Jody Thomson aka Jody Harris: The convicted conwoman, a minor bingle, and her big compo claim
In an extraordinary development, leaked documents have revealed how a notorious fraudster known as the ‘Catch Me If You Can’ conwoman convinced authorities a minor car accident left her permanently incapacitated.
A notorious conwoman was awarded compensation over a minor traffic accident she claimed left her with debilitating physical and psychological injuries.
Jody Thomson, the infamous “Catch Me If You Can” fraudster who a judge once ruled took pride in her ability to deceive, convinced Queensland authorities she was partially and permanently incapacitated in the low-speed, low-impact bingle at an intersection.
Leaked documents and an investigation by The Weekend Australian now raise the prospect Thomson lied and concealed key facts as part of her worker’s compensation claim over the accident on her way to work just over five years ago.
“She states she has never been charged with any offences. No family members have an offending history,” psychiatrist Hugh Levien wrote in an independent report on Thomson for WorkCover Queensland.
The Weekend Australian Magazine revealed in November that Thomson had become one of the nation’s most active online fundraisers for charitable causes, while failing to publicly declare her extensive history of fraud committed under previous names including Jody Harris.
That article led to an immediate and ongoing investigation by Queensland’s Office of Fair Trading into whether Thomson was fundraising illegally through her business Dreamtime Aroha or misusing donations. She has denied wrongdoing, saying she has been crime-free for many years. Now, in an extraordinary development, a trove of secret documents relating to Thomson’s compensation case have arrived in the mail at the home of one of her most strident critics, Aboriginal activist Regina Bonner Moran, accompanied by a copy of the magazine story she featured in.
Analysis of the documents raises significant questions about Thomson’s claims in the case, and what appears to be a lack of basic fact checking by WorkCover Queensland.
Criminal history checks would have uncovered Thomson’s long history of fraud, but those assessing her appear to have been unaware she had been repeatedly jailed for crimes of deception.
Thomson also sued the other driver alleged to have been involved in the accident and insurer AAI Ltd, trading as Suncorp Insurance, in Queensland’s Supreme Court.
Insiders say Thomson, now 46, received a payout of more than $360,000, though this could not be verified.
Dr Levien prepared a 14-page independent report for WorkCover dated December 2, 2019. It stated that on Monday, September 2, that year, Thomson was driving to work at Rexnord Australia, a power transmission equipment business where she was paid $29 an hour as a call centre sales clerk.
About to turn right at an intersection in the suburb of Murarrie in Brisbane’s south east, she was jolted when the vehicle in front twice reversed into her car.
The other driver, a man measuring about 190cm and weighing 160kg, got out and shouted at her in broken English with a “strong Italian accent” while trying to realign her bumper with his hands, Thomson alleged.
He handed Thomson his phone so she could speak to his wife, who implored her not to involve police, it was claimed.
He had only recently arrived in Australia, was uninsured and wanted to take her car for repairs.
Police did not attend, an ambulance wasn’t called or needed, her car wasn’t a write-off and she drove to work in it straight afterwards.
Thomson kept working for weeks before going off sick, complaining of mental distress and whiplash, according to the report.
She claimed that after the accident she started getting messages along with calls “many times a day”, urging her not to go to the police. It left her feeling scared and intimidated, she claimed.
The driver wanted to visit her home to discuss the incident, saying he knew where she lived, and a cash payment was offered.
She talked to a lawyer then “finally reported issues to the police” at the end of September, showing a sergeant the texts exchanged. After that, there had been no more demanding calls, Dr Levien’s report states.
As a result of the accident and its aftermath, Thomson claimed to have suffered nightmares, slept for only two or three hours most nights and became hypervigilant.
She installed new security cameras, regularly checked doors and windows were locked, would startle when her mobile phone rang, and put on weight from comfort eating cheese, biscuits and olives. She cancelled family engagements and was increasingly irritable and angry with her then wife, who changed her roster to stay with her.
Thomson said she tried to push through her anxiety and continued working for a couple of weeks before it became too much to bear alongside her headaches and neck and shoulder pain.
She lost enjoyment in her usual hobbies and pursuits and “tended to watch television, though with little interest”, Dr Levien stated.
“As a consequence she has developed signs and symptoms consistent with an adjustment disorder with mixed emotional features – anxiety and depression. This does not appear to be an aggravation of an underlying or continuing disorder. There appears to be no inconsistencies with her narrative.”
Prior disorder diagnosis
But those assessing Thomson’s purported injuries appear to have been unaware she had been repeatedly jailed, and was diagnosed with a chronic adjustment disorder long before the accident.
