- 4 months ago
Bad Nanny S01E02 (13 May 2025)
Category
🦄
CreativityTranscript
00:00I was so glad she arrived.
00:03This girl was going to help us.
00:05She was Mary Poppins.
00:10She's bubbly, she's lively, she's full of ideas, she's bright.
00:14The girls thought she was amazing, the girls thought she was full of fun.
00:20Her stories were fantastical. We were fascinated by them.
00:23Her stories were so far-fetched that you couldn't make it up.
00:27The minute her mouth was moving, she was lying.
00:32Well, from Claudia Bronwyn, Lucy Fitzwilliams to Carrie Jade Williams,
00:36these are just some of the different identities taken by just one person, Samantha Cooks.
00:41Serial fraudster, Samantha Cooks.
00:44These are the names that she's been using around the country.
00:47Sadie Harris. Carrie Jade Williams.
00:49Lucy Fitzwilliams. Lucy Hart. Lucy Williamson.
00:52Ellen Harris. Everything was a lie.
00:55It was one of the biggest scams that has ever happened on TikTok.
00:59Where is the real Carrie Jade? Who is she?
01:02She's gone from tone to tone. A pure con artist.
01:05I was really scared for my friends and their children.
01:10I slept with a hatchet beside my bed.
01:13We're wrapped up in some serious thing and I don't know how far this has gone.
01:18Who have we had looking after our children?
01:20Who have we had looking after our children?
01:25Who has she?
01:39As I'm terminally ill, I self-fund all my medication and my experimental treatments.
01:47I'm terminally ill I self-fund all my medication and my experimental treatments the dying lady is
01:52what I knew her as she's not Carrie Jade Williams she's actually a scammer Samantha Cooks we kind
02:00of got a bit of a picture together of her life Samantha offered to become a surrogate there was
02:11no baby she's had a huge pregnant baby Martha died the day that she was going to be taken for
02:19adoption Samantha Cooks has had two children that have been taken away from her which is a
02:25little bit concerning really so many different names and so many different places and just it's
02:33mind-blowing I would warn anybody about her don't let her in your home don't let her in
02:38like you felt so guilty for a long long time for introducing her to
03:08anybody didn't you I yeah I still do a bit she took advantage of people's trust and their emotions
03:17and their vulnerability and their vulnerability she finds your weak point and your weak point is
03:23always going to be your children hiya how's it going what's the crack with you today yeah right
03:34Samantha walked into my life as Lucy Fitzwilliams she very endearing kind of personality she was very
03:46positive very well read I was cutting her hair and she told me she was an evangelical Christian she talked
03:54about her fiance a pastor she had experience with autistic kids and kids with behavioural issues and
04:03in my job as a hairdresser you'll meet so many parents that are so looking for help with their kids especially special needs kids
04:11we're waiting for waiting for doctors appointments and waiting for psychologists reports and waiting for reports and reports and reports and reports
04:21people are nearly on their knees asking for help and it's not really there so one by one I introduced her to different people
04:30my friend Hillary needed a bit of help with Reese introducing the junior bake-off junior bake-off come on stop now sorry beautiful Lucy came along to me at a time when I needed her she came along at a time when I was desperate
04:37crap this is hard work it is hard work it's very hard work
04:40bacon He is hard work
04:41it is hard work it's very hard work it's
04:45to be a hard work
04:51just making your help
04:53change everything then
04:56I am beautiful
04:57overrecially
04:57let's see
04:59a little bit
05:00yeah
05:01Wow
05:02you
05:03It is hard work. It's very hard work. Bacon is hard work.
05:07Rhys was born in 2011 and the autism and the disabilities
05:14start kind of showing at the age of two.
05:17We couldn't get the services and they couldn't give us a time
05:20when they were going to provide them to us.
05:22He needed occupational therapy immediately.
05:26He was non-verbal at that time.
05:28So I was on a waiting list. I was.
05:32That waiting list wasn't happening.
05:38There was no end in sight.
05:40We were getting pushed from pillar to post
05:42and I didn't understand why the services didn't seem to be urgent.
05:46But it was urgent in my family.
05:48One weekend, Rhys had the meltdown of all meltdowns.
05:53He couldn't cope and I couldn't cope with his behaviour.
05:56He was hurting himself. He was hurting me.
06:01He was hurting me.
06:07And he was hurting her at the top.
06:09I rang Lorraine and I said, Lorraine I need your help.
06:12I kept saying Hilary, please, please get this girl in.
06:15Lucy was going to be able to help me.
06:17She was a trained occupational therapist.
06:19I need her. I need her help. I need her now.
06:22So I rang Lucy.
06:25And Lucy said, hi Hilary, I've been waiting for you.
