'I was scared con-artist would abduct my child'

Lynn McDonald was scammed by con-artist Samantha Cookes

A serial con-artist who posed as a child therapist and scammed families out of money for a fake trip to Lapland left people terrified, one of her victims has said.

Samantha Cookes used multiple identities - including a nanny, an arts teacher and a surrogate mother - to con families in the UK and Ireland between 2011 and 2024.

Over the years she has been convicted of multiple offences and was sentenced to three years in prison earlier in 2025 for social welfare fraud.

Now her victims have told a new documentary by the BBC and RTÉ about their ordeal with the serial scammer – including one mother who was so concerned about her nine-year-old's safety that she slept with a hatchet beside her bed.

Dublin woman Lynn McDonald told the filmmakers that Cookes, who was born in Gloucestershire, England, had developed a bond of trust with her daughter Ellie after they met in 2016.

But that bond unravelled after she and others discovered she was a scam artist.

Cookes, now 36, later fled, leaving Lynn worried "she would come back in the middle of the night and take my child".

Samantha Cookes scammed families in both the UK and Ireland

'She finds your weak point'

Lynn first met Cookes, who she knew as Lucy Fitzwilliams, in 2016.

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, Cookes came 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 meet her, knew what's really underneath that skin."

Hillery Geelan said she met Cookes when she was "desperate" for help

Hillery Geelan, another mother from Dublin who was deceived by Cookes, said: "She finds your weak point and your weak point is always going to be your children."

She said she was "desperate" for help with her son Rhys, who has autism, and had "nowhere else to turn".

Five planes to Lapland

Cookes earned the families' trust, seeking donations for a women's refuge and collecting money for the fake Lapland trip.

Lynn paid a deposit of £400 to Cookes.

However, her behaviour around the trip was starting to raise suspicions.

"Each one [of us] had involved other people, and each one of us who had involved other people had to collect the money," Hillery said.

"We started Googling how many seats were on airplanes but, by the sounds of it and the amount of people that we were involving, we had personally sold at least five airplanes."

In the end, the women discovered there was no Lapland trip and no women's refuge - although they had given Cookes donations of food, clothes and money.

When Cookes realised the families knew she was a scammer, she fled.

'Our home was on red alert'

Cookes, pictured before she moved to Ireland

Hillery said the families "lived in fear for a very long time" while Lynn recalled that Cookes had asked her to sign a consent form for the Lapland trip.

She did not sign it but the form, which would have allowed Cookes to take Ellie abroad without Lynn, raised her fears that the scammer could have tried to abduct her daughter.

"When you discover that Lapland isn't happening... you question: 'Why did she want consent to take my child abroad?'" Lynn said.

She said when Cookes fled, it left her afraid as nobody knew where she was.

"We had police circling our area, our home was on red alert, I had to have cameras put up around my home," she said.

The BBC put all of the allegations to Cookes, but she did not respond.

How was Samantha Cookes caught?

Cookes' story began to unravel further when she appeared on TikTok in 2022 under the name Carrie Jade Williams, giving an account of allegedly living with the degenerative Huntington's disease.

She received support and even financial aid, including welfare payments from the Irish state.

When one of her posts went viral, some social media sleuths discovered that Carrie Jade was not her real identity and she was faking her illness.

Lynn, Hillery and another woman affected by Cookes, after her sentencing in 2025

Women affected by her scams across the UK and Ireland set up a WhatsApp group called Scammed by Samantha.

"We've stopped talking about her and now we talk about ourselves," Hillery said.

Bad Nanny will be available on BBC iPlayer from Monday 12 May and the first episode will air on BBC One Northern Ireland on Wednesday 14 May at 22:40 BST.