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Who the Hell is Hamish? · The Australian

Fashion Crimes

·36 min·3 clips
On Valentine's Day, Hamish McLaren's victims await his sentence, but his defence claims autism, sparking suspicion.
The court date should have meant closure. Instead, listeners are placed outside the Downing Centre District Court, where another McLaren turn delays the reckoning and leaves his victims waiting. The episode puts that scene beside his earlier admission that he was guilty of stealing more than $7 million from 15 victims. The autism claim lands badly. People who knew him hear it less as an explanation than as another twist. Then Nicole enters the story. In her account, McLaren is not just pitching investments. He is stepping into an emotional gap. He sells certainty hard, telling her that investing with him is the best thing to do with her money because someone had supposedly profited for over 10 years. The relationship blurs quickly: dinners, lunches in Balmain, healing sessions, and a closeness that makes him feel like the closest male presence in her life. The narrator keeps the pattern in view, comparing McLaren to a cancer-sniffing dog who can detect distress and arrive with a miracle cure. Nicole has no clear plan. After years as a model and time away from work with children, she says McLaren offers direction through investing and a five-year plan. He becomes the answer. The host stays plain and patient, giving Nicole room to show how care, intimacy, and financial pressure became hard to separate. The ending pulls back. With McLaren in prison, the narrator suggests the proven crimes may be only part of the damage traced across decades. Beck Rosen is next, with more material pointed to for subscribers of The Australian, including an extended Lisa Ho interview.

As heard by us

A measured fraud story where charm turns into the weapon.

Hamish McLaren’s con is told as a lesson in trust, with the mask changing depending on who was in front of him: fixer, partner, healer. The episode moves from the Sydney court delay to victim memory, then back to the small details that made the deception feel believable.

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Why you'd press play

For when you want a con man story that keeps curdling, with the next hearing always threatening another twist.

Read the full recommendation in PlayNext →
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