A con artist who hoodwinked four NSW judges with sham medical reports claiming he had terminal cancer is set to be jailed.
Steven Parker, who also goes by the name Steven Fraser, has admitted to a series of elaborate ruses over three years in which he tendered fake documents to courts in an attempt to receive leniency.
However, his house of cards came crashing down in 2018 when a District Court judge cottoned on to his deception and ordered an investigation into his dubious claims about his health.
In a statement of agreed facts tendered to the Downing Centre District Court, Parker admits that between 2015 and 2018, on five occasions he submitted false documents to the Sydney Supreme Court, Nowra and Campbelltown Local Courts and Wollongong District Court.
The 50-year-old did not flinch as Acting Judge Geoffrey Graham on Thursday described his crimes as “striking at the heart of the administration of justice”.
He has pleaded guilty to three counts of perverting the course of justice and is facing a maximum jail sentence of 14 years.
He will appear in court next week where he will also be sentenced over a western Sydney crime spree in early 2015 in which he impersonated a police officer, stole victims’ driver’s licences and used them to commit identity theft.
His deception began when he appeared at a Supreme Court bail hearing in June 2015 on the charges of impersonating a police officer, fraud and larceny.
Court documents reveal that he tendered elaborate reports with an official Justice Health department logo and penned them under the name of two doctors.
One set out that he had been diagnosed with schizophrenia while another said that he had prostate cancer.
He was granted bail but three years later, it was found that both reports were fake.
He used the same or similar documents at a Campbelltown Local Court appearance later that year where he received a reduced sentence.
He did so again during a January 2016 Supreme Court bail hearing and at Nowra Local Court in May 2017 where he was sentenced to a minimum three years’ jail for break and enter offences.
“My state of mind was affected through the chemotherapy drugs and the Leukeran that I was taking for my cancer,” he told the Nowra court at the time.
He remains behind bars for those offences.
He came unstuck in the Wollongong District Court in January 2018 when he appealed against the severity of his sentence and claimed he had 12 to 18 months to live.
Judge Andrew Haesler questioned his claim that he could not receive the required treatment in jail and ordered an urgent report.
It was then discovered that the documents which he had tendered on several occasions were fake and the “Dr Chadra” who had purportedly written the reports did not exist.
“The reports were elaborately created and false,” prosecutor Stephen Wilkinson told the court on Thursday.
“The purpose was for deception to obtain a reduction in the penalty and to avoid a jail sentence. And he did so by misleading the court.”
The court did hear on Thursday that Parker had been diagnosed with chronic schizophrenia and suffered from delusions and hallucinations.
Parker’s defence barrister Douglas Marr said his client was suffering from a lifelong mental illness and conceded a non-custodial sentence wasn’t appropriate.
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