06:28I was like, oh my God, Lucy, you know who I am.
06:31And she goes, yes, Lorraine has told me lots about you.
06:34I've been waiting for your phone call for a long, long time.
06:36Finally, you've rang me.
06:38By that one phone call, I was hooked on her immediately.
06:42Oh, lovely.
06:44Put it in the oven.
06:46Oh, I can't do it.
06:47You can do it.
06:48You're a big boy.
06:49Big boy.
06:50Oh, good job.
06:51Oh, good job.
06:52Okay, good job.
06:54As the weeks went on and as we developed a friendship,
06:57she then hit me with, oh, by the way, I'm opening up a women's refuge.
07:03Really? A women's refuge?
07:06That's close to my heart.
07:07Because many, many a time I ended up in a women's refuge as a child.
07:11I thought she was just amazing.
07:13Suddenly every day you were doing something for her.
07:16Then we introduced her to Lynne as well.
07:18Straight away, I was like, what can I do?
07:21How can I help?
07:22So Lucy on a Monday would ring me and she'd say,
07:24I need a double boogie.
07:25I'm after getting a family with a set of twins.
07:27I was like, oh, well, you know, I might have a couple of double sets.
07:34Sanitary product.
07:3520 tins of tomatoes.
07:37Food, hampers.
07:38Baby food.
07:39Baby clothes.
07:40Leftover Christmas presents.
07:41Nappies.
07:42Bottles of water.
07:43Clothes.
07:44Round about size 10, maybe 12.
07:46Involve.
07:47I gave her cash as well.
07:48I gave her envelopes of cash.
07:50I had no idea that this refuge existed or where it was.
07:55Because you're not supposed to tell people and that's a safety thing.
07:59So they are usually hidden away.
08:01So no, I never questioned that.
08:03I believed everything that she said.
08:08Her tales.
08:09Huh.
08:10Yeah.
08:11She told me that she was getting married to the pastor of the Eva Angelic Church.
08:16They were having their wedding in the Shelburne Hotel.
08:19I thought, oh, that's a bit posh.
08:23So she told me that it was going to be Star Wars.
08:26The team.
08:27I was like, sorry.
08:29You're going to have Darth Vader walking through the corridor.
08:35She goes, yeah.
08:36I was like, wow, that's a bit bizarre.
08:39And who's doing the ceremony?
08:42Princess Leia.
08:43I thought, wow, that's weird.
08:46And then she divulged that she was an heiress.
08:50Her mum had passed away, leaving the company 3M behind.
08:593M is the crowd that do sellotapes and sticky tapes and duct tape.
09:04Like international.
09:05Everybody has it in their house.
09:07Multi, multi million.
09:09So money wasn't an issue, you know?
09:12And she would say, I'm not here about money.
09:15It's not about that.
09:20You holding on tight, Dolly?
09:23OK.
09:25Now.
09:26Lucy Flame, she was a play therapist and an art therapist,
09:30a paediatric art therapist.
09:33Your bi-pep is heavy on the back, isn't it?
09:37Good girl.
09:41I wasn't in a great place when she did what she did.
09:44Good girl.
09:45Feel better?
09:47Big deep breaths, OK?
09:48Big deep breaths.
09:50In 2013, my little girl Daisy arrived.
09:54Daisy's primary condition was called Rett Syndrome.
09:58In layman's terms, it's a combination of Parkinson's,
10:02epilepsy, autism and cerebral palsy.
10:05I had another child, Ellie.
10:08Now where could she be?
10:11Could she be?
10:12Could she be?
10:13I don't like that!
10:16Not long after I became a single mum to Ellie and Daisy.
10:25I was trying to get my head around the idea that I had a little girl
10:28that wasn't going to be with me forever.
10:30Ellie got the raw deal in it because Daisy needed me physically.
10:38And Ellie needed me emotionally.
10:40And my head was always somewhere else.
10:44My head was in keeping my child alive, fighting the system.
10:50It's impossible at times.
10:56And it leaves you just open.
10:59Really open.
11:07She would come twice a week.
11:08She gave Ellie the one-on-one that she didn't get with me.
11:13Well, there's definitely a bond of trust.
11:17Ellie was trusting her with her secrets and her worries.
11:21I don't think anybody, when they meet her,
11:23know what's really underneath that skin.
11:37Lucy was coming to me every second week.
11:40I'd go and pick her up.
11:42I'd bring her into the house and she'd sit down
11:45and we'd have a little chat.
11:46And I was expecting the little chat to be only five minutes long.
11:50And the little chat went on to an hour, an hour and a half,
11:53two hours, anything but talking about Rhys.
11:57She'd talk about the pastor.
