Original subtitles

[Jo Mapp] This is the cafe that Nicole Elkabbas

brought me to when she told me she had cancer.

I was devastated.

I put myself in her shoes.

If I was in that position, how would feel?

There was no type of treatment in the UK for what she needed.

And she said she would need to go abroad.

But that we needed to raise some funds.

[Marc Hebden] There was an instant awareness

about raising as much money as possible

to be able to keep her alive.

[Marc Cananur] Her digital footprint online

was an individual who was professional,

was someone who you wouldn't suspect,

was anything other than a decent member of the community.

Lo and behold, she was the polar opposite.

[Jo] It was all calculated from the beginning.

She knew who to target. She knew what to say.

Was it... pure greed? Was it debt?

What was it?

I fell for the oldest trick in the book.

[interviewer] Comfy?

Absolutely.

My name is Jo Mapp.

So we were in Thanet,

which is Broadstairs, Margate and Ramsgate.

Broadstairs is a really lovely seaside town.

Lots of nice, little restaurants.

Nice, little scene going on over there.

Few bars and things.

It's a really nice, little place to live.

I met Nicole when I moved back from Spain 11 years ago.

Um, my son, youngest son, was three at the time.

So he started at the nursery around the corner.

Um, so within...

a couple of weeks I'd been back, I met Nicole,

because she had a son who was also at Montessori nursery.

[Jo] I always thought Nicole seemed like a really, really good mom.

Um, she was definitely involved...

very heavily with his education.

Um, she had told me at one point that

she was gonna send her son to private school.

And when I questioned how expensive that would be,

she told me that he was very gifted in math

and that he'd get a scholarship.

She's very attractive, very well turned out.

She is a Londoner.

She also had connections to Spain.

I think her family had been living in Spain or something like that.

So we had so much in common,

um, that we just hit it off straight away.

She's quite funny, she's quite vivacious.

We kind of got on... pretty well.

[interviewer] How are you today?

I'm good, I'm good. Thanks.

My name's Marc Hebden.

Um... I'm a... musician.

I met Nicole in a pub in Ramsgate.

I remember her to be very, sort of, eloquent.

Seemed... well-educated,

and came over...

strongly as a business woman.

She asked me what I did,

and, um...

she said, "I know a lot of people that business,"

"and there's all sorts of things and events that I'm gonna be promoting...

in the future, in the Thanet area."

Nicole told me that she had formerly worked at Harrods

and so had I.

In fashion or buying.

She was really friendly with Mohamed al-Fayed

that she knew him really well.

Um...

And he was, sort of, on speed dial

and she used to talk to him quite a lot.

And she was really well thought of within the Harrods, kind of, brand

and within the Harrods family.

She was always a bit elusive,

because she... wasn't doing that...

job anymore.

So it was really unclear what she was doing.

But she did always seem so quite well-groomed, well turned out.

[Marc] She came over as very well connected.

And she did namedrop a few people in the music business that I knew of.

She would talk about Sacha Baron Cohen.

She also spoke about some actors and comedians.

Nicole tries to position herself

with people who are prosperous, who are...

successful, who are quite wealthy.

So I think by association, she tries to portray a similar image.

An image of somebody who is well-to-do,

somebody who is successful.

[Marc] Nicole mentioned where she lived in Broadstairs.

And it's a very nice street.

[Michael Drummond] It wasn't just Nicole that lived in Broadstairs,

her mother, who she was very close to, lived there as well.

And they were often seen together out, walking about

and spending time together.

Couple of years into knowing Nicole, she, um...

had told me that she had moved to quite a big house.

So, um, she invited me around

for a playdate with the boys.

Um, and when I arrived,

it was, it was a block of flats.

And I kind of thought that was odd.

But she had said, "Oh, this is a friend's flat that I'm living in for a while."

'He's let me have it rent-free while I'm waiting for my house to be finished."

[Marc] One day, I was talking to Nicole,

there was a big fight coming up.

She said, "I'm gonna put some money on this boxer

and it's gonna be about £10,000."

I know some quite heavy hitters with gambling.

I mean, I've seen people win 50 grand before, but...

Um... so...

Okay, you know, people do it.

If they have the money, they do it.

Nicole had claimed to Marc

that she'd bet £10,000 on a boxing match.

I think this is an insight into her personality.

