A new true crime documentary is exploring a woman who scammed people online for 13 years
The two-part series originally aired in May in Ireland(Image: BBC)
Con-artist Samantha Cookes is the subject of the BBC’s new documentary Bad Nanny, but who is she and where is she now?
The BBC have been releasing many acclaimed documentaries in recent weeks, including 7/7: The London Bombings and Live Aid at 40: When Rock ’n’ Roll Took on the World.
Last week also saw the premiere of To Catch a Stalker, a two-part documentary where Love Island’s Zara McDermott meets women who are targets of a dangerous obsession.
For many viewers the best of the medium often arrives in the true crime genre, with the world fascinated at the unbelievable things some people choose to do.
Tuesday night (July 8) marks the premiere of Bad Nanny, a two-part series about a woman named Samantha Cookes.
Cookes took some drastic measures to get easy money, including scamming families with disabled children by selling a fake trip to lapland.
Targeting families across the UK and Ireland from 2011 to 2024, Crooks had many online identities, including an arts teacher, a surrogate mother and a child therapist.
The majority of Cookes’ scams saw her pretending to be a nanny, offering parenting advice for parents. Featured in the documentary is North Yorkshire couple Katie and Luke, who talked to Cookes as she posed as a surrogate mother and stole all their savings.
Over in Ireland, County Offaly native and mum-of-three Layla met Cookes online, who was using the name ‘Lucy Hart’, and offered her a job at her home as a nanny.
Comparing her to Mary Poppins, Layla said that when she became suspicious of ‘Lucy’, she disappeared and was never seen again.
Dublin mums Lorraine and Lynn had a similar experience when they hired ‘Lucy Fitzwilliams’ as a child therapist for their disabled children, eventually handing over deposits for a fake trip to Lapland.
The two mums heard plenty of wild stories about ‘Lucy’, including that she was going to marry a pastor and was the heiress of a £3 million company.
Lorraine said: “She took advantage of people’s trust and their emotions and vulnerability.”
One of Cookes’ personas was Carrie Jade Williams, using TikTok to pose as the disability activist and terminally ill woman.
Things took a turn when one of her posts went viral and a number of internet sleuthes became determined to get to the truth of the matter.
It eventually emerged that Williams was actually Cookes, with her troubling history with fraud exposed. Cookes was handed a four-year prison sentence with the final year suspended earlier in the year, following her arrest in the town of Tralee last year. Among her charges was theft and welfare fraud.
Bad Nanny airs on Tuesday, July 8, at 10.45pm on BBC One and is available to stream now on the iPlayer