I exposed a middle-class mum who faked cancer, lied to her family and stole £84,000... then I became her unlikely confidante: CHARLIE WEBSTER

As a broadcast journalist, every so often a story comes along that stops you in your tracks. That triggers such a strong emotional response that you feel compelled to find out more, to open your own investigation into what really happened and why. For me, Amanda Riley's cancer scam was one such story. Here is a woman who for seven years pretended she had terminal cancer and in 2022 was convicted of conning tens of thousands of pounds out of her friends and well-wishers to supposedly help pay for groundbreaking new treatment. How could Amanda lie to so many people, including her own family, her own children no less, about something so heartbreaking – and why did so many people believe her? What gripped me was never the financial side, it was the psychological manipulation.

Having grown up with a stepfather who abused and coercively controlled my mother and me, I'm acutely aware of how insidious manipulation can be, so I'm fascinated by extreme examples like this. And as a woman embroiled in an ongoing – so far unsuccessful – IVF battle to have children of my own, I was particularly struck by Amanda's betrayal of her young sons and stepdaughter. Not only did they live in the shadow of her 'cancer struggle' and the fear that they could lose her at any point, they were even told they might have to go through the invasive process of donating bone marrow to save her life.

I would love to be a mum one day so it was very hard knowing that Amanda, a former teacher living in California's Silicon Valley, had put her own children through all this. Her story gripped me so intensely that in 2023 I released a podcast series about Amanda, which went viral and became Apple Podcasts' most downloaded and shared show that year, before going on to create a four-part television documentary. Both are entitled Scamanda.

The TV documentary airs in the UK from tomorrow on Disney+. In it you will see me interviewing friends and acquaintances of Amanda, still coming to terms with having been duped by a woman they had considered 'lovely', 'kind' and 'inspirational'. In the last episode, I can be seen handing Amanda, who's now 39, my business card outside court, following her conviction for wire fraud – receiving money into her bank account, under false pretences. She was sentenced to five years in prison.

Incredibly, although she declined to be interviewed for the TV series, Amanda and I have kept in close contact ever since. Far from shunning me for bringing her criminal behaviour to the attention of the world, she uses me as a confidante. Broadcast journalist Charlie Webster is the presenter of Scamanda.

Amanda Riley with Cory on their wedding day, a scene from the documentary Scamanda. Of course, my sympathies lie mainly with her victims; their stories are at the forefront of my mind whenever I speak to Amanda. We're an unlikely pairing – her a convicted fraudster from California who duped thousands of people, and me a straight-talking broadcast journalist from Sheffield, who, I'm often told, can sometimes be a bit too honest.

Still, we've had numerous video calls over the past three years, during which Amanda has shed many tears, telling me how she regrets her actions, that she's 'not a monster' and is 'very sorry for the hurt she caused'. She says she should have stopped and admitted she had been lying but was scared to because it would mean 'losing everything'. She has lost everything anyway – her home, family, liberty – and claims to regret what she did 'every single day'.

I can also reveal an update on her husband, Cory. Since making the documentary, I have been told on good authority that he is in a new relationship, and again with a younger woman – Amanda was 12 years his junior – having filed for divorce last year.

As for her victims, some told me they will never trust their own judgment again. Given my own experiences with deception and betrayal, I was conscious that she could be trying to manipulate me as well. With that in mind, I always questioned her words and intentions, while also trusting my own instincts. There were moments early on in our conversations where I wasn't sure she fully grasped the severity of what she had done.

At times, it felt like she was still trying to rationalise or justify aspects of her story, and maybe didn't see the wider picture, or how disrespectful she was to all the people who actually do have cancer, who are suffering every day, and to families grieving after the awful loss cancer causes.

But after spending so much time going back and forth with her, I do feel she sees it now – partly because of my investigation and the scale of the public response. I think when someone's deception is exposed so widely, it forces them to confront it in a way they might not have before. With 20 years' experience in broadcasting, including presenting for Sky Sports and releasing a BBC documentary about sexual abuse in sport that changed policy nationally and worldwide, I understand how reporting can change perspectives. I now fly between London and Los Angeles, filming and recording factual shows as well as continuing my broadcasting work.