Cancer conwoman Hanna Dickenson again fighting jail term
She raised $42,000 by claiming to have cancer then blew it on booze-soaked nights out in Melbourne. But after being spared jail, the farm girl turned conwoman is back to her old tricks.
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Convicted cancer conwoman Hanna Dickenson has been outed as a serial fraudster.
The Ballarat farm girl turned narcissistic Melbourne party girl is fighting to avoid another jail term – this time for identity fraud and deceptively obtaining funds.
Dickenson, 26, was jailed for three months in 2018 after she duped her parents into believing she had cancer and needed money for lifesaving treatment overseas.
As struggling farmers in the state’s northwest, her parents rallied up $42,000 from the local community — all for Dickenson to blow it on booze-filled party nights out with friends, drugs and luxury holidays.
She appealed her jail term to the County Court and was given a chance to change her deceitful ways on a two-year community correction order.
But the Herald Sun can reveal she has breached that order — and this week pleaded guilty to eight further offences, including obtaining financial advantage by deception, in Melbourne Magistrates Court.
Prosecutor Kai Schulz said her latest crimes were sophisticated and warranted jail.
In July last year, halfway into her CCO, Dickenson, while working as an employment consultant for Max Employment in Oakleigh, used the identification details of one of her vulnerable clients to try and get a $30,000 car loan.
She faked the signature of a pharmacist to certify the identification, set up a bogus email account in her client’s name, and pretended to be her mother when she went into the Mitsubishi dealership to pay a $900 deposit.
“These sorts of crimes of identity theft are not victimless crimes,” Senior Constable Schulz said.
“It’s further aggravated by the fact Ms Dickenson was in a position of trust … she’s abused that trust for her own benefit.”
Sen-Constable Schulz said it was only through the due diligence of Natloans staff that they connected the mobile phone number used on the loan application to an earlier application by Dickenson which was refused due to her bad credit history.
He said Dickenson also squirrelled into her own personal bank account overpaid rent and bonds, totalling $10,168, from seven customers when working as a property manager at Little Real Estate from May 2016 to March 2018.
Trying to explain her behaviour, her lawyer Will May said Dickenson claimed she had an “unhappy childhood” where she was bullied over her weight.
She moved to Melbourne from Ballarat and quickly became part of the party scene, he said.
“She saw money and material items as an avenue of happiness or to gain popularity,” Mr May said, adding that her crimes were “attempts to keep up with appearances that she was well off”.
He said she had since been diagnosed with narcissistic and borderline personality disorders.
Magistrate Sarah Leighfield said she had no choice but to jail Dickenson as she had committed some of the crimes while on a community-based order.
“It’s unfortunate that CCO did not have that deterrent for you,” Ms Leighfield said.
In a case of deja vu, Dickenson was jailed for three months, only to lodge an appeal immediately and be bailed pending that decision in the County Court at a later date.
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