Seeing_the_light
VIP Member
I'll send you an "I want to spend £250" postcard from Carrantha's website
(and gin - I've got a 17yr old too 
)
-
not-a-medical-Dr Jessica Taylor monetising the Russell Brand and David Walliams news is disgusting. She forced her vulnerable employees to sign an NDA to stop them whistle blowing. She threatened survivors of sexual abuse to sue them for “every single one of their assets” if they spoke up. She is one of the most dangerous people in the VAWG sector and does so much harm to women and girls.
- Notice
(and gin - I've got a 17yr old too )
Juune
Member
Re Netflix she has claimed they're doing a documentary on her and she's sold a script to them in different interviews. She can't keep on top of her lies at all. For basically everything she has said there is a contradiction, by her! When you are scamming for a career and you can't even keep your own lies straight, maybe time to look for something elsem
Squittel
VIP Member
From the Irish independent:
The serial fraudster, a bogus therapist and the trip to Lapland for vulnerable children that was never going to happen
British woman had been deceiving people across the country for years under various aliases, exploiting families for financial gain
Samantha Cookes has been deceiving people for years and has adopted a number of different aliases
Samantha Cookes has been deceiving people for years and has adopted a number of different aliases
Ellen Coyne
December 31 2022 02:30 AM
A serial fraudster collected the passport details of vulnerable and disabled Irish children under the guise of preparing them for a bogus trip to Lapland.
Samantha Cookes has been deceiving people across the country for at least eight years, and got access to Irish children while posing as an additional needs therapist and au pair.
She has previously been convicted of fraud after posing as a surrogate mother for a British couple.
One Dublin mother has revealed how she was persuaded to sign over her consent for Cookes to take her eight-year-old daughter out of the country.
Earlier this month, VICE News reported that Cookes was Carrie Jade Williams. She said she was a woman with a terminal illness who was being sued for “being disabled” by her Airbnb guests.
But the 34-year-old British woman has adopted a number of different aliases over the years.
In 2016, Cookes was living in Glenageary, south Dublin, and posing as an occupational therapist called Lucy Fitzwilliams.
Lynn McDonald, a mother living near Tallaght, was one of a number of women who was introduced to Cookes and believed her to be an occupational therapist.
“She’s dangerous. Financially, but also emotionally. She leaves a trail of destruction wherever she goes. And nobody is doing anything about it,” Ms McDonald said.
Ms McDonald – who has two children, Ellie, who was eight at the time, and Daisy, who was three and has a life-limiting condition called Rett syndrome – said: “She’s so clever, she will take someone’s story and extract what she needs, and then use it to move forward
with them.
“She took our vulnerabilities, and exploited them.”
She offered to look after Daisy, Ms McDonald’s very ill daughter.
“She risked my child,” Ms McDonald said, expressing relief that she never agreed to that offer.
“But I did take her up on the offer of art therapy for my oldest, Ellie. That still bothers me.”
Ellie was one of a number of local children who believed they were going to Lapland.
Cookes conned parents into believing she was a millionaire who was using her wealth to take a number of Irish families on the trip of a lifetime at a dramatically reduced rate.
Emails between Ms McDonald and “Lucy” discuss a detailed itinerary including husky parks, reindeer farms, sled rides and a visit to Santa.
In her emails to families, Cookes said that she and her pastor “fiancé” did not yet “have charity status” for their venture. “So I cannot, (and as a Christian will not) take monetary funding. The prices we are asking for the trips are the prices we are paying,” Cookes wrote, claiming she would take donations for a refuge that she was running instead.
Daisy was very ill at the time and was in and out of hospital. Ms McDonald was worried that if she was in hospital with Daisy when the trip came around, Ellie would not be able to go.
“‘Lucy’ had a wonderful solution,” Ms McDonald said. “‘Lucy’ was going to take hold of Ellie’s passport. And ‘Lucy’ asked for my signature on these forms she had brought up. So I would basically be giving her my consent to bring Ellie abroad.
“Thankfully, it all came out before we got to that stage. But you can imagine how this has affected me so much.”
By the August bank holiday of 2016, “Lucy” had taken in so many families with the Lapland scam that she was due to be given a cheque for deposits worth €20,000. As well as the deposits, she wanted copies of everyone’s passports and their passport numbers.
