A real estate agent who convinced an elderly couple to steal more than $90,000 from her told police she “didn’t think it was bad” because she would pay it back.
Hayley Philpot was 29 and pregnant with her second child when she was sentenced in April to three months in jail after pleading guilty to one count of obtaining a lasting power of attorney for financial advantage.
Newly released footage from his police interview shows Philpot telling detectives he had an agreement to return the money – which he spent on clothes, salon visits and a Mercedes – even though his victim was unaware he had taken the cash.
Philpot helped sell Berwyn and Keith Bennett’s home, but then cruelly spent $98,844.80 of their retirement when he gained the ability to access their bank accounts because Ms. Bennett thought he was trying to help them move into a nursing home.
In a recording of a police interview, obtained by A current issuePhilpot brazenly told a detective: “I didn’t agree to anything that (Ms Bennett) didn’t say yes to.”
When the detective, in a tone of disbelief, asked Philpot about the specific sums of $40,000 and $12,500, she also denied this, saying her victim had agreed to it.
“She said yes to that. Didn’t I go behind her back and say, ‘I’m going to finish off this old lady’?
A distraught Mrs Bennett, 83, told the programme Philpot was lying and “lied all the time”.
Baby-faced estate agent Hayley Philpot (left) gave a tense interview to police after scamming a retired Melbourne couple (Berwyn Bennett, right) out of their life savings.
The case began in 2019, when Mr Bennett had to enter a nursing home because his dementia was reaching a point where his wife could no longer care for him.
They went to the Savoy estate agents and met Philpot, who sold their house for them and gained their trust, which he would soon brutally abuse.
Philpot offered to help the couple with their day-to-day finances, so they gave him power of attorney and that’s when his money started to disappear.
But they didn’t know that, as Philpot used his privileges to access the couple’s online banking, set up a payment system using Ms Bennett’s debit card on his phone and redirected the statements to his address.
Between May 2020 and August 2021, Philpot made 98 different transactions, ranging from Officeworks, Zara, JB Hi Fi and Nandos, to multiple payments to Mercedes Benz for an A180 model car.
When he drove Mrs. Bennett in his Mercedes, he surprisingly asked her if she liked him.
“I said, ‘Oh no, I don’t like it, I think it’s too much, too flashy,'” Mrs Bennet said, unaware that she was being paid for with money that had been stolen from her.
On 30 July 2021, the fraudster transferred $40,000 from Ms Bennett’s account, claiming he asked her to do so while Centrelink was auditing her account.
When police asked him where the $40,000 had gone, Philpot said: “Well, it’s not in my account.”
Police interview footage of the real estate agent shows her denying any knowledge of the stolen money until the detective shows her bank records obtained under court order.
The detective pressed her and said: “The money has not gone back into (Ms Bennett’s) account like you said it would… it has gone into your brother’s account.”
His response to that was surprising in its lack of sincerity: “But I don’t talk to Berwyn, so how do you want me to return it?”
Mrs Bennett said: “Deep down I knew something was wrong.”
“She did everything she could to get that money out of me until she got caught.”
Last April, Philpot was sentenced to three months in prison and ordered to pay back her victims, after eventually pleading guilty to stealing $98,844.80.
But she appealed and has not spent a day behind bars.
Mrs. Bennett feels guilty for a crime that was not her fault.
After 60 years of marriage, Berwyn (right) and Keith Bennett (left) were cruelly robbed of $98,844.80 by real estate agent Hayley Philpot, who they thought was trying to help them.
“The person who has been hurt more than anyone else is my husband,” she said.
“I let him down. It’s not my money, it’s my husband’s money, his pension. He worked very hard to get it.
“I still get angry, I still get angry. I still can’t believe he did that,” she said.
“I was an easy target because I was alone, I had no relatives, no family, nothing. It was just me and Keith.”
His advice to others is: “Be careful who you trust and don’t lend money to anyone, ever.”
Ms Bennett’s carer said Philpot has paid the couple $30,000 so far.
His appeal returns to court on September 24.
