'Bad Nanny': How victims turned the tables on 'one of Britain's worst con artists'
For over a decade, Samantha Cookes used a revolving door of aliases to weave an intricate web of lies, deceiving everyone from vulnerable families to online communities. Hillery Geelan and Lorraine Bolger were just two of her victims; Hillery a desperate Mum in need of support for her autistic and non-verbal son was tricked into handing over £85 a time for bogus occupational therapy sessions - together they were conned over a non-existent trip to Lapland, having already handed over their money. Ahead of the release of 'Bad Nanny', a documentary highlighting the serial fraudsters' crimes, Hillery and Lorraine join us to explain how they helped to catch the serial con artist.
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Daily Mail
12-05-2025
- Daily Mail
BREAKING NEWS Mother reveals chilling note she found exposing the fraudster who had been posing as a nanny to her three children - and the dark secret she'd been hiding
A mother-of-three has recalled the chilling moment she discovered a note revealing the dark secret of the scammer she'd hired as a nanny after she'd fled the family home. Layla, from Tullamore in County Offaly, Ireland, hired a woman called Lucy Hart to look after her children in 2015 - at the time believing her to be a 'Mary Poppins-style' au pair. However, Lucy Hart was just an alias masking the nanny's chequered past - her real name was Samantha Cookes. Under different guises, Samantha, originally from Gloucestershire claimed to be an award-winning writer, expert in autism and also said she was suffering from a terminal illness - and was eventually exposed to have had six different false identities including Carrie Jade Williams. Cookes was jailed for three years in March after pleading guilty to two counts of deception and 16 sample theft charges, having snagged government welfare payments. Now for the first time, some of Cookes' victims are speaking out about their traumatic experiences in a two-part documentary made by BBC Northern Ireland and RTÉ, Bad Nanny. One such victim is Layla, who got on well with Cookes when she first hired her as a nanny for her three children. However, before long, cracks began to show in the scammer's squeaky-clean image. When she and her family began to ask questions about 'Lucy's' background, the scammer disappeared - telling them she was going on a 'writers' retreat'. However, while vanished into thin air, Cookes left behind an ominous note which Layla discovered - and it left her fearing for her children's safety. Samantha's note read: 'I stand shoulder to shoulder with the coroner that I did not murder my daughter.' Speaking on the documentary through tears, Layla said: 'Who have we had looking after our children?' After finding Samantha on a nanny website, Layla, who is originally from the UK, revealed they got on 'like a house on fire'. She claimed they bonded because they were both English women living in Ireland, which also led to a false sense of security with 'Lucy'. The mother claimed she didn't do any background checks on the woman she hired to look after her children because she 'took her at face value'. The children appeared to love their new nanny and the family got on well for a number of months until a few red flags started to appear. With rising rent prices, the family were struggling and 'Lucy', who claimed to be a Jehovah's Witness, said a church elder had offered to let them move into a more affordable home in the area. After packing up their home and handing in their notice with the landlord the family prepared for a move to the new property. Under different guises, Samantha, originally from Gloucestershire claimed to be an award-winning writer, expert in autism and also said she was suffering from a terminal illness - and was eventually exposed to have had six different false identities including Carrie Jade Williams However there was always an excuse as to why they couldn't view the inside of the home. Layla said: 'Each time we asked if there was any way we could go and view the place, there was always an excuse. 'One particular day when we were driving past the house there was a gentleman standing in the garden, so we were like great! But all of a sudden she started to feel ill. 'She was like I really need to use the bathroom is there anyway I could use the restrooms. We were parked in the car park and she went upstairs, the two girls went with her. 'Then my two children came running downstairs telling me that she collapsed in Tesco.' This was a 'lightbulb moment' for Layla who realised that 'Lucy' was lying about the new property. She said: 'Why didn't I pick up on this sooner? There is no house.' 'Lucy' disappeared pretty quickly after this incident, telling the family she was going on a 'writers retreat'. Layla said: 'I had to clear up her room, I started pulling things out of her wardrobe and found a notebook.' A line in the notebook read: 'I stand shoulder to shoulder with the coroner that I did not murder my daughter.' She continued: 'She never mentioned any children to me, that she has ever had any children, that's strange, very strange. 'As a parent leaving my children in her care, if I had known for one second that she had children things would have been a whole lot different. 