But just before what would have been a major windfall for the fraudster, Cookes collapsed in a bookshop in Dún Laoghaire and was taken to St Vincent’s Hospital.
While the collapse may have been genuine, around this time a number of women were becoming suspicious of “Lucy” and whether she was all that she claimed to be. Shortly after that she fled.
Several women reported Cookes to their local gardaí.
“When it all came out, the police were involved,” Ms McDonald said.
The family had serious anxiety about the fact they invited this stranger into their lives. They took measures to increase the security on their house, which was in an isolated area.
“I was terrified,” Ms McDonald said. “Terrified.” She said that even six years on, the incident has destroyed her trust in people.
A Garda spokesperson said that there were a “number” of prosecutions before the courts in 2019 relating to this individual.
“Court proceedings are a matter for the Courts Service of Ireland. An Garda Síochána does not comment on or verify details on persons of interest,” they said.
Previously, Cookes was handed a 14-week suspended sentence at the district court in Fermoy in 2019 after posing as a clinical child psychologist and persuading a family to pay her more than €800 for a report, with a view to getting their daughter a special needs assistant.
The court heard at the time that Cookes also stole a combined total of €1,400 from four different people in 2016.
In 2011, Cookes was convicted of defrauding a British couple of their savings by posing as a surrogate. She received a suspended sentence.
During the case, it was claimed that Cookes was suffering from psychiatric problems having lost a baby to cot death in 2008.
Earlier this year, Cookes was in Kenmare under the alias Carrie Jade Williams or Jade Williams.
This is the last known alias that Cookes used, and the one under which things would finally unravel for her.
She used the alias to build a national and international profile as a writer and disability advocate.
According to “Carrie”, she had received a devastating diagnosis of Huntington’s disease about three years ago. She has been interviewed about her disability and her activism by local, national and international media.
She claimed that after her diagnosis, she lost her voice and had to speak with the assistance of an eye-gaze board. She then claimed that she had been able to recover her speech, while also developing her own assistive technology. She has made contradictory claims about this technology.
She presented herself as a disability rights activist, published novelist and Netflix-commissioned screenwriter. She has won an Irish writing residency, and a prestigious essay competition in the Financial Times. She was stripped of her prize after evidence began circulating online that she was a fraudster.
Cookes has dragged two former landlords through the Residential Tenancies Board dispute process, despite the fact she did so under a false name.
Cookes also started renting out an apartment in Kenmare last March under the alias Carrie Jade Williams. “I thought I had met a nun,” said Tim Hourigan, her landlord. “I thought she was the best tenant, I thought I was made.”
Mr Hourigan recently learned that his property on Airbnb was being sub-let, under the name Jade Williams. Cookes is now taking Mr Hourigan through a dispute resolution process with the Residential Tenancies Board, under a fake name.
Cookes brought another former Kerry landlord through the same process, also under a fake name. The RTB said it does not comment on individual cases.
Cookes was a running a TikTok account, where she posed as disability advocate “Carrie” and spoke about her terminal illness.
Last summer, she posted a video where she claimed she was being sued for a “life-changing amount of money” by guests who had stayed at her Airbnb in Kenmare.
As the Airbnb story continued to spread, some people from “Carrie’s” past recognised her as Cookes.
A WhatsApp group has now been set up of about 16 people who have all been victims of Cookes’s deceptions. The majority of them are based in Ireland.
The group is determined to raise Cookes’s profile, to avoid the same thing happening to anyone else.
“Nothing will ever compensate for the damage that she did,” Ms McDonald said. “Six years later, it’s still affecting me. I’m still nervous, keeping an extra eye around.”
After it was claimed online that Cookes and Williams were the same person, a statement emerged in Williams’s name rejecting the claims. It claimed that Cookes was her sister. It made vague references to her “sister” having mental health problems, and made threats to sue for defamation.
The Irish Independent got in touch with Cookes and put a number of questions to her about the claims she had made as Carrie Jade Williams. Cookes claimed multiple times that her solicitor would be in contact with the paper. No correspondence arrived.
Ms Williams was also asked a number of times to provide contact information for her solicitor, but declined to do so.
Cookes did not respond to queries about her activities as Lucy Fitzwilliams, including working as an au pair and a therapist for children with additional needs.
