DPP v Hassan [2026] VCC 350

1. A comprehensive outline of your offending and the operation of the NDIS is set out in the Agreed Summary of Prosecution Opening and there is no need to repeat all the details here.[1]
2. In short, on 28 March 2017, the National Disability Insurance Agency (NDIA) approved your application to register your company 1SSG as a provider of NDIS services. Somewhat perplexingly, this approval happened despite the fact an earlier application by you to register 1SSG as an approved FDC provider had been refused on the basis you were not a fit and proper person. Further, and relatedly, three FDC centres connected to you had previously been shut down at least partly because they had falsely claimed for services not provided.
3. You must have been delighted to discover that the different government agencies appeared not to talk to each other as the NDIS registration of 1SSG gave you the opportunity to add the NDIA to the list of Commonwealth entities you were defrauding, the other two being Services Australia and the Department of Education, Skills and Employment, which respectively administered Centrelink and the FDC scheme.
4. At first 1SSG was only approved to provide one type of service called 'innov community participation' but later it applied for and was approved to provide other services allowing you to expand your fraudulent claims.

1. Charge 1 relates to 77 separate claims you made through 1SSG between 19 February 2018 and 29 November 2018 for payment for transport services purportedly but not in fact provided to two NDIS participants from different families, Melody Mual Cin and Zahra Al-Khuduri. All claims were paid resulting in a total overpayment and loss to the Commonwealth of $36,641.17.
2. You were introduced to Melody's family through someone you knew in the FDC business. Melody's family were Burmese and spoke limited English. You told them you would help with various services for Melody, who has Down syndrome, including eating, speech development, toilet training and sign language, and that you would buy nappies and an iPad. None of that happened and Melody's family eventually switched to a different service provider.
3. Between 19 February 2018 and 23 May 2018, you made 23 claims for transport services for Melody. Not only were the transport services not delivered, each claim was for an amount grossly in excess of what was possible, such as claiming a year's worth of transport on a single day. As a result of the claims you were paid a total of $9,266.89, of which you kept approximately half ($4,365.87) and paid the other half to Melody's sister as carer for Melody even though you knew that as a family member she was not eligible for payment under the NDIS scheme.
4. In your record of interview, you falsely claimed that you thought the sister was Melody's cousin.
5. You were introduced to Zahra through a friend of yours, Anna Boal, who was providing NDIS services to Zahra through her own entity Internal Life Home Care (ILHC). I will return to Boal and ILHC in Charge 3.
6. Between 8 April 2018 and 29 November 2018 you made a total of 54 claims for transport services for Zahra. As a result of these claims you were paid a total of $27,374.28, of which you kept approximately half ($12,452.68) and paid the other half to Zahra's sister as carer for Zahra even though you knew that as a family member she was not eligible for payment and in any event she was a full time student.

1. Charge 2 relates to 37 separate claims you made through 1SSG between 2 September 2018 and 21 February 2019 for payment for services purportedly, but not in fact provided, to three NDIS participants with autism spectrum disorder who were siblings from a single family, the Taqi family.
2. This crime was committed jointly with another of the Taqi siblings named Khadija, the siblings' mother Siham Jabbar, and it seems, her husband Noah Solomon, who you nominated as the actual person providing the support. After subtracting an amount you claimed to be an agency fee you distributed the balance of the proceeds of each claim to Solomon knowing he would pass it on to Khadija and Jabbar.
3. The 37 claims were submitted on 14 separate days with multiple claims submitted on 12 of the 14 days and claims for multiple siblings submitted on nine days. Thirty-five of the claims were for transport services which, like Charge 1, simply could not have been provided as they were for months, years or decades worth of services. For example, a claim made on 3 October 2018 was for 20 years' worth of transport services over two days.
4. The two remaining claims, both made on 21 February 2019 in respect of different siblings, were for 'specialist support coordination' which as the name suggests is a service normally delivered by specialist practitioners such as psychologists, occupational therapists, social workers, mental health nurses or the like. Although by this time 1SSG had become approved to provide such a service, it had no relevantly qualified staff and the claims were fraudulent.
5. The total amount obtained in the 37 claims and therefore the loss to the Commonwealth was $41,734.88. By way of context you also made a number of other claims for payment through 1SSG which were not accepted.

