Conman Hamish McLaren gets 16 years’ jail as victims cheer

As Hamish McLaren was sentenced, the courtroom erupted in applause. Twice.

Before yesterday’s sentencing hearing, a clutch of Hamish McLaren’s victims­ huddled­ together in a cafe behind Sydney’s Darlinghurst Courthouse and the omens for the conman were grim.

The old jail out the back, now an art school, was holding an exhibition­: Caught Stealing, The Art of Misappropriation.

The District Court hearing had been moved up Oxford Street from the sterile Downing Centre to the bleak ­Darlinghurst Courthouse, a convict-hewn sandstone pile that speaks of justice from an earlier time.

The day had a carnival air, like a public stoning, and acting judge Colin Charteris, on his very last day on the bench, didn’t dis­appoint. “He had no empathy for the victims,” the judge said as ­McLaren, 49, sat in the dock, scribbling on thin prison paper with a plastic pen. “He treated them contemptuously.”

He said that for years McLaren had woven an intricate web of lies to fleece his victims of their life savings. “He had the gift of the gab then suddenly didn’t want to talk to the police about what he’d been doing,” the judge said.

For several hours he method­ic­ally dissected his crimes, and then the gallery omitted a loud collective gasp: McLaren, he announced­, would serve 16 years behind bars, with a non-parole period of 12, for stealing $7.6 million from 15 victims. The public gallery burst into applause, twice.

McLaren’s judgment day had finally arrived. The subject of The Australian ’s podcast Who the Hell is Hamish?, he’d spent decades fleecing many dozens of victims out of many millions of dollars, all the while evading police and finan­cial regulators.

At the end of the first day of the hearing last week, McLaren had asked that he appear for the judge’s sentencing via videolink, from jail: he was a coward to the last. But Judge Charteris rejected this ­application — he felt the victim­s were owed at least this: to witness his humiliation in person. They had no chance of getting their money back.

Judge Charteris said McLaren was unrepentant for his crimes and had no genuine remorse, other than of getting caught.

“His letter (read to the court last week) does not remote­ly persuade me that this man is sorry,’’ he said.

“I do not believe he has any ­remorse, I believe he is consumed by himself. He is driven by stealing the money of other citizens, all of whom trusted him. The focus was on his own wellbeing so he could live the high life, spending others’ retirement savings.”

The judge said the victims’ loss was not just measured in money, but also in the shattered trust they now have in people.

He questioned McLaren’s ­lawyer, Gabriel Wendler, as to where the outstanding $5.4m was, and whether McLaren was hiding it overseas, or had simply squan­dered­ it on Ferraris and first-class airline tickets.

He was sceptical that anyone could spend $18,000 a week, every week, for six years.

None of that $5.4m has been recovered and for many of the victims this remains a burr.

McLaren was given a 25 per cent discount on the maximum sentence, due to his early plea of guilty.

But Judge Charteris refused to grant any further discount owing to any mental illness, saying the psychologists and psychiatrists who tested McLaren found he had given answers to give the appearanc­e of having a mental illness­, rather than having any genuine problems.

McLaren’s victims had receive­d a life sentence, the judge said, and any condemnation from the media, which Mr Wendler ­argued should reduce his sentence­, was deserved.

“If the ­offender has received massive disapproval from the community — it’s appropriate that he should do so,” Judge Charteris said. McLaren’s crimes were the “worst” variety of white-collar crimes, the judge told a galler­y full of victims.

“How could he stand by and see people draw down their life super funds to be given to him? His ­behaviour is the most reprehensi­ble one can imagine having ­regards to offences of this nature.”

Miner Glenn Pickard lost his entire life savings of $607,000, and his marriage, to McLaren. He was on the verge of retirement but has had to go back down the pits. “I am very happy with the sentence, probably a bit more than I thought,” Mr Pickard said, having driven 270km from Mudgee. “I thought the judge was brilliant.”