Sentencing remarks from when she was jailed for fraud in Victoria’s County Court in 2008 show a psychologist had by then already diagnosed her with the same type of disorder that would later be attributed to the accident.
County Court Judge Felicity Hampel told Thomson that the condition dated back to age 11 when her mother was jailed for drug trafficking.
“(The psychologist) said you manifest features of a narcissistic personality disorder although, ultimately, he considered a chronic adjustment disorder, dating from the time of your mother’s incarceration to be, on balance, the most applicable diagnosis,” Judge Hampel said, in remarks released to The Weekend Australian.
Dr Levien’s report and other WorkCover Queensland documents that outline Thomson’s history, including pre-existing conditions, do not mention the prior diagnosis or her repeated incarceration.
Defrauding or providing false or misleading information to WorkCover are offences punishable by imprisonment.
WorkCover Queensland is government owned but self-funded through mandatory employer accident insurance premiums. It said it could not comment for privacy reasons, leaving unanswered questions about how Thomson’s claims were accepted when there were a series of red flags.
No physical incapacity
Orthopaedic surgeon Kelly Macgroarty from the Brisbane Knee and Shoulder Clinic examined Thomson on December 13, 2019, at WorkCover Queensland’s request. The certified independent medical examiner said in a report dated December 22, 2019, that in his opinion “the incapacity due to physical injuries has passed”.
“Any incapacity that is considered ongoing at present is due to subjective pain which does not appear to have an organic basis. I don’t believe that there is any further treatment that will alter this lady’s functional outcome,” Dr Macgroarty stated.
The report noted that Thomson was under the care of a treating psychiatrist. He recommended the report should not be released directly to Thomson.
“It contains complex medical information and may be liable to misinterpretation by a lay reader. This may cause undue distress or adverse psychological effect.”
WorkCover Queensland customer adviser Denise Tewes wrote to Thomson on February 5, 2020, advising her that based on Dr Macgroarty’s opinion her weekly compensation and entitlement to medical treatment and expenses for physical injuries was ceasing. However, Thomson would continue to be compensated for partial incapacity from her accepted psychological injury, the letter added.
Rexnord managing director Shane Rock told WorkCover the business was informed Thomson was injured on a detour between home and work.
Thomson omitted the detour when she reported the claim to WorkCover, and when questioned about it confirmed she deviated to a cafe.
She was relieved to be told it wouldn’t impact her claim.
Contentious claims
Thomson claimed to Dr Levien that she had a privileged and uneventful childhood, apart from hinting at some abuse that led to her seeing a psychologist as a teenager.
“I was a normal kid,” she told Dr Levien.
The psychiatrist noted in his report that Thomson’s mother was a lawyer and that the family was “Catholic but not strictly observant”.
Thomson apparently told Dr Levien she went to private schools St Joseph’s at Nundah and Our Lady’s College at Annerley, with her final year at Brisbane Girls Grammar.
Grammar is the state’s most expensive private school for girls, with fees of $32,000 a year in 2025.
“At school she said she was quiet, popular and enjoyed netball, high jump, tennis but disliked ballet. She states that her family was financially well off. It seems that extended family owned the ACE Driving School,” he wrote.
The reality was that in her formative years Thomson’s mother, Debbie Kilroy, and stepfather, former rugby league star “Smokin Joe” Kilroy, were jailed for drug trafficking.
Ms Kilroy later became an acclaimed prisoner advocate and lawyer, but in her absence Thomson went off the rails and started stealing and committing other crimes of deception from the age of 12 or 13.
It’s unknown whether Thomson attended the private schools or was related to the ACE Driving School’s owners as claimed, but her County Court of Victoria sentencing hearing in 2008 heard a very different story about her childhood.
“You were teased and bullied at school, something your mother attributes to a combination of your being Aboriginal and the stepdaughter of Joe Kilroy,” Judge Hampel said.
Menace to society
From 1996 to the end of 2001, between the ages of 18 and 23, Thomson was dealt with on five occasions for a total of 94 dishonesty offences, receiving terms of imprisonment each time, the judge said.
Obsessed with police, she also appeared in court on three separate occasions for impersonating an officer.
At the time of her major arrest in 2006, when she was 30, she was engaged to a Victorian policeman who had been tricked into believing she was a flight attendant.
That arrest was for brazen crimes involving her stealing the identities of women in Victoria, NSW and Queensland and then emptying their bank accounts.
In one instance she pretended to be a doctor while coming to the aid of a woman who was knocked unconscious in a fall in Melbourne’s CBD, stealing her driver’s licence and then her life savings while she was in hospital.
Judge Hampel said Thomson told police some of the money went on ice and other drugs, and that she was “using drugs heavily at the time”.
