Living in Ireland for a decade, the compulsive liar - now in prison for social welfare fraud - deceived almost everyone she met
Living in Ireland for a decade and now in prison in Limerick for social welfare fraud, Cookes deceived almost everyone she met
While claiming to be from great riches, she defrauded people she met of relatively small sums of money: €840 in one case, £1,200 in another, though she soon upped her game.The author of Pathological Lying: Theory, Research, and Practice, Texas-based psychologist Dr Drew Curtis, has written the book on pathological lying. Within the group of “typical” pathological liars, there is a “pseudologia fantastica” subset, he said.
“For individuals with narcissistic personality disorder or antisocial personality disorder, they are lying specifically for control. They’re trying to manipulate someone else. For antisocial personality disorder, what we might refer to as psychopathy – psychopaths – they will lie in the realm of control. But we see almost the opposite for pathological liars. They’re lying at every turn, they’re out of control.
“They have to be able to read other people; what works , what doesn’t. It’s an intuition, a gut feeling, it’s a feral quality, so to speak. Somewhere along the line, they figure out what works. Generally with someone who is sociopathic ... they are exploitative on purpose,” said Dr Mullen. In 2011, Cookes was convicted of fraud in Britain after taking money from a couple who wanted to enter into a surrogacy arrangement with her. After taking an initial £1,200 from them, Cookes discontinued contact with them. A nine-month sentence was fully suspended.
She presented using the names Lucy Fitzwilliams, Lucy Hart, Lucy Fitzpatrick, Sadie Harris, Rebecca Fitzpatrick and Carrie Jade Williams. By early 2017 she was working as a live-in au pair in Cork, under the name Rebecca Fitzgerald. She was telling people she was a child psychologist, even carrying out an assessment on a child with special needs and charging the family €840.
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