Twenty-four-year-old Melbourne former real estate agent and cancer conwoman Hanna Dickenson was today sentenced to three months’ jail and a one-year community corrections order for “obtaining property by deception“, aka swindling her folks, their mates and neighbours out of $42k by PRETENDING TO HAVE TERMINAL CANCER.
No, no, no, nope, not okay, nope, nope, nope-ity, nope nope.
The new Belle Gibson – except without the blog – took the $42k she conned out of loved ones in 2012/13 and used it to get riggedly wrecked overseas, drink heaps and take all the drugs with her pals. She told police she was suicidal, “in a very dark place” at the time, which she coped with by abusing drugs and booze.
After her parents – who run a pistachio farm near Swan Hill in northwest Victoria – gave her the dosh for ‘lifesaving treatment’ for leiomyosarcoma, she decided she needed more moolah, supposedly for overseas treatments in Thailand and New Zealand. So her financially struggling parentals went to their friends and neighbours asking for money.
One victim had himself undergone cancer treatment – only just being discharged from hospital before he was convinced into transferring her $10k for “urgent treatment”.
Another dupe in Dickenson’s scheme caught on to her and alerted police after finding Facey pics that made him second-guess her alleged illness.
The community corrections order requires Dickenson to complete 150 hours of community work and undergo treatment for mental health issues and substance abuse.
While she plead guilty in court, Dickenson is expected to appeal her sentence, her lawyer Beverley Lindsay arguing during the trial:
Yes, she has harmed some people … she didn’t ask them directly though.
She hasn’t engaged in this behaviour for three years, she’s been a model worker … She’s turned her life around, she’s proven that.
To send her to prison now sends her backwards.
The magistrate described Dickenson’s behaviour as “despicable“, and said that the harsh punishment would act as a deterrence:
People’s desire to assist and social trust has been breached. These are people who worked hard and dug into their own pockets.
She has engaged in conduct that tears to the very heartstrings of human nature.
Conclusion: Dickenson is the pits. DO NOT EVER DO THIS. It is objectively awful. Goodnight.
