"Fake Seizure Guy" Has Been Sentenced
Webworm was in court as the man reckoned with both his actions, and the media.
Hi,
In October last year, Webworm told the story of Melbourne’s “Fake Seizure Guy”, a man who’d been faking seizures in Australia for over a decade in order to get people to sit on him. It sounds funny, but the story was also pretty bleak for a lot of reasons.
Not only were members of the public being tricked into giving someone physical contact, but the man was putting himself in danger (people don’t like being tricked).
In February Webworm reported that the man had been arrested, but also noted the police were being weirdly evasive about the whole thing. For something that had been going on for almost two decades, it seemed like action should have been taken years earlier.
Yesterday, Webworm was in court as Fake Seizure Guy — real name Simon Lara — was sentenced to an 18-month community corrections order.
This came as the Australian press had just started to report this story (11 months after Webworm did) pretending they were the first to do so. As expected, these stories arrived with less context and more drama. It was full boogeyman territory.
With all that in mind, yesterday D.C. Maxwell attended Simon Lara’s sentencing for Webworm. With over a decade of offending coming to a head, it seemed appropriate for Webworm to be there.
(You last heard from Maxwell on Webworm when he wrote an amazing story called The Crook, The PI, & the Kiwi Journalist Stuck in the Middle).
The press was there in full circus mode, also reporting on the sentencing. But as is usually the case with Webworm, we wanted to paint a fuller picture of what the courtroom was like, and how it felt.
David.
Pacing, Clenching, Muttering: Fake Seizure Guy’s Day In Court
by D.C. Maxwell, reporting from Melbourne, Australia.
On the steps of the Melbourne Magistrates Courthouse the assembled media pack lay in wait for the man who had become a symbol of fear and wonder in the city.
The whole gang was there. Nine News, 10 News, Newscorp, hard nosed reporters arrayed in a phalanx on the footpath across from the courthouse exit.
Fancy video camera gear lugged on lumberjack shoulders, a steely eyed photographer caressed a necklace of cameras, women in neon pantsuits cradled fluffy studio microphones in their arms, and a little ways back stood your humble correspondent, out of place and awkward in the vicinity of a pack of proper newshounds.
I asked the photographer next to me, “Do they ever just not come out?”
“There’s one exit,” he said. “You are coming out that door or going to prison.”
All of us stood together in wary silence. All eyes on the exit. All waiting for one man.
He had become known to many across the city (and the world) as the “Melbourne Seizure Guy”, but I learned today his name was Simon Lara.
On Thursday 7 August, 2025, Lara pled guilty to a charge of public nuisance and was sentenced to 18-month community corrections order with treatment for his complex mental health needs.
This sentencing was in relation to an incident that occurred in Port Melbourne in February, and follows decades of similar behaviour, of pretending to collapse in a seizure and compelling passers by to sit or straddle him and hold back his arms.
It is weird behaviour for sure, and after spending the day in the same room as the guy I feel like there is more going on than can be reported in the current stories of a roaming bogeyman deriving pleasure from being pinned down by strangers.
Lara is an older man with a floppy boyish light brown hair that seems out of sorts with his ruddy and hard lived face. His hair is the kind of hair a renaissance painter might give to a cherub. In contrast, his face is like that of Keith Richards. Red, windblown, deep lined, not so much window to the soul as evidence of that soul’s hard life.
In my strange day waiting for the verdict in the bowels of the magistrates court I had a long time to watch him.
The hearing was postponed, then interrupted, then postponed again. I waited amid men posting bail, a long procession of shame-faced individuals walking to and from small rooms to receive verdict on mistakes of the past. There was a strong feeling within that bureaucratic hub that most people there were having the worst day of their life.
Adding to the sense of unease in the court waiting room was the fact that visiting this bureaucratic hell was a field trip of high schoolers wandering in and out of the courts, quietly giggling and whispering and they moved through the realms of judgement. Their open expression and careless happy countenance highlighted the gulf between those who chose to visit and those summoned.
All of this is to say that there was a long time waiting, and I spent most of that time watching Lara.
There is something quite clearly going on with him. This sounds like a mean thing to say, but I think in this instance it is important. He did not seem to me to be a nefarious deviant mastermind, but someone with severe mental health issues.
He paced the court waiting room constantly. He must have done more than 50 laps in all. This in a bare bureaucratic hall where everyone was slumped in a chair stood out. As he moved his hands clenched and unclenched jerkily and he muttered to himself under his N95 mask.
He did not seem violent, but if you saw him on public transport you would be on your guard and monitor where in the tram he was. He was obviously sad and stressed, and he wore his emotions plainly on his face like a child that had not yet learned to hide them.
He seemed aware that he had done something wrong, and was sorry for it, but he seemed to have little understanding of the severity of the situation.
During sentencing he blundered over his lawyer to ask the magistrate strange inconsequential questions about the specifics of his sentence such as: Would he need to see his [mandated community corrections officer] on a Thursday, because he often got a massage therapy on Thursday, but it also couldn’t be on Tuesday as he was often busy with...etc. - all the while his lawyer tried unsuccessfully to sit him down and shut him up.
He seemed genuinely shaken by the victim impact statement read by the prosecutor. The victim, who was a recent migrant to Melbourne, said they felt “humiliated, embarrassed and ashamed following the incident” and no longer walked along the beach the incident occurred as they were fearful of meeting Lara again.
Lara ended his court appearance by begging the prosecutor to please tell the victim that he was sorry.
He said he was “very shocked by the statement” and that “If [the victim] wanted to go back to [the area where the incident happened] to look at the ships, then you can because I will never go back there again... please pass that on.”
All of this is not to excuse a man who has been behaving very strangely for a very long time (a court security officer told the waiting journalists that 10 years back they knew of this guy doing the same thing on the trams). But I think some context from someone who has laid eyes on him is important.
He seems seriously unwell. He seems like the way he sees and interacts with the world is vastly different to the ways that most neuro-normative people see and interact with the world.
Now that one of his many victims has finally been brave enough to push the courts to mandate community correction and monitoring, he might finally get the help he has needed for decades.
Because as Lara walked out of the courthouse to the waiting media scrum, I saw not a demon of Melbourne’s dark lore, but a very sad, confused and mentally unwell man starting to slowly realise the wild world of trouble his abnormal behaviour had caused.
-D.C. Maxwell.
David here again. I hope this is the end of the story of Fake Seizure Guy. I hope this is now the story of Simon, a man who is finally getting the help he needs. And in doing so, the public will now be safer.
I’m also aware that a “community corrections order” is an order that allows you to serve your sentence in the community — and I’d urge anyone in Melbourne who sees this behaviour again to get in contact with the authorities, for the safety of everyone involved.
I spoke to the victim this morning — the man who told the court he felt “humiliated, embarrassed and ashamed following the incident”. He told me he has mixed feelings about all of this. “I was distressed that it took an international journalist to bring attention to (“shine a light”) this matter,” he told me over email.
“And [I was] disappointed that seemingly nothing was being reported on locally, or at a bare minimum being reported on by victims.”
Hopefully this result feels like more than the bare minimum, and some positive change comes out of it — for everyone involved.
David.
If you ever want to get in touch about this story — or any story — in confidence, I am: davidfarrier@protonmail.com
Thank you for the follow up details on this, David. It was written in such a compassionate way. I hope that the system helps Simon get the treatment that he appears to be needing.
Ever since I first heard about this, I have felt so conflicted about the whole thing. This article put my feelings into words beautifully. Thank you both for having sympathy for the victims, as well as the perpetrator. The whole thing, as sad as it is, is also beautifully written. I wish more news was reported on like this.