The serial fraudster, a bogus therapist and the trip to Lapland for vulnerable children that was never going to happen
British woman had been deceiving people across the country for years under various aliases, exploiting families for financial gain
Samantha Cookes has been deceiving people for years and has adopted a number of different aliases
Samantha Cookes has been deceiving people for years and has adopted a number of different aliases
Ellen Coyne
December 31 2022 02:30 AM
A serial fraudster collected the passport details of vulnerable and disabled Irish children under the guise of preparing them for a bogus trip to Lapland.
Samantha Cookes has been deceiving people across the country for at least eight years, and got access to Irish children while posing as an additional needs therapist and au pair.
She has previously been convicted of fraud after posing as a surrogate mother for a British couple.
One Dublin mother has revealed how she was persuaded to sign over her consent for Cookes to take her eight-year-old daughter out of the country.
Earlier this month, VICE News reported that Cookes was Carrie Jade Williams. She said she was a woman with a terminal illness who was being sued for “being disabled” by her Airbnb guests.
But the 34-year-old British woman has adopted a number of different aliases over the years.
In 2016, Cookes was living in Glenageary, south Dublin, and posing as an occupational therapist called Lucy Fitzwilliams.
Lynn McDonald, a mother living near Tallaght, was one of a number of women who was introduced to Cookes and believed her to be an occupational therapist.
“She’s dangerous. Financially, but also emotionally. She leaves a trail of destruction wherever she goes. And nobody is doing anything about it,” Ms McDonald said.
Ms McDonald – who has two children, Ellie, who was eight at the time, and Daisy, who was three and has a life-limiting condition called Rett syndrome – said: “She’s so clever, she will take someone’s story and extract what she needs, and then use it to move forward
with them.
“She took our vulnerabilities, and exploited them.”
She offered to look after Daisy, Ms McDonald’s very ill daughter.
“She risked my child,” Ms McDonald said, expressing relief that she never agreed to that offer.
“But I did take her up on the offer of art therapy for my oldest, Ellie. That still bothers me.”
Ellie was one of a number of local children who believed they were going to Lapland.
Cookes conned parents into believing she was a millionaire who was using her wealth to take a number of Irish families on the trip of a lifetime at a dramatically reduced rate.
Emails between Ms McDonald and “Lucy” discuss a detailed itinerary including husky parks, reindeer farms, sled rides and a visit to Santa.
In her emails to families, Cookes said that she and her pastor “fiancé” did not yet “have charity status” for their venture. “So I cannot, (and as a Christian will not) take monetary funding. The prices we are asking for the trips are the prices we are paying,” Cookes wrote, claiming she would take donations for a refuge that she was running instead.
Daisy was very ill at the time and was in and out of hospital. Ms McDonald was worried that if she was in hospital with Daisy when the trip came around, Ellie would not be able to go.
“‘Lucy’ had a wonderful solution,” Ms McDonald said. “‘Lucy’ was going to take hold of Ellie’s passport. And ‘Lucy’ asked for my signature on these forms she had brought up. So I would basically be giving her my consent to bring Ellie abroad.
“Thankfully, it all came out before we got to that stage. But you can imagine how this has affected me so much.”
By the August bank holiday of 2016, “Lucy” had taken in so many families with the Lapland scam that she was due to be given a cheque for deposits worth €20,000. As well as the deposits, she wanted copies of everyone’s passports and their passport numbers.
But just before what would have been a major windfall for the fraudster, Cookes collapsed in a bookshop in Dún Laoghaire and was taken to St Vincent’s Hospital.
While the collapse may have been genuine, around this time a number of women were becoming suspicious of “Lucy” and whether she was all that she claimed to be. Shortly after that she fled.
Several women reported Cookes to their local gardaí.
“When it all came out, the police were involved,” Ms McDonald said.
The family had serious anxiety about the fact they invited this stranger into their lives. They took measures to increase the security on their house, which was in an isolated area.
“I was terrified,” Ms McDonald said. “Terrified.” She said that even six years on, the incident has destroyed her trust in people.
A Garda spokesperson said that there were a “number” of prosecutions before the courts in 2019 relating to this individual.
“Court proceedings are a matter for the Courts Service of Ireland. An Garda Síochána does not comment on or verify details on persons of interest,” they said.
