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At 8.05 Wednesday morning, many of the residents in Goddard Street, Erskineville, peered out of their windows or came out onto the street following loud shouts of “Police, search warrant!” followed by the sound of shattering glass.
Police were raiding the house of Annalouise Spence, 50, who is alleged to have defrauded her former boss, philanthropist Judith Neilson of more than $1 million.
“The whole street was woken up,” said Joe Spackman, who lives across the road. Spackman said he grabbed his phone and swung out of bed to record the police battering in the glass door. Shards of glass could be seen on the doormat which was monogrammed with “The Spences”.
A search warrant was also executed at Neilson’s art storage facility in Campbelltown. Spence was arrested at her home and taken to Mascot Police Station where she was later charged.
“She was charged with 68 counts of dishonestly obtain property by deception,” said police in a media statement. Spence was refused bail and will appear in court on Thursday.
On April 26 last year, Neilson had raised her glass to celebrate her private secretary’s 50th birthday at a lavish party in the McRae Bar at the five-star Capella Hotel in Sydney’s CBD.
Birthday girl Annalouise “Lou” Spence was resplendent in a shimmering sequinned polyester gown on which she’d splurged $1200. She’d also spent $10,000 on Jimmy Choo stilettos and a matching gold evening bag. And that was just for her first outfit for the night.
As Neilson rested her cocktail glass on a linen napkin embroidered with her secretary’s name and initials, she told this masthead she had no idea that police will now allege she was footing the $40,000 party costs, which included $1000 for the monogrammed napkins, the luxury outfits and accessories, as well as $6000 for her secretary’s two-night stay at the Capella with her husband, Adam Spence.
For eight years, the 79-year-old Neilson, who does not use email or indeed a computer, had entrusted Spence with access to her intimate personal and financial details.
In March 2023, Spence is alleged to have impersonated Neilson to obtain a supplementary card attached to her boss’s Centurion American Express card, better known as a Black Amex. The card was allegedly used to spend an over $1 million on first-class travel, extravagant hotel stays, designer clothes, accessories, jewellery and artwork.
Neilson told this masthead she did not authorise Spence’s supplementary card, and she had no idea that Spence had allegedly removed her finance team’s oversight of her Amex account.
Throughout Wednesday police could be seen coming out Spence’s house with artwork, designer shoes, luxury handbags and monogrammed Louis Vuitton trunks. Spence was taken from her Erskineville home to Mascot police station.
“I was sickened and so damned hurt,” said Neilson on discovering Spence’s alleged frauds.
Neilson described feeling a “profound sense of betrayal” because for years she had entrusted Spence to organise travel logistics and oversee household operations and philanthropic activities.
Spence and her husband had also lived rent-free in premises owned by Neilson, next door to Neilson’s own Chippendale home, which has won numerous architectural awards.
As a child, Annalouise Brown emigrated from Ireland with her parents and two sisters. Spence’s CV indicates that after leaving Jamison High School in Penrith in 1992, she later worked as an executive assistant and then business analyst at the Starlight Foundation.
In 2014, she married rally car driver Adam Spence.
Before joining the Judith Neilson Family Office in 2017, Spence’s LinkedIn profile said she spent two years as “Executive Assistant to Her Majesty’s Ambassador at British Embassy, Qatar”.
Born in Rhodesia, now Zimbabwe, Neilson is one of the most influential figures in the Australian arts and philanthropic worlds.
She was one of four sisters. Her mother was a teacher and her father a mechanic who later specialised in car radiators.
“Everything was humble and wonderful,” she recently told this masthead. “It was family. You enjoyed what you had.”
At 17, she moved to South Africa to study graphic art and textile design. In 1983, she and her husband, Kerr Neilson, who would become one of the giants of Australia’s funds management industry, moved to Sydney.
Following the successful 2007 float of Platinum Asset Management, the company co-founded by her husband, the couple’s combined fortune catapulted them into the top 10 wealthiest Australians.
Even after their 2015 divorce, each still features in the annual rich list, with separate fortunes exceeding $1 billion.
Neilson has used her fortune to fund philanthropic endeavours, including the White Rabbit Gallery, which houses one of the most significant collections of Chinese contemporary art. Admission is free. Neilson also built and continues to fund Phoenix Central Park, a stunning performing arts venue.
While her buildings have won multiple architectural awards and her private art collection is astonishing, Neilson herself is not showy. She eschews the glitzy social world to which her wealth would automatically guarantee an entry. She famously does not often wear jewellery. On her wrist is an ivory-coloured Swatch watch.
Police will allege the following matters will amount to fraud.
One of the privileges of the Centurion card is its concierge service. Before her card had even arrived, Spence was asking for two concert tickets to see The Cure in Seattle, US, in June 2023. “The very best you can get – there is no budget,” she said in an email to the company’s “Centurion Lifestyle Team”.
She then allegedly used the card to buy a Qantas first-class return ticket to Seattle, via Los Angeles. The Seattle trip cost $45,000.
While in the US, she used Neilson’s money to buy a $16,000 piece of art for a male friend she had met through Neilson.
During her Seattle visit, the friend refused to accept her gift of the artwork and insisted on paying its cost. The money allegedly went into Spence’s own account.
She later treated herself and her male friend to a five-night stay in the Rosewood suite at The Carlyle in New York, which cost more than $6500 per night. Police will allege Neilson’s Centurion card was billed $38,757.85 for her secretary’s October 2023 sojourn.
“I was paying for Bennett to get his hair done weekly,” complained Neilson of Spence’s dog’s weekly visit to the pet parlour for grooming. When Spence went away, her dog was chauffeured to a pet resort in Terrigal.
Due to a restructuring of Neilson’s office, Spence’s eight-year stint with the philanthropist came to an end on September 12 last year.
Only four days into her new role as Neilson’s executive assistant, Katy Lloyd Jones was reconciling Neilson’s accounts when she noticed a most unusual charge on Neilson’s Amex bill.
The itemised Amex bill showed that on July 19, 2025, $58,593 had been spent on a rare pink-gold Rolex wristwatch from the Vintage Watch Company in London.
Alarm bells were ringing because in the brief time she’d spent with her new boss, she knew Neilson “doesn’t wear any jewellery and she definitely doesn’t wear expensive watches,” Lloyd Jones told this masthead.
As she scanned the Amex account, Lloyd Jones saw that two days after the antique watch purchase, $21,000 had been spent at the luxury Knightsbridge department store Harrods.
Neilson was not in London at the time.
After passing on her concerns to the accounts department, it didn’t take long to identify the recently departed Spence as the suspect.
The finance department began a detailed audit of Neilson’s personal finances. As more discrepancies came to light, in November last year, Neilson’s team hired risk and crisis manager Marnie Edwards, who also happens to be a former detective inspector with the NSW Police.
For the past six months, Edwards and Simon Freeman, the chief executive of the Judith Neilson Foundation, have been working closely with investigators from NSW Police.
Comment was sought from Spence.
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