She's obviously somebody that likes to take risks.

So high risk, high reward activities.

It also shows to a degree that she

has a lack of fear in her day-to-day living.

Nicole was active in the local community in Broadstairs,

organizing charity events and raising money for good causes.

And that's how people thought of her.

Connecting them with causes that they would want to support.

Nicole had told me that she was a comedy actress.

[in Scottish accent] Anyway, so yesterday, I spoke to Dave,

and I've, kind of, come to the conclusion

that Dave and I just didn't work.

[in Caribbean accent] Everywhere we can go,

me can't find anybody that me cook for

some serious dumpling.

[in Middle Eastern accent] Ask me, why you don't want

to come down to other side of London?

It's me near...

I thought she was quite talented.

And I thought, well, she must have had some sort of training in this.

[Jo] Nicole had asked whether she could book out Ramsgate Musical

for her comedy event.

And she was, sort of, headlining as the star of the show.

She would try out her comedy

and get other bands and local musicians

to get involved as well.

So she could, you know, highlight them.

"Around the World in One Hour."

It was gonna be a comedy from around the world.

It was Nicole standing up, doing various accents.

She told me that sort of famous people would be attending.

She gave me, um...

a guest list

that people that she thought might come along.

Um... and she had put things on this

such as like the Appletons,

Meg Matthews,

and all of these, kind of, stars.

Even though Nicole considered herself the headline act.

I think that Nicole that night really enjoyed

the attention,

everybody looking at her, being the center of what was going on.

She enjoyed the fact that she had put on an event.

And everybody was telling her how great it was

to highlight the work of the young people in our area.

So there were no alarm bells for me during that time.

I don't know whether anything that she told me was true now.

I don't know whether she really was from London.

I don't know whether she had connections in Spain.

Her whole history could be made up.

None of it could be true.

Or some of it could be true, I don't know.

[Jo] Nicole and I were pretty close.

It felt really nice to have...

somebody that I could relate to.

She approached me about a gala boxing event night

that she wanted to hold.

[Marc] She said to me that she was going to be doing some...

charity raising events.

One in particular for the Broadstairs Town Shed.

You know, a really... a really good thing.

'cause the Broadstairs Town Shed

is about elderly men

being able to do carpentry and different things.

And also to be able to connect with different people.

[Jo] The event took place in the Winter Gardens in Margate.

All her connections in the boxing industry were going to be there.

And there was going to be an auction.

They were going to sell off tickets for the night.

And it was gonna be, sort of "booked out."

I was involved in a very serious road incident

several years back.

Um, and I lost mobility.

Then I realized at the time, and especially after,

how quickly one can become depressed and how it can spiral.

Nicole comes across really well in the promotional video.

She seems like somebody who's credible, who's believable.

She's quite eloquent in the way that she speaks.

So to all intents and purposes,

there's no reason to suspect there's anything

sinister or fraudulent going on behind the scenes.

So when I went to the Shed and I saw the work that they do,

and how it changes lives,

Um...

I realized, "Gosh, that was a similar situation a lot of them were in that I was in."

So I could relate.

Um, and I thought, well, how can I actually help?

When we look at Nicole's involvement in the promotional boxing video,

it shows another aspect to her personality.

Not only is she trying to portray herself as somebody who's

quite glamours and successful,

but also that she has a socially conscious side.

So she's going out of her way to contribute to this event

to try and raise money for charity.

I went to the boxing night at Winter Gardens in Margate, yeah.

[indistinct chatter]

I remember rightly something went wrong with the boxing night though.

Although there were some bouts,

it didn't quite pan out as it should've been.

There were meant to be certain celebrities...

uh, arriving.

But I didn't see any.

It wasn't a success. There weren't many people there,

and there certainly... it wasn't the star-studded gala boxing event

that she had been promoting.

A few years ago, a mutual friend of ours passed away.

And we were at her funeral.

Um...

So, literally, just as we walked outside to view the flowers

and to talk to the family,

Nicole told me then that her cancer had returned.

And I could remember thinking,

"Oh my God," you know, "I didn't know you had cancer."

"What kind of friend am I that I've missed something as big as that?"

I was like, "Oh, my God, I'm so sorry."

The fact that she was talking about cancer

resonated massively with me.

Because I had lost a friend, I think, less than a year before.