But it was not suggested she committed her thefts and frauds to support a drug habit.
“Your interview makes it clear that you took pride in the audacity of your activity, that you revelled in the publicity and that you used the money and credit to provide yourself with a profligate and ostentatiously luxurious lifestyle,” Judge Hampel said.
Thomson was a skilful liar who had shown “a quite disturbing level of contempt” for her victims and the banking and sales staff she deceived, the judge added.
“You boasted about the ease with which you took advantage of people’s trust or circumstances, and referred to many of them in the most derogatory of terms,” she said.
“At that stage, far from accepting any moral culpability on your part, your attitude towards those defrauded seemed to be that they were to blame, whether because they were too trusting, too drunk or otherwise incapable of protecting themselves against being taken advantage of by you. You were not, then, in any way sorry for what you had done.”
Dr Levien’s report has no hint of any of this offending or Thomson’s stints in prison as it outlines her claims of being “employed more than 80 per cent” of her adult life.
Faithfully reporting what he was told, Dr Levien said Thomson worked at McDonald’s, Woolworths, Telstra and clothing and jeans shops, then in her mid-20s did a “BA in Literature” at Swinburne University.
“This was substantially an online course taking her three years to complete, usually studying 30 or so hours per week. She has never attended any TAFE courses,” Dr Levien stated.
However, the separate County Court judgment says Thomson was in prison when she began studying a Masters in Writing at Swinburne, and when she attended a Koori Studies course at Jangan TAFE.
Dr Levien said that “following her university experience she returned to Telstra”, moved to Kingsize Menswear in the CBD and “then worked in the Courier Mail for News Corporation for a couple of years”.
No record could be immediately found of her working at the newspaper under current or past names or aliases, though her offending repeatedly featured in the news pages.
Dr Levien said Thomson went on to work at an animal transport service’s call centre for four years, then for Rexnord.
The psychiatrist’s only concern around Thomson’s version of events was that medical records noted she had a “longstanding history of depression”.
Among the leaked documents was Thomson’s purported resume. It lists her as working various jobs when she was actually in prison. The resume’s origin and whether it is authentic or was ever submitted to employers or as part of the WorkCover claim is unknown.
More assessments
Psychiatrist Andrea Walker prepared a number of reports for WorkCover after Thomson was referred to her following the accident.
“I have diagnosed Ms Thomson with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder,” Dr Walker said in one report.
“Based on Ms Thomson’s accounts, which I believe are an accurate account, prior to her accident she was psychiatrically well. Thus it appears that her PTSD is not an aggravation of a pre-existing condition.”
Thomson also saw psychologist Lars Madsen for cognitive behavioural therapy and other treatments for PTSD from the accident. Dr Madsen said there was a marked improvement until the Covid pandemic triggered a relapse.
Tribunal’s verdict
Three more experts from an independent Medical Assessment Tribunal, listed as “Dr J Sundin, Dr A Isailovic, and Dr L Siebuhr”, were tasked with deciding if Thomson had suffered permanent psychological injuries.
In its report dated August 27, 2020, almost a year after the accident, the tribunal said Thomson “was the subject of a prolonged and intimidating attack by a driver who had repeatedly collided into her vehicle”.
Thomson continued to experience “flashbacks, nightmares and intrusive recollections of the incident” and suffered panic attacks, particularly when she travelled.
“She feels anxious and insecure in her own car and is currently purchasing a four-wheel drive to feel safer. Ms Thomson is an anxious passenger in Ubers. She will not travel on buses.”
Thomson could study in a quiet area for up to two hours a day, but was easily distracted and could not read books due to fatigue and headaches.
There had been “no abuse of caffeine, alcohol, cigarettes, or illicit substances”, the report states.
Under a brief section of the report titled “relevant past medical history”, the tribunal noted only that in 2018, prior to the accident, she was unhappy while working long hours in a stressful position at another company.
The tribunal concluded she had sustained a permanent impairment of 7 per cent.
“On mental state examination, Ms Thomson presented as a frank and sincere historian. There was no impression of symptom exaggeration. The tribunal is of the opinion that as a result of a serious and unpleasant incident while Ms Thomson was driving in the course of her work duties, that she suffered a psychiatric injury; namely post traumatic stress disorder.”
The Weekend Australian is not suggesting any medical practitioners who prepared reports acted inappropriately in any way.
Thomson lodged her separate Supreme Court civil claim on May 12, 2021, more than 16 months after Dr Macgroarty said she was no longer physically incapacitated.
The claim was discontinued four months later, likely due to it being settled out of court.
Around the same time, she started driving a much newer late-model Mercedes.
Know more? Contact David Murray at murrayd@theaustralian.com.au
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