11:59She'd talk about the wedding.
12:01Then she'd say, oh, what are we having for lunch?
12:04And she seemed more interested in what we were having for lunch
12:07than actually doing anything with Rhys.
12:09But I had nowhere else to turn.
12:13I had nobody else to help me.
12:18Show me how fast she can go.
12:20Ready?
12:21All right, I'll time you.
12:22I'll time you.
12:23Ready?
12:24Go, go, go, go, go.
12:26I didn't know enough about occupational therapy to know that this is wrong.
12:32We got less and less about the occupational therapy that we were supposed to be doing
12:36and more about this women's refuge.
12:39By April, there was nothing but Lucy.
12:41She consumed our lives.
12:44By June, she told me about Lapland.
12:47Myself and a lot of my friends would be very similar people, still children, in an adult's body were trapped.
12:59One of my friends had said, oh, she's doing this trip to Lapland and, you know, it's to do with the women's refuge, but there's extra places.
13:07I was so excited for Lapland. Lucy provided me with an itinerary, a reindeer ride, snowmobiling, the dog sleigh, a full itinerary.
13:22I said to Lynne, Lynne, I think we can get you on that plane to Lapland.
13:29Oh, my God, do you want to go to Lapland?
13:31Ellie was so into Santa at this stage. She literally had herself togged out from head to toe, everything.
13:38The snow socks, she had the hat, she had the big gloves.
13:43All we had to do was give her a deposit.
13:47Initially, it was a deposit of coming up to 400.
13:51I had given her 1,500.
13:54Each one of us had involved, or the people, and each one of us who had involved, or the people, were to collect that money for Lucy.
14:00And every week she talked to me about Lapland and how many seats there was.
14:06She's got five seats, two seats, three seats.
14:09And when I was talking to Lorraine, she'd say,
14:11Oh, yeah, I sold three seats, five seats, two seats earlier on to other people who need those seats.
14:18And I said, hang on a minute.
14:20I sold two seats, three seats, five seats today for somebody else.
14:25And she'd go, oh, maybe she had more. I don't know. How many seats are on an airplane?
14:30So we started Googling how many seats were on airplanes.
14:33But by the sounds of it, and the amount of people that we were after involving, we had personally sold at least five airplanes.
14:40Yeah, yeah.
14:43I was collecting deposits off my friends, and Lorraine was collecting deposits, and Lynne was collecting deposits.
14:50Now, one family, they were thrown over maybe 15 or 20 grand or something. It was all plain of them going.
14:56I suppose, thinking about it, we should have smiled a rat.
15:05Samantha wanted me to sign a form to bring Ellie into another country without me being there.
15:12And she said, but as an organizer, I would need to do that.
15:15And she actually referred to when the kids go on their school trips, that the parents have to give the letter.
15:23And I was kind of going, OK, OK.
15:30One day, Lucy was in my house, chatting away at the table.
15:35I had my back to her.
15:36The beautiful voice changed.
15:39It was like, you know, a mask dropped, and this voice came from nowhere.
15:47That my friends' kids, that they didn't deserve them.
15:52That she would do a much better job.
15:56That she wanted to have them.
15:58It was like, I will have them.
16:01It was something not right.
16:02I had involved another friend, and she was going to give Lucy a cheque.
16:08And it just so happened that she was an accountant.
16:11She wanted Lucy's charity number for the Women's Refuge.
16:14And I had my friend ringing me saying, I can't get in touch with Lucy.
16:19I'm supposed to be meeting Lucy to give her over this cheque.
16:24She still hasn't given me the charity number for the Women's Refuge.
16:28It's really strange.
16:29There's something going on.
16:31I don't know what it is.
16:34But there's something going on.
16:36All of a sudden, Lucy rang.
16:38Hillary, Hillary, Hillary, quick, quick, quick, quick.
16:40You need to help.
16:41I'm in the hospital.
16:42She said, I collapsed in the middle of Eason's.
16:46I've been brought in.
16:47I don't like hospitals.
16:49You need to come and get me.
16:51I said, I'm on the way.
16:54Into the receptionist.
16:55I'm here to pick up Lucy Fitzwilliams.
17:00Lucy Fitzwilliams.
17:01Lucy, Lucy, Lucy, Lucy.
17:02No.
17:03I said, Lucy Williamson?
17:07Lucy Williamson.
17:08No.
17:10Lucy.
17:11No.
17:12She collapsed in the middle of Eason's in Dun Laoghaire.
17:15She brought in by an ambulance.
17:16And she goes, oh, Samantha.
17:18She goes, cubicle tree.
17:19And I went, sorry?
17:21Pull back the curtain expecting to see some random girl sitting there.