And I just put myself in her shoes, "How would I feel?"

If the prospect of my life been shortened and not spending,

that time with my son,

how would I feel about that?

I think the very fact that Nicole approached other people

at a funeral is quite telling.

She would've known that this is a very vulnerable time.

People are quite contemplative about mortality at a funeral,

their own and other people's.

So they might be more generous.

They might have heightened sense of empathy at that time.

[Jo] I left the funeral feeling pretty devastated for her.

Um, and within a couple of days,

I was on the phone to her, asking her how I could help her?

If there's anything that I could do or the community could do?

She asked me to meet her in a friend's cafe,

which I did.

Um, so we sat there and...

I was crying.

And she was just amazingly strong.

She was saying that she's completely changed her diet.

She has done so much research

that she knows that there's a cure out there for her.

But the particular medicine, the medication that she needed,

and the treatment that she needed was really expensive.

So from there, we began to formulate little plans

about how we could make money, how we could raise money.

There had been a GoFundMe page set up by her mom,

saying that she wanted to save her daughter.

When I read through it, it was quite heartbreaking.

She spoke so tenderly of what a great daughter her Nicole was.

Um, and it really tugged on your heartstrings. It was---

Particularly me, because we were the same age.

Our children were the same age.

I just remember the picture of Nicole

in hospital with the drips and everything else

coming out of her body and her looking very unwell.

And saying, she needed funds for medicines.

I think it was 40,000 euros for the surgery.

And then she needed...

about £13,000 a month

for the medicine.

And it was over quite a few months.

She had written every medical term down.

She had a list of medication that she would need.

Where she would need to go for treatment.

Where the best treatment was.

She knew everything.

She raised the subject about needing to get some funds desperately.

Um, and that she needed funds by X amount, like, a certain day

to secure the drugs that she needed.

One day, she called me at home.

And she was in a panic,

saying that she needed, I think it was, £5,000 by Friday

and could I give it to her?

Because money hadn't come through that she needed for treatment

and she was in a bit of a pickle.

Um, and I said to her, I don't have that kind of money just at hand.

So I told her that I had probably a couple of thousand at the most

that I could put into her account.

But it wasn't my money.

So I needed the money back by the Friday,

which she agreed to.

The Friday came and I got in contact with her and said I need the money.

She said, just give me the weekend, which was fine.

Um, and then by the weekend, she put the money back into my account.

[Jo] Nicole went off for treatment.

And she had said that she had to go to a specialist hospital,

specialist cancer treatment hospital,

they were really advanced and they were in Spain.

So Nicole was updating everybody,

um, via the GoFundMe page.

And she was always putting on...

very inspirational messages.

She never felt sorry for herself.

She was always, "I'm a fighter," "I'm doing this..."

Um, you know, "An extra day is amazing."

It was really inspirational.

As Nicole first starts telling people

she's having multiple rounds of chemotherapy,

she talks about this so-called wonder drug

that would be really able to help her.

What Nicole was saying about being diagnosed

and needing treatment for cancer resonated with people.

The people she told in Broadstairs

were really affected by it.

Regular posts would appear on it.

And these were really shared among the local community.

It really felt like the Broadstairs community

wrapped their arms around Nicole

and brought her along with them.

People would share it, people would repost it.

And that only resulted in more donations.

It's not unusual for us to be asked for help on social media.

There are often requests for different types of charity.

I think Nicole has positioned herself

very well in this, kind of, context.

So she comes across through the posts as being

somebody with children.

She's described as a beautiful daughter.

So I think this really pulls at one's heartstrings.

It makes...

the average person less likely to just scroll past

and actually engage with her story.

And feel generous and feel this empathy with her situation.

And when you see a victim like Nicole,

who supposedly has this cancer diagnosis,

there's also a time pressure.

People know that they want to help.

If they want to donate to the cause,

there's not much time

if he's actually genuinely unwell.

So there's a psychological added layer of pressure.

Nicole and I were talking and she mentioned

that she had had to be operated on in Margate.

I was, um, obviously...

quite devastated really,

as you would be for anyone that you knew.

'Cause... you know, it's something that's...

you know, you just don't know where it's gonna go.

So, yeah, of course, I felt for her greatly.

And she said to me,

"I'm going to be having the operation tomorrow."

So I thought, right, I'll just leave it one day

and then I'll go over and visit her.

