Samantha Cookes scammed the state, doctors and parents but was finally caught out by social media.
The serial fraudster had a long history of deception pretending to be a nanny, a psychologist, a surrogate mother and a child therapist under various monikers.
But when she posted on social media about her battles with Huntington’s disease in 2022, she started a chain reaction which eventually led to her unmasking.
A new two-part documentary, Bad Nanny, which starts on BBC One on Tuesday 8 July at 10.45pm, reveals how she conned her way into people’s lives.
We take a look at the real Samantha Cookes behind the multiple false identities and what has happened to her since she was convicted this year.
Samantha Cookes assumed multiple identities over the years (Photo: Alleycats TV/BBC)Samantha Jade Cookes was born in Gloucester in 1986 and grew up there, attending secondary school in the city.
After school, she started a degree course at the University of York but dropped out and in July 2008 she gave birth to a daughter Martha Isabel Cookes.
The child died on the day she was due to be given up for adoption. She has had two further children since then who are not in her care.
In 2011, she offered to be a surrogate mother for a couple in the UK claiming she had done it before. She accepted fees and expenses from the couple but when she kept asking for more money they became suspicious and reported her to the police.
She was prosecuted for fraud, ordered to pay £1,890 to the couple and given a nine-month suspended sentence.
In 2013, she moved to Ireland and assumed a number of different identities including: Lucy Hart, Lucy Fitzwilliams, Rebecca Fitzgerald, Lucy Fitzpatrick.
As Lucy Hart, she was a “Mary Poppins-like au pair” at a family home in County Offaly but then disappeared without a trace.
As Lucy Fitzwilliams, she posed as a therapist for children with additional needs for families in Dublin. In the documentary, they describe how she earned their trust by seeking donations for a women’s refuge and collecting money for a bogus trip to Lapland.
When they discovered Lucy wasn’t who she said she was, she fled.
In 2019, she posed as a child psychologist, deceiving a father into paying her €840 for a report on a child who needed to be assessed for a special needs assistant.
She was convicted and received a 14-week jail term, which was suspended.
And then a year later as Carrie Jade Williams, she won a literary prize in 2020 and became a a writer in residence at the Irish Writers Centre at Cill Rialaig in south Kerry.
She was awarded funding from the Arts Council and her media profile grew.
By 2022, she was appearing on social media, telling her story of living with Huntington’s disease.
But when one of her TikTok posts about being discriminated against went viral, some people started to question the validity of her claims and her identity.
Then an investigation by VICE World News, published in December 2022, revealed the full extent of more than a decade of deception.
Samantha Cookes adopted the persona of nanny, child therapist, psychologist and surrogate mother (Photo: Alleycats TV/BBC)How long was Samantha Cookes jailed for?
Cookes was arrested Tralee in Ireland in July 2024 for welfare fraud, deception and theft and in March this year was sentenced to three years in prison.
The 36-year-old pleaded guilty to two counts of deception and 16 theft charges.
An original five-year sentence for fraud was reduced to four years as a result of her guilty plea and the final year was suspended for a period of four years.
Cookes had pretended she had Huntington’s disease, an incurable neurodegenerative condition, and claimed welfare payments of more than €60,000.
Previously, the court heard Cookes had claimed the disease was life-limiting and would prove terminal but she was unable to see a neurologist because of Covid-19 restrictions.
Cookes received 238 payments totalling €60,334 across four years between February 2020 and June 2024.
But her web of lies collapsed when the gardai obtained her medical records, after being alerted to possible fraud by state department officers.
Cookes had failed to turn up for scans and appointments ordered by her GP and did not have genetic testing for her alleged condition.
Sentencing her at Tralee Circuit Court in County Kerry, Ireland, Judge Ronan Munro described it as “a carefully orchestrated plan” to take money from the state and “a deliberate fraud over a protracted period of time”. She had “cynically exploited” sympathy for those with Huntington’s disease.
The judge also revealed the serial fraudster had five previous convictions for similar offences including taking money for a children’s trip to Lapland which never happened and posing as a psychologist.
Cookes is now serving her sentence in Limerick Prison.
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