17:25And instead, Lucy sitting on the bed with heart monitors on.
17:29And I went, Lucy.
17:31She says, Hillary.
17:32Hillary.
17:33I said, there's a girl, the girl on reception called you a different name.
17:40And she looked at me and she goes, oh my God, get me out of here.
17:42Get me out of here.
17:43Quick, quick, quick.
17:44I have to go.
17:45I have to go.
17:46I have to go.
17:47The minute we walked out of the hospital, her personality had changed.
17:49She was back to the Lucy that I knew.
17:52Oh, such a beautiful evening out, isn't it, Hillary?
17:56What the hell is going on here?
17:58Who is Samantha?
18:02Who is she?
18:07I couldn't find her on social media.
18:09There was no Lucy Fitzwilliams.
18:11I just wanted to get to the bottom of what was going on.
18:14I introduced her to my friends.
18:17I was really scared for their children.
18:21I just kept digging.
18:23I went to the church where the pastor was that she was getting married to.
18:28He was already a married man, knew nothing about this.
18:30With, I think, a couple of kids.
18:33I was like, oh my God.
18:35I went to Northumberland Road, which is where the women's refuge was.
18:38And I walked up and down.
18:40I was like, what?
18:41There's no women's refuge here.
18:43My heart was racing.
18:47This wasn't true.
18:48That wasn't true.
18:50Refuge wasn't true.
18:52Who is this girl?
18:54I was very scared.
18:56I went down to the Garda station.
18:59The Gardaà showed me a photograph.
19:02They asked me then, was that her?
19:04I said, yes, most definitely.
19:07But I noticed on top of that, the written words were,
19:11Samantha Cooks missing from her home in England.
19:16This person is not who she says she is.
19:20I felt sick.
19:23I Googled her name.
19:25Then we knew about the court case in England with the surrogate.
19:31Oh my God.
19:33I really don't know what her clan is.
19:36I sent the message to Hilary that I think we should try and get Lucy to your house.
19:44And we should confront her.
19:48I sent the message meant for Hilary to Lucy.
19:55Yeah, so she got that message.
19:57And that's how she found out that I was onto her.
20:04That's how she'd done the runner.
20:10She was gone.
20:11We lost her.
20:13And that was the final time we heard about Lucy up in Dublin.
20:16I wasn't as scared for my own safety as I was for other people's.
20:27I was just trying to find answers.
20:29She was lodging with an elderly lady in the area.
20:32I went to her house.
20:34The lovely elderly lady, she opened the door and I said, oh, where's Lucy?
20:38She's gone to Morocco.
20:40And I said, okay.
20:42I went through her stuff in the house and like found double buggies.
20:47All the food, loads of stuff that we brought, like toiletries.
20:51And found the bank card and they confirmed who she was.
20:54Samantha Cooks, not Lucy Fitzwilliams.
20:56There was about 12 or maybe 15 burner phones.
21:03Loads of writings everywhere.
21:06All over the floor, all over the walls.
21:09There was just so much.
21:11It was very upsetting.
21:12It was all very dark and all very baby orientated and child orientated.
21:23It was quite definite in a lot of the stuff that I read that I would be very, very concerned that she would do something to a child.
21:32She wanted me to write the consent form, consent to take my child out of the country without me.
21:43When you discover that Lapland isn't happening and you question why did she want consent to take my child abroad.
21:53The massive concern with that is, is if a woman has consent, written consent from me to take my child out of the country.
21:59And she's an ulterior motive, then my child's at risk of being abducted.
22:07I didn't know where she was. None of us knew where she was.
22:11We had police circling our area.
22:14Our home was on red alert.
22:17I had to have cameras put up around my home.
22:20I was scared that she would come back in the middle of the night and take my child.
22:27I slept with a hatchet beside my bed.
22:31The fact that I introduced her to my friends.
22:37You do feel guilty. You do feel guilty.
22:42Sorry.
22:43Never heard from Lucy again. No more phone calls. No more Lapland.
22:57We'd just been scammed.
22:59We lived in fear for a very long time.
23:15It was just in the back of our minds the whole time.
23:17You know, if we hadn't known where she was, who she was with, we could have actually moved on.
23:26Over a year ago now, I got diagnosed with a terminal degenerative neurological illness called Huntington's.
23:46Huntington's is basically Parkinson's meets ALS meets Alzheimer's.
23:49I always say for me as a writer, I had no self-doubt at all.
23:53I'd just pitch to anybody. I'd enter any competition. I'd have a go at anything.
23:58So I think because I have Huntington's, I don't remember, you know, if I get a rejection, I don't remember it the next day.