Previously, Cookes was handed a 14-week suspended sentence at the district court in Fermoy in 2019 after posing as a clinical child psychologist and persuading a family to pay her more than €800 for a report, with a view to getting their daughter a special needs assistant.
The court heard at the time that Cookes also stole a combined total of €1,400 from four different people in 2016.
In 2011, Cookes was convicted of defrauding a British couple of their savings by posing as a surrogate. She received a suspended sentence.
During the case, it was claimed that Cookes was suffering from psychiatric problems having lost a baby to cot death in 2008.
Earlier this year, Cookes was in Kenmare under the alias Carrie Jade Williams or Jade Williams.
This is the last known alias that Cookes used, and the one under which things would finally unravel for her.
She used the alias to build a national and international profile as a writer and disability advocate.
According to “Carrie”, she had received a devastating diagnosis of Huntington’s disease about three years ago. She has been interviewed about her disability and her activism by local, national and international media.
She claimed that after her diagnosis, she lost her voice and had to speak with the assistance of an eye-gaze board. She then claimed that she had been able to recover her speech, while also developing her own assistive technology. She has made contradictory claims about this technology.
She presented herself as a disability rights activist, published novelist and Netflix-commissioned screenwriter. She has won an Irish writing residency, and a prestigious essay competition in the Financial Times. She was stripped of her prize after evidence began circulating online that she was a fraudster.
Cookes has dragged two former landlords through the Residential Tenancies Board dispute process, despite the fact she did so under a false name.
Cookes also started renting out an apartment in Kenmare last March under the alias Carrie Jade Williams. “I thought I had met a nun,” said Tim Hourigan, her landlord. “I thought she was the best tenant, I thought I was made.”
Mr Hourigan recently learned that his property on Airbnb was being sub-let, under the name Jade Williams. Cookes is now taking Mr Hourigan through a dispute resolution process with the Residential Tenancies Board, under a fake name.
Cookes brought another former Kerry landlord through the same process, also under a fake name. The RTB said it does not comment on individual cases.
Cookes was a running a TikTok account, where she posed as disability advocate “Carrie” and spoke about her terminal illness.
Last summer, she posted a video where she claimed she was being sued for a “life-changing amount of money” by guests who had stayed at her Airbnb in Kenmare.
As the Airbnb story continued to spread, some people from “Carrie’s” past recognised her as Cookes.
A WhatsApp group has now been set up of about 16 people who have all been victims of Cookes’s deceptions. The majority of them are based in Ireland.
The group is determined to raise Cookes’s profile, to avoid the same thing happening to anyone else.
“Nothing will ever compensate for the damage that she did,” Ms McDonald said. “Six years later, it’s still affecting me. I’m still nervous, keeping an extra eye around.”
After it was claimed online that Cookes and Williams were the same person, a statement emerged in Williams’s name rejecting the claims. It claimed that Cookes was her sister. It made vague references to her “sister” having mental health problems, and made threats to sue for defamation.
The Irish Independent got in touch with Cookes and put a number of questions to her about the claims she had made as Carrie Jade Williams. Cookes claimed multiple times that her solicitor would be in contact with the paper. No correspondence arrived.
Ms Williams was also asked a number of times to provide contact information for her solicitor, but declined to do so.
Cookes did not respond to queries about her activities as Lucy Fitzwilliams, including working as an au pair and a therapist for children with additional needs.
Attachments
Seeing_the_light
VIP Member
Or was 10-15 years ago... but I was also younger and lighter then
Squittel
VIP Member
Notes on the live last night:
For the purpose of this write up I’m taking everything that was said at face value. I’m also going to just refer to her as Carrie.
- as an au pair Carrie first got found out to be a fake because of a taxi driver’s suspicions. He overheard her saying a few different things with regards to her job title. At one point she claimed to be a speech therapist, at other points she claimed to be an occupational therapist, amongst other things.
For the purpose of this write up I’m taking everything that was said at face value. I’m also going to just refer to her as Carrie.
- as an au pair Carrie first got found out to be a fake because of a taxi driver’s suspicions. He overheard her saying a few different things with regards to her job title. At one point she claimed to be a speech therapist, at other points she claimed to be an occupational therapist, amongst other things.
- Carrie’s cousin was present in the live. When Carrie’s cousin brought up to Carrie’s brother that Carrie was up to no good again his response was “I guess she’s used up her inheritance then”
- A school friend in the chat commented “she claimed to have a serious illness when she was younger. We all believed it.”