'I would warn anyone about her, don't let her in your home, don't let her in.' One of Cookes' former boyfriends, who remained anonymous for the documentary, opened up about his toxic relationship with Samantha in 2007. They were both 18 years old when they started dating, but he claimed he ended the relationship when he began to spot her pattern of lying. However, Samantha revealed she was pregnant with his child and she bombarded him with messages and calls. He said: 'Was it real, was it a tactic? That whole 'being in a family' thing was a real wish for her, it was something she would have referred to. 'The whole period is not something I look on with much pride. My involvement in pregnancy was next to zero really. There was going to be an adoption.' In July 2008, Samantha gave birth to her first child, Martha Isabel Cookes, however the child died on the day she was due to be given up for adoption. The father said: 'I found out that baby Martha had died from a local newspaper report. There had been this death on the day that Martha was going to be taken. Those details do raise questions for me.' An inquest into the baby's death in 2009 revealed that Martha died due to 'accidental' suffocation when a V-shaped pillow wrapped around the baby's neck while her mother was sleeping. Four years later in 2013, the circumstances into baby Martha's death were to be re examined by the high court due to concerns over her death - however by this point, Samantha Cookes had been reported as a missing person to UK police. The case was closed and Martha's 2009 accidental cause of death still stands today. Meanwhile in 2012, Samantha's second child was taken away from her due to welfare concerns. Social services requested a psychological assessment of Samantha and she was diagnosed with Pseudologia Fantastica. PF, also known as pathological lying or mythomania, is a mental disorder characterised by persistent, pervasive, and often compulsive lying. In 2016, Hillery Geelan, from Dublin, was struggling with her autistic son Rhys and was 'desperate' for help. Her friend Lorraine recommended Samantha, who at the time posed as a therapist for children with additional needs under the alias Lucy Fitzwilliams. 'Lucy' earned their trust by saying she was setting up a women's refuge and she collected items of clothing, food and money from them. She would call to Hillery's house once a week to help with her son's behaviour. Hillery said: 'I didn't know enough about occupational therapy to know this is wrong.' Soon 'Lucy' started collecting money for a bogus trip to Lapland, and a few women gave her a deposit of €400. However the friends started to question 'Lucy' when her lies started to become more bizarre and extreme. They couldn't find any evidence of her women's refuge- nor could they find any social media pages for Lucy Fitzwilliams. Lynn McDonald, from Dublin, also hired Samantha, who was still under the alias of Lucy Fitzwilliams, to help with her daughter Ellie. But in 2022, high on her success as an online disability activist, Carrie told a lie that would eventually unravel her web of deception She was introduced to the scammer by a friend when she was experiencing a difficult time and needed more support. Lynn's younger daughter, Daisy, was born in 2013 with Rett syndrome, a rare genetic disorder that affects brain development, resulting in severe mental and physical disability. In her guise as a child therapist, Samantha visited twice a week to give Ellie, Lynn's older daughter, one-on-one time. 'There was definitely a bond of trust. Ellie was trusting her with her secrets and her worries,' Lynn said. 'I don't think anybody, when they met her, knew what's really underneath that skin.' Ahead of the fake Lapland trip, Samantha was pushing Lynn to sign paperwork that would allow her to take Ellie out of the country as a guardian. 'My massive concern with that is, if a woman has consent from me to take my child out of the country, then my child is at risk of being abducted.' The bond soon unravelled after Lynn and others discovered she was a scam artist. Samantha fled, leaving Lynn worried 'she would come back in the middle of the night and take my child'. She added: 'I slept with a hatchet beside my bed.' Hillery added: 'We never heard from Lucy again, no more phone calls, no more Lapland, we had just been scammed. We lived in fear for a very log time.' In 2021, it appeared that Samantha changed her identity yet again, this time under the alias Carrie Jade Williams, a terminally-ill award-winning author. She said she had been diagnosed with the terminal illness Huntington's Disease and was living in Kenmare, County Kerry. But in 2022, high on her success as an online disability activist, Carrie told a lie that would eventually unravel her web of deception. She posted a TikTok calling out Airbnb for allegedly siding with guests who had complained about having to use her accessible doorbell. 'I know able-ism exists, and I've experienced it,' she said in a teary video. Carrie claimed the guests, who had stayed at her home, were so 'traumatised by being around her as a disabled person' they had complained to Airbnb - and that Airbnb had instructed her to refund them as a result. The video went viral as people were horrified by the overt display of able-ism and Carrie soon posted a follow-up video - where she claimed the guests were now suing her for 450,000 euros for the trauma caused. They also allegedly slapped her with a list of 13 bizarre demands to cope with the trauma, including an emotional support animal and 25 adult colouring books a year for the remainder of their lives. However on October 5, 2022, an anonymous Reddit user posted links to articles about a convicted fraudster - whom they claimed was Carrie. Carrie issued a statement saying