Fake cancer crook jailed after blowing thousands donated by wellwishers

A WOMAN who faked having cancer has been jailed after blowing tens of thousands of dollars in cash donated by wellwishers to fund treatment for her bogus illness.

A WOMAN who faked having cancer has been jailed after blowing tens of thousands of dollars in cash donated by wellwishers to fund treatment for her bogus illness.

Hanna Dickenson, 24, of Port Melbourne must spend three months in the slammer after which she will complete a 12-month community corrections order and perform 150 hours of unpaid work.

The property manager pleaded guilty in the Melbourne Magistrates’ Court to seven charges of obtaining property by deception.

Dickenson blew $42,000 in cash raised by her parents from friends and wellwishers to fund her “Walter Mitty” style fantasy lifestyle.

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Cancer scammer Hanna Dickenson. Picture: Supplied

The court heard Dickenson’s unsuspecting mum started raising the funds after her daughter came to her with a tale about suffering terminal cancer, which required her to seek treatment overseas.

Magistrate David Starvaggi described her offending as “despicable”.

“It smacks of a Walter Mitty-kind of lifestyle,” he said.

In jailing Dickenson, Mr Starvaggi said her offences constituted a breach of social trust.

“People’s conscious desire to assist has been touched ... that’s the social trust,” he said.

“I couldn’t think of a worse case to manifest itself needing both specific and general deterrence.”

Dickenson’s lawyer Beverley Lindsay argued her client was in no way as bad as notorious cancer scammer Belle Gibson.

Gibson — a fraudulent wellness blogger — was ordered by the Federal Court to pay a fine of $410,000 last year after being found guilty of misleading and deceptive conduct.

Ms Lindsay said that unlike Gibson, her client was not engaged in bogus commercial activity and simply pocketed all of the cash herself.

She said Dickenson never asked her mum to start a fundraiser and had embarked on it herself.

But Mr Starvaggi said her mother only did so because she had no idea of her daughter’s “charade”.

The court was supplied two impact statements by Dickenson’s victims, who described the “devastating” effects of her deception.

Hanna Dickenson has been jailed.

Court documents reveal Dickenson, who was 19 at the time of her offending, was partying hard and abusing booze and drugs.

Hard-up for cash, Dickenson convinced her parents she had received cancer treatment at the Epworth and Peter MacCallum hospitals and that she had partaken in medical trials.

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.

Documents state Dickenson convinced her parents she required treatment in Thailand and New Zealand otherwise she would die within months.

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.

On her arrest, Dickenson told police she had blown the money on booze, drugs and overseas holidays.

Although she at first assumed the cash was that of her parents, she admitted she later became aware it had come from others, but continued to blow it anyway.

Dickenson showed no emotion as she was led off to jail.

Her lawyer said she planned to appeal the decision.

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