- The same school friend also commented that she always had an obsession with children and having children.
- The article is coming but could be a while off due to the volume of information that the journo has received and she has to keep fact checking
- One of her old employers entered the chat, known only as Dot. Dot said Carrie accused her children of stealing an engagement ring that she had from her fiancé who had committed suicide. When asked whether Carrie at least treated her children well her response was “debatable”
- The person mentioned above is someone both creators have spoken to at great length - I believe her to be true.
- Carries mother has asked for the creator known as Olivia to get in contact with her.
Hmmm?
VIP Member
It seems to be that the only reason that so many people are sticking up for this woman and defending her so righteously is purely because there is disability mentioned within the story.
So apparently, if a person who is disabled (or perhaps not to be truthful) can’t lie or be fraudulent? I mean, please ffs!!
So apparently, if a person who is disabled (or perhaps not to be truthful) can’t lie or be fraudulent? I mean, please ffs!!
femmegirly
VIP Member
The bereavement could be the cot death that is the reason ‘Samantha Cookes’ avoided jail for the surrogacy scam.
I'm not Putin
VIP Member
I think this lobby group was a load of bs too personally
polarbearninja
Well-known member
When I googled Nathaniel Vanderbilt it came up with someone from Gossip Girl soI thought her shaky voice was because of her HD, but she’s got it in this video from whenever the ice bucket challenge was popular, so 7/8 years ago? Notice the friend she nominated had the ‘Williams’ surname. I’m betting both the people she nominated don’t exist.
Getting outed by the ice bucket challenge tho
Bunbun1
Chatty Member
I’m kinda hoping that Netflix have been doing a documentary and they’ve been filming it throughout the past weeks while she’s been claiming she’s being sued and there’s lots of footage of them talking to each other like “somethings not right…” and we get to see the film makers go from thinking they are making a documentary about assistive tech to realising they’re in the epicentre of this con.
kinda like a catfish thing.
Unfortunately there’s probably zero chance of that happening but it would be good TV.
kinda like a catfish thing.
Unfortunately there’s probably zero chance of that happening but it would be good TV.
Squittel
VIP Member
With the guy who left the review saying that he was 15 minutes late and she cancelled the booking, the way I read it was that she has (due to the very low price she charges) a strict check in time and he had asked for it to be made significantly later which she accommodated, then he asked for it to be made later again, which she also accommodated and then he was still late which was the point she cancelled the booking? I don’t think that makes her a bad host, I can see why you wouldn’t want a male guest (or anyone) checking in late at night if you’re on your own (though she does mention a partner) and when you have a host greeting they do often ask you for a time of arrival to show you round etc.
With the French review it is odd, but again it’s basically their word against hers, they could just as easily of been lying.
I don’t know, I guess I feel like there must be some basis of truth in this, because if there isn’t the whole thing is batshit.
With the French review it is odd, but again it’s basically their word against hers, they could just as easily of been lying.
I don’t know, I guess I feel like there must be some basis of truth in this, because if there isn’t the whole thing is batshit.
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Squittel
VIP Member
Yeah, there would have to be some really dancing language to be able to write an article that won’t land you in the shit. A lot of “allegedly” and “a relative who didn’t want to be named” etc. With all of that, the article could easily just come across as speculation. The [possible] extent of the lies will be very hard to prove beyond doubt.
The only way to create a credible article would be if she’s really managed to map out this woman’s life, with photos, an interview with someone like her mother, and evidence of other scams and/or munchie tendencies.
And while I personally no longer find most of Carrie’s story plausible, it is possible that that her being this Samantha doesn’t mean that she is a scammer today. And an expose on someone who is actually terminally ill would not make anyone look good.
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WhatABore
VIP Member
The thing that made me question her having the condition slightly is that she's constantly repeating that she wasnt in it for the money and no point in counter suing them because she won't see the money. She then mentioned in several videos that she probably won't even make it to the court case.
She only got diagnosed 2/3 years ago and she still seems quite abled in the sense of her speaking and knowing what she's talking about ect. So it doesn't appear, if she does have Huntingtons. Which based on things she's said put her around stage 2.
Which is usually between 3 and 14 years after the start of symptoms. Usually the younger you're diagnosed, the longer it takes. Obviously not always the case.
