric”.

“He, as I understand it, chose to give the victims at least some sanctity by pleading guilty when he did not have to,” he said.

“What I find deeply concerning and, quite frankly, repulsive is the notion that a dying man has been forced into this sentencing process, regardless of how serious his conduct was, to somehow make justice seem as if it has been served.

“It has not … whatever sentence he gets will never happen.”

Originally published as Bicycle Bandit Kym Allen Parsons’ family to keep his $1.5 million estate as part of guilty plea bargain with SA prosecutors