She said, "Oh, there's no need for that.

We don't want a lot of people here.

My mother's here with me. And I got family here.

And I don't really wanna make--"

You know, "I need to rest.

I don't wanna make a big thing of this."

Then I thought, what I'll do is I'll go up,

I'll take a little bunch of flowers.

I remember the nurse that was on duty,

sort of, getting out this clipboard.

And there were quite a few names on it.

She said, "We haven't got anyone here of that name."

And I said,

"Yeah, she had an operation for an ovarian cancer yesterday."

And she said, "No. There's... there's nobody here of that name."

During the whole period

that Nicole was suffering from cancer,

she had, um...

she had done various events, I think so.

Or that people had done some things for her.

And the main thrust of the whole, um...

sort of, donation was going to GoFundMe.

So lots of people were sharing her story on their page.

And they were going to the GoFundMe page

to donate to her.

Um, during this time, she was mainly talking to me about keeping mentally focused,

talking to me about eating really well,

juicing, putting lots of inspirational pictures up on her Instagram.

[Marc] In the community where I live,

there was an instant, um...

sort of awareness about raising as much money as possible for Nicole

to be able to keep her alive.

and a lot of people

donated a lot of money.

I didn't have any money at the time,

so I think I gave 30 quid for her. [chuckles]

But if I'd had money,

I would've definitely tried to give more, you know.

I gave it to the GoFundMe page.

Good friend of mine

who had actually

never met Nicole,

but, I think, knew of her through boxing circles,

donated £1,000.

He sent it directly to her account.

[Jo] I came to hold an event at Ramsgate Music Hall.

So my idea was to just put

a big fundraising bowl on the bar

because Nicole was away.

She told me she was ill, so she couldn't attend.

Um, and Ramsgate Music Hall, uh, customers

put money into, um, a big pot for her.

And I think at the end of that night,

we had a couple of hundred pounds.

When we look at Nicole's opportunity,

this is quite vast, it's quite widespread.

She's put out these social media posts

knowing that, potentially, they could spread across the entire globe.

There's lots of potential victims

that might donate small amounts of money,

but over time, in totality,

it could actually be quite a big payday for her.

I think the GoFundMe page got up to about 600 people donating in the end,

um, and I think there was about £45,000 in there.

[Jo] After all the money was raised,

Nicole was updating everybody, um, via the GoFundMe page,

and she was always putting on

very inspirational messages.

She never felt sorry for herself,

she was always, "I'm a fighter,"

"I'm doing this," um, you know,

"An extra day is amazing."

So there were no alarm bells for me during that time.

However, when she came back from her treatment,

[clicks tongue] she came to see me

round Ramsgate Music Hall again one evening,

and this sounds awful, but she looked amazing.

She had... Her skin was beautiful,

her hair was amazing, she'd lost weight, she just...

And I didn't want to say to her,

"My God, you've lost weight, but you look absolutely amazing."

I didn't know what to say because I thought it was, you know,

a really delicate situation.

And it was a friend that said to me,

"That doesn't seem right, does it,

that she would look that well after such..."

'Cause her treatment, apparently, was quite invasive and quite difficult.

[Drummond] The hospital bed picture is key in this case.

She puts it up on the GoFundMe page,

the GoFundMe page goes all the way around Broadstairs,

this close community,

and it makes its way to one of the doctors who treated her.

They look at the picture and think, "Something's not right,"

and they inform the police.

So we first became aware of Nicole Elkabbas

as a result of a referral from the NHS.

A referral as a result of a concern

that Nicole Elkabbas was claiming

that she had ovarian cancer.

'Cause we had Nicole Elkabbas

on a GoFundMe webpage which was live,

showing her lying in a hospital bed,

essentially looking really ill.

We needed to be categorically sure

that Nicole was not suffering with cancer.

Dr. Ross had raised an alarm because he had treated her

in December 2017 for gall bladder removal

at a hospital in Margate,

and Nicole would claim that she was suffering with cancer.

So like any diligent, responsible NHS professional,

she was tested for various forms of cancer as well.

Categorically, it came back that she was not suffering

with any ovarian cancer whatsoever.

She was merely there for gall bladder removal.

When we looked at the GoFundMe page, it had an image

which suggested that she was abroad, having treatment.