She keeps talking as if she isn't going to be here in a year or so's time.
She has another 3 stages to go through yet. The last one being end of life care, which that in itself, usually lasts a few years.
From getting symptoms, the average life expectancy on average is 20 years.
Again, obviously there are some occasions where people will go through these stages a lot quicker but she is no further than stage 3 at the most. So to be saying she won't even be around for the court case or for any money seemed a bit odd to me.
There is also no way to know how long it's going to take yet she seemed so certain she wouldn't be here in a year or so
Squittel
VIP Member
Well, something that the two creators noted was that Carrie’s mother put Olivia in quotation marks. So her email back to them was something along the lines of “if you speak to “Olivia” pass her email address onto her so she can speak to me directly.”
I’ll go through the rest of my recording for any more interesting factoids. I don’t think the two creators mind because nothing they said was anything they shouldn’t have said and they were very balanced throughout, but they did give a pretty good timeline on when she went by different names. They are invested in this because of the money they’ve lost in the process and are just trying their best to get answers and they’ve done a pretty good job so far.
Justacatindisguise
VIP Member
Yeah, it definitely wasn't where I expected this to go and apologise for sharing those notes. Not that it's an excuse but it is something I now recognise was probably ADHD impulse control/dopamine chasing issues that I need work on, as well as being angry at all the ableism. I certainly wasn't gleeful about the lack of baby records on Ancestry, mainly interested in matching up details with the court case, but I suppose I'd prefer it if she hadn't actually lost a baby? Same as I don't want her to actually have HD if that makes sense. Awful thing to lie about but worse to have actually experienced.
I can understand why the notes were originally posted. The #BeKind crew had been attacking this woman for days for trying to figure out if she'd been scammed (remember, it's sensory stuff people are ordering for their disabled kids' Christmas presents) and demanding evidence. They got it, it just turned out to be horrifying. Newforestsara is still encouraging people to order from Carrantha.
She's definitely seriously ill, it's easy to see where it escalated now and I hope she gets the help she obviously needs too. This has got so much bigger than I expected so I'm gonna take a step back before I cross any more lines. She has done bad things but the people who've given her money have the info they need now. I'm really sorry if I upset anyone.
butterfliesandhurricanes
VIP Member
I just saw it. lol “I can neither confirm nor deny that she is the person in question I can confirm that the surrogacy story is true” okay you just confirmed it then
In the comments she says she hasn’t seen her since childhood. What’s the betting this is a fake profile
brntxxloz98
New member
Makes me laugh that people are so insistent that anyone who doubts her bullshit story MUST
provide cold hard evidence that she’s lying, where is carrantha’s cold hard evidence that she’s truthing?!? These are the types of people who genuinely believe the government cares about them
provide cold hard evidence that she’s lying, where is carrantha’s cold hard evidence that she’s truthing?!? These are the types of people who genuinely believe the government cares about them
duggee_hug
Active member
Correct me if I’m wrong but does anyone find her statement contradictive?
She wasn’t aware of the full history of her sister’s mental health difficulties, but in the next breath is saying that she’s had a long history of mental health difficulties and hasn’t had any legal trouble in a decade. Surely if she knew of her legal woes, she’d know of her mental difficulties no?
She wasn’t aware of the full history of her sister’s mental health difficulties, but in the next breath is saying that she’s had a long history of mental health difficulties and hasn’t had any legal trouble in a decade. Surely if she knew of her legal woes, she’d know of her mental difficulties no?
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gossip_geeewww
VIP Member
Anyone else chuckling to themselves in the article when KD visited Carrie and KD had a text saying about the doorbell allegedly sending her notifications that she had visited. Like was that the ‘accessible doorbell’ then Carrie/Sam? Made myself laugh at that
Sandor
Well-known member
I think it seems as impulsive as it does compulsive. Like she was annoyed at the review (because she knew she was in the wrong) and instead of being able to admit she’d made a mistake, she threw herself all in, and then the calculated stuff began.
There was also a very careful not disclosing of anything that identifiable. Vague about her job, vague about her husband. Didn’t want the press involved even though it was the kind of thing where press would have helped.
There was also a very careful not disclosing of anything that identifiable. Vague about her job, vague about her husband. Didn’t want the press involved even though it was the kind of thing where press would have helped.