24:06You know, I've memory loss. I think when we talk about kind of life limiting illnesses and things like for me, any of anything can happen at any time.
24:17And I just, I say yes to everything. I kind of put myself out there and you never know when you walk through a door what's going to happen on the other side.
24:24Well, go for a walk. Come on. Good boy.
24:44Kenmare is a lovely small town. Often confused as a village, but it is a town.
24:56One of those classic, everyone knows each other kind of nice communities.
25:03People that have a warm heart, you know, and I think she sensed it.
25:07Kind of fell in love with Kerry. Realised that there's a lovely community down here. I've made really good friends in Kenmare. I love it down here.
25:21The house next door to me had been empty for a while. The landlord, Tim, also owned the house that I was living in.
25:30So he contacted me to say somebody was going to be moving in.
25:37Or she was going to be there long term. Five years plus. That's what any landlord wants. A good tenant.
25:45You could definitely say that she'd be every landlord's dream if you believed her.
25:49If somebody had asked me back then if your new neighbour seems trustworthy, I would have said probably yes.
25:56I did like her. She was an English woman living on her own.
26:01She was part of the evangelical Christian church. Polite. Very sort of well spoken. Friendly. Soft.
26:14I do sort of have quite a good sense of humour.
26:17She seemed to have made friends with a few local women.
26:20Carrie wrote us an initial email to inquire about a residency. I am a neurodiverse writer that relies on assistive technology to communicate.
26:36After winning the prestigious Financial Times essay competition in 2020, I was agented.
26:40I wondered if you had a formal process for applying for residency opportunities. Regards Carrie Jade Williams.
26:52Carrie was believable. Carrie was welcomed because Ireland is a very welcoming place.
26:58She was invited to participate as a writer in residence and she had said yes, I'll participate and she would write a piece.
27:08She went up on stage with other really good writers from around the area and she presented her piece.
27:13I do not share photos of my husband online. His next wife, the one after me, the one who will love him when I'm gone, when I'm buried, she will share photos.
27:25The Financial Times was really the one that changed everything. I would always be so grateful. Financial Times have been amazing.
27:35She was just fascinating. That's what she was. She was fascinating.
27:40And I thought that her essay that she wrote for the Financial Times, which I believe she did write, was really, really good.
27:47And she talked about her Huntington's disease and how she needed assistive technology to do her work.
27:55So I thought she was an excellent writer.
27:59I have so much fun with my writing and it's opened so many doors for me.
28:02There was also things online about her winning this award.
28:05Lots of stuff online about her writing, about her story.
28:10It was definitely impressive.
28:15I always say Huntington's disease made me brave, you know, and I hate if people tell me, oh, you're very brave, you know, you're inspirational.
28:26It was heartbreaking. It was really heartbreaking.
28:30It was difficult for her to walk. Headaches and shakes.
28:33You felt so sorry for her.
28:34She had collapsed one day crossing a street.
28:37She was telling me she was in and out of hospital.
28:39She also told me that she, like, had almost died choking on a piece of pasta recently, that her swallow was now gone.
28:48So basically, I am having experimental brain surgery for my terminal Huntington's disease.
28:54This is where the fun starts.
28:58Netflix were going to be making a film of her and she was heading to Los Angeles to get a chip put into her brain.
29:04Now that I'm saying the words, I'm saying, were we mad?
29:08It's a 15 millimetre hole that they have to drill through your skull to put it in.
29:13So it's quite small.
29:15It's unbelievable what she's going through.
29:18She told me so much about her and that I was a bit bewildered.
29:23Accessibility should be about making the world more improved and better for humans.
29:27I hope that in the future, when, you know, when some young woman gets the diagnosis of Huntington's, that the first thing they might see is someone like me that's living life.
29:40Next thing, she was actually engaged. She told us loads of things about Fionn. He sounded like an absolute legend. He sounded lovely.
29:51Oh, Fionn. What do we say about Fionn? He's a lovely man. We met through a church group.
29:59She was obsessed with Lego and she was going to have a Lego wedding with her seance Fionn.
30:04Lego cake and Lego little layouts and things like that, that it was going to be Lego themed.
30:08I thought this was the best thing since a sliced pan.
30:12So the dress Carrie Jade chose is something like this.
30:18Just a very, very soft skirt, very romantic floral lace detail on top.
30:23That was her dream come true.
30:26She said yes to the dress.
30:31I was thinking, I've never seen this guy.
30:33She's been here for three, four, five months and I've still never seen this guy.
30:39Nobody had seen him.
30:40We tried to ring her.
30:44Then she didn't answer the calls anymore.
30:46Then there was nothing coming from her.
30:48Weeks and weeks and weeks.
30:50No one paid for that dress.
