Couple traumatised by serial con woman Cookes speak out for first time

Extra.ie​

11-05-2025

A 'vulnerable' couple traumatised after they fell victim to serial fraudster Samantha Cookes in a surrogate scam have spoken out for the first time.
Cookes, who was jailed for three years at the Central Criminal Court in Tralee in March, is the subject of a new two-part RTÉ documentary, Bad Nanny, that airs from tomorrow night.
In the documentary, an English couple, named only as Katie and Luke, told how they believed Cookes – also known as Carrie Jade Williams, Jade O'Sullivan, Jade Cooke, Rebecca Fitzgerald, Lucy FitzWilliams, and Sadie Harris, among others – was carrying their child. Pic: RTÉ
Originally from Gloucester, England, Cookes lived in Cahersiveen and Kenmare in Co Kerry for three years to the end of 2022. She also spent time there last year, when she was arrested in Tralee as part of a €60,000 social welfare fraud inquiry that she was later found guilty of.
Cookes passed herself off as a child psychologist and expert in child therapy.
Several people have fallen victim to Cookes' fantasy stories. In Dublin, families of children with additional needs collected €20,000 for a subsidised trip to Lapland, which never happened.
She had also said she planned to open a women's refuge that never came to be.
Back in 2011 in the UK, Cookes offered to act as a surrogate mother for the Yorkshire couple who wanted to have a baby after failed IVF treatment. Pic: File
Speaking to Extra.ie, documentary director Alan Bradley described the surrogacy scam as 'one of the worst things [Cookes] did'.
'[Katie and Luke] were so vulnerable. And they're still traumatised by it, you can see it in the show, they're still very impacted,' he said this weekend.
In the documentary, the couple tell of how Cookes' 'kind, warm-hearted' demeanour drew them in as they handed over thousands of pounds to the now-infamous con artist.
Cookes had claimed to have been a surrogate before, giving birth to a baby girl for another couple.
Katie tells the documentary: 'She was asking for money regarding insurance, some bits and pieces she needed during the pregnancy.' Carrie Jade Williams.
Some cracks started to appear in her story, as she sketchily avoided attempts to sign a contract. Eventually, the police became involved and 'it all came crashing down' for the desperate couple.
'There was no baby,' said Katie. Filmmaker Bradley said the couple had no idea about what became of Cookes, until contacted by the documentary team.
He told Extra.ie: 'Katie and Luke didn't know about the story in Ireland. As far as they were concerned, she disappeared. They were shocked. They weren't surprised, I think they hoped she wouldn't hurt anyone else, but the nature of what she did – they were shocked but not surprised.'
In 2008, Cookes' first baby, Martha Isobel Cookes, died by suffocation, in circumstances that were ruled accidental back in 2009. The case was reopened in 2013, when Cookes was declared missing from the UK.
Using aliases, she travelled to Co. Offaly in 2014, where she tried to defraud several residents. Carrie Jade Williams.
In Edenderry, she resurfaced under the name Sophia Williamson and scammed unwitting parents out of thousands of euros, which she said were intended to take their children on a trip to Disneyland Paris.
The following year she moved to Tullamore, where she pretended to be a Jehovah's Witness named Lucy Hart and told a family she stayed with that a church elder had offered them a place to live.
After packing up and notifying their landlord, the family discovered this new home did not actually exist, and Cookes disappeared again, only to resurface in Dublin.
She left behind some belongings, including a diary which included an entry referring to her baby's death that read: 'I stand shoulder to shoulder with the coroner, I did not kill my baby.'
In Dublin, Cookes operated under the alias of Lucy FitzWilliams, pretending to offer services as an occupational/play/art therapist for children with special needs and disabilities and conning several families into paying for her services.
Bradley said: 'She found cracks in the system, many [of the victims] had disabled children or were on waiting lists, then she popped up and claimed to be exactly what they needed.
'Ireland is a very trusting place, and information is spread through word of mouth and neighbours. It's not something you think would happen here.' Cookes left Dublin for Kenmare, Co. Kerry, in 2022, this time under the alias of Carrie Jade Williams, where she told neighbours she had been diagnosed with the rare degenerative disease known as Huntington's.
This lie fooled everyone, even the Financial Times, who awarded first prize to an essay she submitted to a competition run by the esteemed UK newspaper.
Cookes even contacted RTÉ to suggest that they make a documentary about her Huntington's journey.
As Bradley recalls: 'She reached out to the RTÉ Doc on One podcast, and she said she had this rare disease and she was going to get ground-breaking treatment in America, where they were going to drill a hole into her brain'.
Armed with the false diagnosis of Huntington's and a falsified copy of her ID, Cookes scammed the State of almost 238 weekly social welfare payments of €232 each, a total of more than €60,000.
Cookes' social media ultimately resulted in her downfall as past victims began to leave comments on her videos like, 'We know who you are' as they banded together.
Bradley said: 'I discovered all the victims had a group chat; they were like online sleuths.'
Cookes deleted her social media and disappeared from Kenmare, only to resurface as Sadie Harris in Celbridge, Co. Kildare, pretending to be an evangelical Christian.
But the law caught up with her in July 2024. This March, she was sentenced to four years in prison, with the final year suspended, after pleading guilty to 18 counts of deception and theft.
Bradley said Cookes' victims hope her jail sentence 'will give her time to reflect on her actions. She's also very intelligent, it's just sad that this is what she's chosen to do with that'.
Reporting by Kate Lynch