However, like any detective,

if you look at the fine-grained detail

behind the obvious image of Nicole,

you'd see certain things

like the 3-pin plug, which suggests it was in the UK.

We went to that hospital,

we identified the distinctive wallpaper, we identified the room,

and lo and behold,

that confirmed that Nicole was there for gall stone removal

as opposed to suffering with ovarian cancer.

So now we were satisfied

that, in fact, we were dealing with a fraud.

It was really important to make sure

that the GoFundMe page was stopped

to prevent further people losing money.

These donors were donating on a daily basis,

so we reached out to GoFundMe

and made sure that that website page was shut down immediately.

So we knew where Nicole was living.

She was living with her son, mom and dad,

a very nice family home in Broadstairs.

So we went

early one morning,

knocked on that door, and lo and behold,

the mom opened the door and had no knowledge of this scam

because they thought their daughter was suffering with cancer,

so it had a massive shock on them immediately.

And to be confronted first thing in the morning

with police officers at your door,

it was really a stressful experience.

So really delicate, sensitive situation for us.

Nicole was arrested immediately for fraud,

Nicole was brought into custody at a local police station

and she was interviewed in the presence of a solicitor,

and the investigating officers.

She was essentially very convincing.

An individual who is adamant she was suffering with ovarian cancer,

provided the timeline around where she'd gone,

and when and who she'd interacted with.

She mentioned the Teknon hospital in Spain

where she was regularly going for treatment.

She mentioned a Dr. Suarez who was treating her

to, hopefully, prevent herself from dying of cancer.

Now she was that convincing.

In fact, when the investigating officers came back to me,

they were concerned, in fact,

that we may be dealing with a cancer patient as opposed to a fraudster.

She listed specific medication which she was having,

test results,

details of how much medical treatment she needed

on a regular basis.

And real finite detail about exact cost implications per month.

[Jo] A friend sent an article over to me where it said

that, um, "Local woman,"

and it mentioned Nicole Elkabbas

had been, um, arrested for fraud,

saying that she had got everybody

to believe she had cancer

and raised a whole lot of money,

but hadn't used any of the money for cancer treatment.

I didn't believe it.

I absolutely didn't believe it.

And friends were saying to me, "But it's in black and white." And I was like, "No.

They are saying she's been arrested for that,

they haven't proven anything."

Um, so I absolutely still didn't believe it.

I wasn't really suspicious myself, to be honest,

until I actually heard that she'd been nicked.

I wasn't quite sure whether to believe it at first or not,

and I thought it could've been some hearsay locally

or, you know, a rumor had began.

But it quickly escalated.

After I read the article,

um, which I didn't believe,

I sent Nicole a message on Facebook.

And she said to me that, um,

"Don't worry, darling, the truth will come out.

I can't talk right now because I've been told

I'm not allowed to talk right now.

But keep believing in me."

So during the initial interview, Nicole did confirm

that the image on the GoFundMe website was, in fact, her

at the Spencer wing of the hospital in Thanet

having gall bladder removal in 2017.

She finally accepted that.

And she did accept that it was somewhat misleading

because it suggested that she was suffering with cancer.

But to quote, she said,

"It was the only image I had at the time, which is why I used it."

Clearly, she put that picture on that website

solely for people to think

she was seriously ill and needed medical help,

and financial help from them to get over this cancer.

So that was a real key point

that we needed to cover as part of the investigation,

to show her deception, her deceptive mind.

Nicole was clearly a fantasist.

She has these very grandiose ideas

and she has this ultimate confidence

in herself and her ability to pull off these lies.

We explained to Nicole that as part of our investigation,

we were gonna look into her financial history.

She was quite deadpan to that.

Her reaction was very much stone-faced.

No... concerns.

But as time went on,

lots of other people were saying

they'd always had suspicions about her, um...

And just the noise became louder and louder and louder

to the point where I couldn't really ignore it.

Um, so I did, once again, confront her

on... On Facebook.

It was all over the news, it was all over the papers.

I was absolutely gutted, to be honest,

and I... And I thought,

"Wow."

I was noticing Nicole's Facebook page

was becoming increasingly weirder.

So there would be long, rambling messages

about "The truth will come out," um,

"People should feel sorry for me,"

and all of this stuff,

and it was, kind of, rubbing me up the wrong way

because she still wasn't saying

yes or no,

"I've lied," or "I've done something wrong."