30:52I don't think that there was ever a wedding and I even don't think that there is a fiance.
30:57There's nothing around the told story that is actually true.
31:03I think so, yeah.
31:04She wasn't paying rent and I wasn't pushing her because I thought she had Huntington's.
31:08She was telling me she was in and out of hospital and I was willing to let it slide.
31:13She's a pure con artist.
31:16A bit like Catch Me If You Can.
31:18That kind of movie.
31:20And has got away with it.
31:22She had us all fooled.
31:24So she did.
31:25And if she didn't do the Airbnb thing, I suppose she'd have never been found.
31:28Caught out.
31:33I know, yeah, these guests are sewing for, um, well it's a life changing sum of money.
31:38They are so emotionally traumatised and triggered by being a force to be around me.
31:42They are seeking a huge amount of compensation.
31:45Lorraine rang me one day.
31:46Hillary, she's on TikTok.
31:47She's on TikTok.
31:49What do you mean she's on TikTok?
31:51Something's after happening on TikTok and Lucy's back.
31:54So this here is Samantha Cooks.
31:59I don't know if she's got Huntington's disease and I don't know if this happened to her.
32:03But what I do know is that I've had a lot of people messaging me.
32:07I honestly do not know what's going on.
32:09Quick Samantha Cooks rundown for anyone who doesn't know the story.
32:14She's on TikTok posing as a lady called Carrie Jade Williams.
32:19Now as Carrie Jade Williams, she was saying that she was disabled with Huntington's disease.
32:24What is going on?
32:26This woman claimed that she was being sued for £450,000 by a couple who had stayed at her Airbnb and had taken offence to disability aids in her home.
32:40This is Samantha Cooks.
32:43Lucy Fitzwilliams.
32:45That's her. Oh my gosh.
32:47She's really good at what she does.
32:49Scams and fraud and conning.
32:52How is this possible?
32:54Her account went viral. Like, fully viral.
32:57People were saying, well actually, I knew her by Lucy Hart.
33:01I knew her as Samantha Cooks.
33:03What is she act like?
33:05Eventually she comes off social media because obviously there's a massive backlash against her.
33:10She's a very dangerous woman and we need to keep spreading the word. We need to keep talking about her so she's got nowhere to hide.
33:16Lucy Fitzwilliams, aka Carrie Jade Williams, aka Samantha Cooks.
33:23This was a scam on the highest scale that I've ever seen.
33:28There was a few of us in the town that were starting to get super suspicious. I hadn't seen her for maybe a week. I didn't know if she was in the house or not. I didn't hear anything and I didn't see anything.
33:49I got a message on my phone from one of the other women I know who was getting suspicious with a link.
33:58Saw the comments.
34:00You're not Carrie Jade Williams. Don't you remember us?
34:05What the hell is going on?
34:08Samantha Cooks.
34:10They're saying that that's her name.
34:13I obviously Googled the name.
34:14I knew straight away the picture was her. There is no Carrie Jade Williams. It was all lies that she brought to Kenmare.
34:25I was all of a sudden dealing with somebody that I didn't have a clue what she was capable of or what she wanted to do or why she was doing any of it. Like none of it really even made sense.
34:36I was so angry. When the news came that Samantha had turned herself into Carrie Jade and diagnosed herself with Huntington's disease, it just stuck in my throat.
34:53Obviously, Daisy was born with a life limiting illness. How dare she? How dare she use that to gain people's trust?
35:07Why wasn't anybody doing more to try and get this woman?
35:11Keep a look out for this face. People need to remember how dangerous she is. And remember, do not let her into your homes near your children.
35:19We were posting on TikTok saying, this lady doesn't have hunting tongues. She's not Carrie Jade Williams. We were just trying to stop this from happening again. We were trying to help people.
35:32I made my video and then other bigger creators made videos as well, all across all social media. I was very proud of the TikTok community for coming together.
35:41People were commenting, saying, oh, well, I was her neighbour. Oh, she lived with me for this amount of time.
35:50Slowly, we started to build kind of this group of people that had been affected by Samantha.
35:57We made a little WhatsApp chat.
35:59I came across Chrissie. Sure within minutes, like, I sent them TikTok to Hillary.
36:07So I get onto my phone. I just need to text this girl Chrissie. So I sent Chrissie a text.
36:15I know you don't know who I am, but I was involved with Samantha Cooks. She scammed me. Please believe me.
36:21They all need to pull together on this. It's been going on for so long. It has to stop. It has to stop.
36:31She's caused so many different types of damage to so many different types of people.
36:38Other people joined the group that have been through so much.
36:41Lucy Hart. That's what we know now has. An au pair. Like a proper Mary Poppins. She turned my world upside down.