this was in fact her sister who had struggled with mental health problems and that it was defamatory for anyone to link the pair. This led VICE journalist Kat Denkinson and comedian Sue Perkins to investigate the story in podcast Carrie Jade Does Not Exist and over the course of two months, they uncovered the truth. Carrie Jade did not exist. As people began to clock on to Samantha's lies, she disappeared from her home in Kenmare in 2023. However, four months after she was exposed in Kenmare, the podcast received an email from a woman claiming Samantha was 'exposed as a fake person' in her town of Kildare, she was hiding behind the new alias of Sadie Harris. The email read: 'Hi, I just came across your podcast and this woman has been living in our community and going to the same church as me. She has been exposed as a fake person yesterday. 'As far as we can tell she hasn't committed any crimes but understandably this has shaken many people, she has been going by the name Sadie Harris, living in Ireland, working as an au pair.' Samantha joined a local church and was posing as a 'deeply conservative Christian woman' who didn't believe that woman should wear trousers and she claimed to have baptised 150 sex workers in a Dublin hotel. A woman Samantha befriended while in Kildare wrote into the podcast to say she thought she was 'generous and kind' but, after listening to the podcast, felt guilty for letting the fraudster around her children. She added: 'My kids new her and they were comfortable with her. Something that is hitting me now in hindsight is that everything had a story to it, even her Birthday which was on Day. 'She had this story that when he was a kid she thought St. Patrick's Day was about her. She said she was going to buy a building space and run toddler classes and asked of I would help her with it. 'Even now knowing everything was a lie, I still genuinely miss the friendship I thought we had, I miss the person I thought she was. It's strange to process losing someone who never existed.' Earlier this year the fraudster was sentenced to three-years in prison for scamming the state of €60,000. Samantha had been jailed in Ireland for deception and theft charges after she claimed thousands in welfare benefits for a terminal illness that turned out not to exist. In March the sentencing judge on the case, Judge Ronan Munro, accused her 'cynically exploiting' the 'natural goodness' in people and for deliberately lying about having the degenerative disease. Samantha pleaded guilty to two counts of deception and 16 sample theft charges, having snagged government welfare payments. She later also cashed in for disability allowance between February 28th, 2020 and June 12th last year. While at Tralee Circuit Criminal Court in Ireland, Judge Munro claimed her plan had been 'carefully orchestrated' to grift cash, having amassed a €60,334 over almost four years through 238 different payments. A number of aggravating factors made her case yet more heinous, with the judge describing her 'determined and sophisticated effort to perpetuate the fraud'. In 2020, she claimed to the Department of Social Protection that she was suffering with both Huntington's disease and epilepsy, insisting that her prognosis was life-limiting and would prove terminal. But Samantha claimed that she was unable to provide evidence of her illness to the department because of Covid, a factor which the court said essentially allowed her to continue abusing the system while going undetected. In a letter to the department said she was being discriminated against because she was unable to hold or use a pen as a result of her illness. She even went as far as to approach a GP to ask them to help fill out her forms so she get her hands on the government payouts, claiming she was struggling to have a grip of things, use the stairs or shower. Believing her symptoms true, the GP was led to fill out a form saying Samantha had previously been diagnosed with the disease - despite this being far from the case. The gardaí finally cottoned onto the deception after being alerted by department officer to her medical records, which revealed that Samantha had failed to turn up to appointments and scans ordered by the GP - and had no genetic testing for the condition. Judge Munro said the GP was 'blameless', having only done her best to do her job by sending the fraudster to appointments and scans. The judge also revealed that in the run up to the trial, Samantha had written to him trying to claim that she had been suffering with psychosis, even saying she would rather be euthanised than live with the mental illness - despite there being no medical evidence to point this being true. The judge said the self-diagnosis would bear no weight, adding that plenty of those suffering from mental health issues 'don't engage in this type of behaviour'. Samantha was initially sentenced to four years in prison but this was cut by 12-months so she could seek treatment, as she had implied she would. She was also given an additional two-year sentence for a second deception charge and concurrent sentences for theft charges. The judge said it was a serious offence to abuse the public system, but took into account some extenuating factors including her experiences with child loss. The sentences have been backdated to July last year, when she first went into custody after being arrested outside Tralee Post Office. At the time Cookes has been living under a false name for the prior 18-months. Bad Nanny will be available on BBC iPlayer from Monday 12 May, 9pm.