1. Charge 3 relates to seven separate claims you made through Boal's entity, ILHC, between 5 October and 5 December 2018 for payment for services purportedly, but not in fact provided, to the same five NDIS participants involved in Charges 1 and 2. You committed this crime jointly with Boal and Khadija Taqi and the proceeds of the seven claims, which totalled $23,554.80, were paid into IHLC's bank account and then split between the three of you.
2. The way it worked was as follows. During the charge period Boal gave you control of IHLC and its online account so that you could access the NDIS portal to make the claims. You mainly did this at the business address in Lalor that you shared with your then defacto partner Matin Ibrahim and using an IP address belonging to him. However, your deception went beyond simply lodging false claims online. On one occasion you called the NDIA pretending to be Khadija and enquired about two of the claims you had lodged. On another occasion, you and Khadija dealt with an NDIA auditor of IHLC in person, you pretending to be a consultant to the business and, later it was you, not Boal, who answered his email queries. Further, a listening device in the Lalor business address captured various conversations between you, Boal and Khadija about aspects of the scheme.
3. Unlike 1SSG initially, IHLC was an approved provider for a variety of services and the seven claims related to services such as individual assessment and support by a nurse, assistance with personal domestic activities, assistance with self care activities and specialist support co-ordination. Each of the claims was fraudulent as none of the supports were actually provided.

1. Charge 4 relates to your own child Thaha who first became an NDIS participant with his own plan in early 2017. As he was only a child at that time you were Thaha's nominated representative and at first managed the whole of the plan on his behalf with payments being made to your bank account.
2. On 18 October 2018, you applied to increase the amount of Thaha's NDIS plan on the premise you needed extra support while undergoing chemotherapy. Consequently, on 23 November 2018, a fourth NDIS plan was approved for Thaha with a total budget of $74,974.29 divided amongst four categories, one of which, 'core supports', you managed on behalf of Thaha and the other three the NDIA managed.
3. The allocated budget for core supports was $50,593.79. On 30 November 2018 you made two claims for payment, one for $20,000 which was paid into your bank account on 4 December 2018 and another claim for $26,145, which was rejected as it exceeded the approved limit for that particular service.
4. The balance in your account on 4 December 2018 prior to the $20,000 payment was only $1,249.83. Analysis of your account revealed that the $20,000 was not spent on support services for Thaha in accordance with the NDIS plan. Rather, you withdrew the money in cash or paid for day-to-day expenses and bills as you pleased. For example, immediately you received the funds you transferred $4,100 to your 1SSG account as so called Director repayment, four days later you paid a $4,032 deposit on a $55,000 car in the name of 1SSG and 11 days later you paid a $2,800 deposit on a stove for the new home you were building with Ibrahim.
5. Not only did you apply the funds in any manner you saw fit without regard to their intended purpose, search warrants executed on your various properties revealed that you also had not kept records of the expenditure as you were obliged to do as Plan Manager.

Objective gravity of your offending and moral culpability

1. The maximum penalty for Charge 1 is 5 years' imprisonment and for Charges 2 to 4, 10 years' imprisonment. As with your FDC and Centrelink frauds your NDIS offences are serious examples of their type.
2. In total you defrauded the Commonwealth of $121,930.85 over a period of 12 months and you did this after, or during, your FDC and Centrelink frauds. Like those frauds, your NDIS offending involved the submission of numerous false claims, over 100 in this case. Also like those frauds your NDIS offending was brazen, premeditated, sustained and motivated by greed. It also only came to an end when you were apprehended.
3. You were utterly contemptuous of the system designed to assist people like your own son. This is well illustrated by a conversation you had with your friend Sado Omar on 21 November 2018 wherein you said in relation to the NDIS system:

'You know this system is stupid even if you put in 1-Million it will come in Din! ... The System is faulty, the money comes in just like that.'

1. Not only did you exploit the weaknesses in the NDIS system you exploited other vulnerable people, such as the legitimate NDIS participants, including your own son, whose funding you used for your own purposes. Not only did you effectively steal from those people the means to obtain supports they genuinely needed, you also diminished the total pool available for distribution to others in need of NDIS assistance, a fact which cannot have been lost on you.
2. I regard your moral culpability for all offences as very high. It is not diminished by the fact the proceeds of Charges 2 and 3 were shared with your co-offenders.