36:50Samantha offered to become a surrogate.
36:54There was no baby.
36:56She looked so sweet and innocent. I was taken back by how much she has actually done.
37:02There were thousands of messages back and forth trying to put together the amount of destruction that she had caused.
37:09I got added to this group.
37:22I actually couldn't really grasp everything that was going on to begin with.
37:26I was like, okay, so that's her.
37:31And she did that.
37:32And that's her.
37:33And they're saying that that's her name.
37:35She actually told me that she had a baby called Martha and that she had died after getting some vaccinations.
37:51I had a little girl that died as an infant. Martha. Yeah. So she had a severe allergic reaction. She had her vaccinations and just had a severe allergic reaction.
38:04To think that somebody would lie about the circumstances in how their baby died.
38:16It makes me feel that she has little or no empathy or care in the world.
38:27On the WhatsApp group, I was saying to them, like, guys, I, she lives next door. Like, what, what am I going to do?
38:36I didn't have a clue what she was capable of. So I stayed on the couch that night and didn't go to sleep and stayed on the WhatsApp group talking to the women literally, I'd say it was three or four in the morning.
38:53I also rang the guards. They just kind of said, well, she hasn't, she hasn't committed any crime to you. She hasn't done anything to you. Like, what do you want us to do about it?
39:04That's when it really started getting scary for me.
39:09I just knew that I had to keep the kids upstairs. Can I just cut it for a second?
39:23A taxi pulled up outside the house. That was the last time I saw her in Kenmare.
39:39I didn't know whether she was in the house or not in the house. The neighbours hadn't seen her.
39:45Rubbish was building up outside and vermin were seen at the back door.
39:51So I just took the bull by the horns and went in myself.
39:57Rubbish, bread, sausages, rotten.
40:02And the stench. Pizza boxes and mince pies.
40:11Oh, Jesus Christ.
40:13This is only the tip of the iceberg, what was left behind.
40:16Burn her phones. Burn her SIM cards, fake licences, fake Covid certs.
40:23She was definitely up to no good.
40:30After she was outed, she just vanished from online, from real life, from everywhere.
40:37No one knew where she'd gone.
40:39We got journalists starting to get interested.
40:42It blew up into something massive in the media.
40:50Samantha assumed various identities, calling her way into people's homes.
40:54She's gone dark now and maybe that's not the best thing for anybody.
40:58It was just everywhere. It was everywhere.
41:05We all wanted to know where Samantha Cooks was.
41:09What is she doing now?
41:15We've all exposed her.
41:17But where is she?
41:19She's in somebody's house.
41:21She's in somebody's house.
41:22She's in somebody's house.
41:42She'skel Key
41:47My name is Matt Riles. I'm the lead pastor here at the Bridge Church and I knew Samantha Cooks as Sadie Harris.
41:54The church here in Selbridge, the Bridge Church, it would be probably more a Pentecostal type,
42:00so it's quite lively on a Sunday and people clap and sing out loud and raise their hands.
42:04We kind of welcome anyone who walks in. I think it was exactly what Samantha thought she wanted or was looking for,
42:21is a place to kind of weasel in. I never trusted her and I just always got this sense like there was something to the story we weren't being told.
42:32She presented to us as this person, Sadie Harris. She had just come from America. She had been a nanny for really wealthy people.
42:42But when I asked, like, oh, who did you work for? She would say, I signed an NDA and I'm not able to discuss who that is.
42:49And she was now here in Ireland working as a nanny locally. It was true that she was working as a nanny here
42:57and I would see her, like, walking to and from school or whatnot with the child. That was true.
43:02There was almost this Mary Poppins vibe off of her, like, too good to be true.
43:07She was doing a course on how to be a foster parent. There were so many layers to the story.
43:13It's hard to actually keep up with all the stuff she told us.
43:17Another part of her backstory was that she was adopted. Her parents were English, I believe is what she told us.
43:23They owned a big factory in Israel. And so there's loads of money, loads of land.
43:29She had a lot of access to finances. At the time, I didn't know she wasn't who she was presenting as.
43:35So I just thought, this is really bizarre.
43:40I remember I was at home and I got this text from a friend. It was a link to a podcast.
43:48Three years ago, a young woman with a terminal degenerative brain disease reached out to us, looking for help.
43:56She wanted us to tell her story to the world. Then Carrie Jade Williams disappeared.
44:05Before long, her story exploded online.
44:10Oh, my goodness. Oh, my goodness. I realized straight away that it was who I knew as Sadie, but this was calling her other names than Sadie.
44:20So I think Carrie was one of the names and Samantha was maybe the real name.