So I put a message underneath one of her posts

that just said, you know,

"All of the above is very touching and moving,

but did you go to Spain to have cancer treatment?

That's all I need to know."

She answered me in a private message,

which really... Alarm bells.

"Why are you answering me in a private message?"

So I copied what she had written

and I took it back on to a public forum,

and I said, "This is a public space.

You're talking about, we all need to feel sorry for you

and this is going wrong, that's going wrong.

I've asked you, just tell me,

did you go to Spain for your treatment for cancer?"

And that was it.

She sent me a message, saying to me,

"If this is triggering for you..."

Then I was like, "Do not patronize me.

This is not triggering for me.

What this is is me catching you out.

You were quite happy to have

little private conversations with me.

I'm asking you, publicly, just let me know."

And, um...

I then, she... She started saying if this is triggering for me,

um, maybe, you know, we need to talk,

and I just like, "No.

No, I'm not interested. You cannot...

You are not telling me what I need to hear."

So I just cut her off. So I blocked her.

And that was that.

Cut dead.

I was, kind of, at the point where I just thought,

"Well, until found guilty

and everything is being looked at properly,

I can't really make my mind up that something's going on here, you know.

[Jo] My stomach turned, and you feel like the blood drains out of you.

Never in my wildest dreams would I think

that someone would be twisted enough

to lie about having cancer.

Um, and to sit opposite me and watch me cry.

So she was explaining to me

that she needed treatment. I was crying.

[Cananur] When we broke down Nicole's expenditure,

what we identified actually was an individual

who had a really lavish lifestyle.

Trips abroad, trips out in London.

And also, which stood out,

was an almost £4,000 expenditure

on a private box at Tottenham Hotspur football club.

Wow, this wasn't an individual that was using that money wisely

for medical treatment.

This was an individual who was financing her own lavish lifestyle.

[Jo] A friend of mine said that he often goes over to the casino,

and he had seen her over there

sort of using quite a bit of money.

And I was like, "No, no, it's not her style."

She's not that trashy, she's quite elegant,

and, you know, I think quite sophisticated.

I couldn't really imagine her at the local casino.

What we also uncovered, as a result of her financial activity,

was someone, in fact, who was addicted to gambling.

In 2018, she was spending up to £60,000 a year

at a local casinos and online gambling websites.

So this was an individual who was suffering not with cancer,

but with a serious gambling addiction.

When we look at how somebody like Nicole,

who, on the surface, seems quite successful,

ends up in a situation where she's conning even people that she knows,

we have to ask, "How and why does that happen?"

We know that she was spending very large amounts

so it's very possible that she formed an addiction to this

and felt like she kept on having to commit these cons

just so that she can make up the money to feed her habit.

[Jo] After I flopped Nicole on Facebook,

um, I was contacted by GoFundMe

that, um...

And they told me they were gonna give the money back.

The money came back, but obviously, that was so difficult for me

because it was a night where people had just come in

and put bits and pieces of money.

I didn't know who it belonged to.

So I just put a thing on my Facebook

saying, "If everybody's happy,

I'm gonna donate this to a charity," and that's what we did.

So I got a message from the police just after I'd found out.

They just asked me, um,

about the larger amounts that I had donated

because I donated them directly to her bank account.

I told them that that money came back,

uh, which was baffling to me.

[Dr. Das] Nicole borrowed £2,000 off Jo,

and then returned it fairly quickly.

And we have to ask ourselves why she did this.

It's possible that she felt an element of guilt at that time,

but it's also very feasible that she was actually playing the long game.

So she's trying to gain more confidence from her friend,

knowing that she could probably wrangle

more money out of her in the future.

[Cananur] So Nicole was brought in for a second interview.

We put it to her, transaction by transaction,

that that money, in fact, was to support both her lavish lifestyle

and a gambling addiction.

We also put it to Nicole, damning evidence,

as a result of the police making enquiries

with the hospital in Spain,

that, in fact, Nicole was never a patient in that hospital

and, in fact, that Dr. Suarez,

who she stated was treating her, didn't exist.

Now at this point, you would think

Nicole would put her hands up and accept

that she was lying, but no.

Throughout that interview, no remorse,

no recognition whatsoever

of all the individuals that she defrauded.