ITV News
12-05-2025
- ITV News
'Bad Nanny': How victims turned the tables on 'one of Britain's worst con artists'
For over a decade, Samantha Cookes used a revolving door of aliases to weave an intricate web of lies, deceiving everyone from vulnerable families to online communities. Hillery Geelan and Lorraine Bolger were just two of her victims; Hillery a desperate Mum in need of support for her autistic and non-verbal son was tricked into handing over £85 a time for bogus occupational therapy sessions - together they were conned over a non-existent trip to Lapland, having already handed over their money. Ahead of the release of 'Bad Nanny', a documentary highlighting the serial fraudsters' crimes, Hillery and Lorraine join us to explain how they helped to catch the serial con artist.
BBC News
12-05-2025
- BBC News
Bad Nanny - New series unmasks serial con-artist Samantha Cookes
Carrie Jade Williams appeared on social media in 2022, telling her 'heart-wrenching' story of living with the degenerative Huntington's disease. Her emotional videos and pleas for understanding struck a chord with many people. But when one of these posts went viral, questions started to be asked about the truthfulness of Carrie Jade Williams' story. Before long, some social media 'sleuths' discovered that 'Carrie Jade' wasn't this person's real identity. And much else of what they uncovered was even more shocking. Bad Nanny is a new two-part series which tells the story of the real person behind the name Carrie Jade – a serial con-artist with multiple assumed identities. The series features interviews with the online investigators who discovered that the woman's real name is Samantha Cookes and that that she wasn't just faking illness but had a hidden past, filled with deception and troubling claims dating back more than a decade. Samantha Cookes had also posed as a nanny, often for vulnerable families, as well as a child therapist and even a surrogate mother, all while hiding her true identity. The series hears from the victims who were conned by Samantha's fraudulent identities and scams across the UK and Ireland. Some of them had welcomed her into their homes, including a couple from North Yorkshire who talk for the first time about how Samantha posed as a surrogate mother to defraud them of their savings. A mother of three tells the programme how she believed she was hiring a 'Mary Poppins-like au-pair' at their home in County Offaly. She explains how Samantha (using the alias 'Lucy Hart') offered a desperately-needed childcare solution, before disappearing and leaving an ominous note that left her fearful for her children's safety. Bad Nanny also includes three women from Dublin who describe how Samantha posed as a therapist for children with additional needs under the alias 'Lucy Fitzwilliams'. They tell how 'Lucy' earned their trust by seeking donations for a women's refuge and collecting money for a bogus trip to Lapland. When they discovered that 'Lucy' wasn't who she said she was, she fled. A neighbour and Samantha's landlord explain how she moved to County Kerry where she adopted another identity: as a terminally-ill author with only months to live. She received support, sympathy and even financial aid, including welfare payments from the Irish state. Through first-person testimony from Samantha's victims, the UK police, those who knew her and the social media 'sleuths' who exposed her, the series shows the making and unmasking of a modern-day imposter. Bad Nanny is co-production for BBC Northern Ireland and RTÉ produced by Alleycats TV. It will be available on the BBC iPlayer and RTÉ Player from Monday 12 May. The first episode will air on BBC One Northern Ireland on Wednesday 14 May at 10.40pm. MD