44:25I understand, like, that she, one of her lies that she was telling is that she had Huntington's disease.
44:30She never said that to me, my wife, or anyone here that I've spoken to.
44:35And there were no signs that she had any type of disability or, you know, ailments or anything.
44:41Someone in the church sent a message to Sadie. I know that you're not Sadie. I know that you're Samantha.
44:48I think that was kind of the gig up for her. She clad in the night.
44:55By the time the sun came up, she was gone and had just vanished.
45:00That poor family in Salbridge, like, part of me just feels like, is it going to continue until something bad happens?
45:19A woman charged with defrauding the Department of Social Protection of almost €60,000 has been remanded in custody at a hearing in Tralee District Court.
45:37Samantha Cooks, of No Fixed Abode, was arrested outside Tralee Post Office in County Kerry yesterday when she was due to collect a weekly disability allowance worth €232.
45:49Wow. It's real. It's real.
46:01It is the 19th of February. It is Sentencing Day. And we left Dublin at 5.30. And we're half an hour away from Tralee Court. And today is the day of Dublin.
46:11We left Dublin at 5.30. And we're half an hour away from Tralee Court. And today is the big day that we've been waiting for for nearly eight years.
46:24Eight years.
46:25It's not just me and Hilary. There's a whole world of people out there who've been affected. And this is for all of us today.
46:38The sentence today is in regard to welfare fraud. You know, €60,000. It's money.
46:46It's money. And the reason we're here, to see her being sentenced for this, this symbolises all of the damage that have been done to so many of us.
46:56It's nice to just see some form of justice taking place. It is going to be a form of closure just sitting in front of her and her knowing that we're there.
47:07Whether she looks directly at us, she'll know. She'll know.
47:11Hey, guys. Hey, Chloe.
47:12All this is out of shot.
47:38Out of shot, Jack?
47:39Yeah, perfect.
47:40Today, Samantha Cook's past caught up with her at the Circuit Criminal Court in Tralee, where she was sentenced for deception and theft offences.
47:54Detective Garda Ray Liston told the court Samantha Cook's convinced a respected GP to fill out a form for her, saying she had already been diagnosed with Huntington's disease.
48:06Judge Ronan Munro sentenced Samantha Cook to four years in jail with the final year suspended. He said her plan was carefully orchestrated and had diverted funds from people in genuine need.
48:20She didn't look at us. She couldn't look at us. She couldn't look at us. There was a fright when she'd seen us at first. And she kind of was like, oh, my God. And then she went torn and she'd seen the other one and the other one. It was a big shock to her.
48:38I don't think I'm going to get the closure. I don't think I'm going to get the closure I was expecting. That reality has hit me really hard. It's not going to change what's happened.
48:48I had no idea how much it's all affected me and how much it changed me then and how it altered my parenting, how it altered me as a mum, how I how I embrace other people.
49:10Just shame on her, you know, just shame on her, you know.
49:17It's gone. It's gone.
49:19It's gone.
49:20It's gone.
49:21Oh.
49:22We can't change what has happened, but I wish and I hope that this changes everything going forward. This has never been about the fraud or the monetary gain.
49:38It's about the emotional attack on people that are already vulnerable.
49:45I'm angry because she put the fear of God in us. We all thought that she was going to kidnap the kids. We lived in fear for a very long time.
49:56She will constantly scam till the day that she dies. She will probably scam the funeral director.
50:04I don't feel sorry for Samantha, but I feel sad for Samantha. She feels like she's got to be this other person who has pretend degrees and pretend diseases and pretend houses and pretend money and pretend parents like nothing about her life is fully true.
50:23I don't know what it is that causes her to do this. I don't believe she will stop.
50:30I feel sorry for her because imagine what a lonely life it is to lead. Her whole entire life has been one scam after another scam. It's been one name after another name. Like, how do you even keep up with that? I wouldn't want to be in Samantha's head.
50:50She could do anything. She's that intelligent that she could do anything she wanted to do. So hopefully, after all of this, she does get the help that she needs and she does move forward with her life.
51:00She's been so many different people, you know, and so hopefully one day she does move forward and just be Samantha Cooks.
51:07You're still on mute there. I couldn't put the camera on. Oh, girlies are together. Hi girls. Hello. Hello. If Samantha was watching me, I would say thank you for those lovely people I've gotten to know through you.
51:29Every day, every morning, I know I have a team of people on my side, a team of individual people that have been brought together through horrific circumstances and who are the most amazing people.
51:45We don't always talk about Samantha Cooks. She's not that important anymore. We've stopped talking about her and now we talk about ourselves. She's not consumed our lives anymore.
51:57We don't always talk about us anymore.
51:59We don't always talk about ourselves anymore.