Merely someone who, in her own head,

was a cancer victim who was gaining money

solely for medical treatment,

which we argued was because of her gambling addiction.

So, at the end of that second interview,

she was bailed, pending a decision

by the Crown Prosecution Service.

Now they came back reasonably quickly with a decision

that they were happy there was enough overwhelming evidence

to charge Nicole with fraud by false representation

and to take it to court.

[Drummond] Trials on fraud cases are rare.

The prosecution often has a wealth of evidence

really setting out the criminality

and step by step, how they took this money and what they did with it.

It's very easy to convince juries of that

because they have the financial records.

So to have somebody go into trial

and saying, "I didn't do it" is rare.

[Dr. Das] Nicole refused to admit guilt.

And we have to question why this is.

One possibility was that she was actually delusional.

She believed the lies that she told about her cancer.

But I think it's probably more likely

that she was so wrapped up in her own lies

and she was so confident in her ability to lie and manipulate

that she refused to give this up even to the bitter end.

[Drummond] What separates this trial out

from all the hundreds and thousands of other fraud cases that you see

passing through the court system, is the picture.

It's compelling, it's heartbreaking and it's fake.

This was her attending hospital

for a relatively minor procedure

not linked to cancer, that she put online,

knowing that people would assume

that it's linked to her cancer treatment

and it will pull on people's heartstrings.

This was an individual who was not gonna budge in any way with her story.

She was adamant she was dying of cancer.

And because of that, the GoFundMe page, in her eyes, was justified.

[Drummond] This wasn't a case where the defendant

had squirreled away this fraud money for use later.

There were no off-shore bank accounts,

there were no clever ways to conceal it.

She was brazen in what she did.

She paid for a box at Tottenham Hotspur,

trips to Rome, trips to Barcelona,

all using this money that she was a swindling via GoFundMe.

I don't... I don't think it was a particularly fair sentence.

I think treatment would be a better option,

if I'm being really honest,

because there's obviously some kind of...

mental illness or, you know,

something that isn't quite right.

Who... Who would come up with that?

You know, why?

And I just think, the damage that you caused

to your family and your and friends,

is it really worth £45,000?

She must have planned this over a good period of two years,

the whole thing.

By networking with people,

getting to know people,

building friendships,

building relationships with people

in order to... In order to get this thing done.

When people realized

what had happened,

there was a lot of anger. A lot of anger.

[Jo] It was all calculated from the beginning.

She knew who to target,

she knew what to say,

she, you know, emotionally sort of tugged

at certain people.

Yeah, she knew what she was doing, I think.

[Dr. Das] The fact that Nicole can lie

to her close friends and rip them off so effortlessly

suggests that she might have some traits of being a psychopath.

Psychopaths, as well as lacking empathy

and being impulsive, and not caring

about the rights of other people

tend to be very cunning and they tend to be very manipulative.

The judge was clear when he was sentencing Nicole.

This was a cunning and deceitful act that she carried out

against these 600 people.

And there was reports that as she was sentenced, she was sobbing in the...

So if you look at Nicole Elkabbas,

her digital footprint online

was an individual who looked professional,

was someone you wouldn't suspect

was anything other than a decent member of the community.

Lo and behold, she was the polar opposite.

An individual who was a fraudster.

Someone that was conning many, many people

for financial gain.

Who would've known?

I feel quite sorry for her in some ways,

that somebody feels that they have to,

I mean, pretend that their life is different to what it is.

I'm still a bit angry.

Um, but I don't know whether she is a complete fraudster

or whether she's mentally ill. I don't know.

[Marc] Thinking about Nicole now,

you know, to be honest with you,

I'm really sad.

And this is not defending anyone in any way whatsoever.

But what drives a person

to actually do that?

You know, was it pure greed?

Was it debt?

What was it?

All successful con artists are good at manipulation. They're good at lying.

But it feels like Nicole has taken this to an extra level.

The people involved in the case, the police, the prosecutors,

even they said that she was extremely convincing

to the degree that they started questioning

in whether there might have been

an element of truth in some of what she said.

I would say what Nicole has done to me

has not affected me in any way.

She does not have the power to stop me from being who I am

or from helping somebody if they need help.

She is one bad egg in a sea of people

that are pretty okay.

It's really rare.

She's not gonna change my personality

or mess me up. No way.

It's just not... That is just not gonna happen.