1. I have had regard to the four cases to which I was referred by the prosecution cognizant of the limitations involved in such an exercise.[2]

1. You are entitled to a discount in your sentence for the fact you pleaded guilty, albeit at a late stage. Notwithstanding the lateness you have still facilitated the course of justice and taken legal responsibility for your crimes. You have also saved the community the need for a lengthy trial. The fact the case against you was overwhelming does not detract from the utilitarian value of your plea of guilty or diminish your right to this discount.
2. If you were remorseful, I would give you an even greater discount but there is no indication that you are.

1. I note that since my previous sentence you have pleaded guilty to a charge of obtaining financial advantage by deception in the Magistrates' Court in relation to an insurance fraud which occurred within the same time frame. This does not alter my assessment of your character or future prospects and I make the same findings about those matters as I did in my previous sentence.

Delay, family hardship, extra curial punishment and the burden of imprisonment

1. I make all the same findings on those matters as in my previous sentence.

1. Khadija Taqi has not yet been dealt with. Anna Boal, who had no prior convictions, was sentenced in the Magistrates' Court for her role in Charge 3 and received a s19B bond. However, she pleaded guilty at an early stage, her role and the scope of her offending were both significantly less than yours, so her sentence is of little relevance to my task.

1. For the same reasons as your Centrelink and FDC frauds general deterrence is a paramount sentencing consideration for your NDIS offences. Specific deterrence remains as relevant today as it did when I last sentenced you, as do your mitigating factors, including, this time, the fact you have pleaded guilty.
2. Of particular significance today is the principle of totality which requires that you not be punished any more than is proportionate and appropriate to your overall criminality which includes your Centrelink and FDC frauds. I must take this into account when determining the extent of cumulation of the present sentence on your previous one and in fixing a new single non-parole period.
3. Since Charges 1 to 3 are part of a series of offences of the same or similar character I will impose an aggregate sentence on them not forgetting that Charge 1 is subject to a lower maximum penalty. On those charges I convict and sentence you to an aggregate term of imprisonment of two years and six months.
4. On Charge 4, I convict and sentence you to six months.
5. I direct that the sentence on Charges 1 to 3 commences one year six months before the expiration of the sentence I imposed on 24 October 2025.
6. I direct that the sentence on Charge 4 commences four months before the expiration of the sentence on Charges 1 to 3.
7. That makes a total effective sentence on charges 1 to 4 of two years and eight months with a total of one year and two months of that sentence cumulative on my previous sentence of six years and five months.
8. The previous non-parole period that I set was four years and 10 months. I set a new single non-parole period of five years and seven months. That is the earliest date at which you can be released, it is up to the Adult Parole Board when you are actually released.

1. I will make the reparation order that is sought by the prosecution; that is an amount of $121,931.20.

1. If you had not pleaded guilty I would have sentenced you on these charges to a total effective sentence of three years and 10 months.
2. Ms Hassan, do you understand the sentence that I have imposed?
3. Are there any matters arising?
4. MR BOTROS: No, I don't think so, Your Honour.
5. HER HONOUR: I think the sentence, I have set the start date and I think it all works out but do you want any time to consider it?
6. MR BOTROS: No, I think I heard the buzzer, I think Your Honour has a jury.
7. HER HONOUR: Yes.
8. MR BOTROS: I don't think - my first impression is no issues, but if I reflect on that (indistinct words) think otherwise, I might write to Your Honour's chambers, but no.
9. HER HONOUR: Okay, if we need to reconvene, we'll do that at some convenient time. So I have indicated my intention as far as cumulation, as well as the start date, and I think it all marries up.
10. MR BOTROS: Yes.
11. HER HONOUR: Mr Pena-Rees, do you have any issues?
12. MR PENA-REES: No issues, Your Honour.
13. HER HONOUR: Yes, all right. Thanks. Ms Hassan will be taken back into custody. Did you want to speak to her before that happens?
14. MR PENA-REES: I will go downstairs to do that, Your Honour.
15. HER HONOUR: Okay, all right. So Ms Hassan can be taken back into custody. I will leave the Bench.

[2] Hooimeyer v The King [2025] VSCA 37; Ryan v The King [2024] VSCA 74; R v Squire [2008] QCA 19; CDPP v Strepelias [2023] VCC 1898.