Around eight years ago, Christchurch mother-of-two Jane* met Nicola Anne Flint.
The pair became fast friends and their families grew to be incredibly close.
Jane - and others in her tight-knit community - spent years supporting Flint, her husband and her two children after she claimed she was dying of cancer.
But in 2025 police revealed that the terminal diagnosis was all a lie – and behind it, a web of forged medical letters, bank payouts and theft from a rugby club – fraud totalling more than $180,000.
The Flint family fled to the UK and the alleged offender will not be extradited, meaning it is unlikely she will ever face the New Zealand courts.
Jane says she and many others in the community are still reeling from the web of lies their so-called friend spun.
Beyond that, they are also struggling to understand why police didn’t investigate what they say is Flint’s worst offence - telling her husband and children she was dying.
Jane wrote about her experience with Flint, sharing her deeply personal thoughts with senior journalist Anna Leask below.
Nicola Flint’s case will be covered in depth in a two-part podcast special.
A Moment In Crime - Diagnosis? Deception will be available in late January 2026.
There’s something incredibly anxiety-inducing about having a close friend who has cancer.
You jump when she calls or texts – you panic her health’s finally gone downhill and this could be the end.
There are times when you look at her, having fun with her kids, with tears in your eyes – thinking how awful it will be when they lose her.
When, like me, you grew up without your mum due to cancer, or like Nic’s bestie Belle*, who lost her husband to cancer, you are extra invested.
Our hearts carry the holes of life-changing losses, and we’d never walk away from people facing what we’ve been through.
Nic was our friend. She could be kind, thoughtful and wickedly funny.
She could also be difficult and controlling.
We loved her like a sister.
That is why we stood by her – even when what she told us didn’t quite add up and others walked away.
We stayed.
We’d seen the medical tape on her arm after “treatments”, we’d heard horrific details of her side effects.
We’d cried with her when she told us how she was scared of dying and begged us to help her.
We had talked through her funeral wishes and agreed to ensure her ashes were scattered off Mapua wharf.
But what angers us most is not the lies she told to us – it’s the fact she misled her own husband and children who also believed for years that she was dying.
Nic told me she had a lump in her breast in December 2016, when we were picking up our kids from school.
From memory, it was a few weeks later, in January, when she had that lump biopsied.
She told us the results showed she had stage four cancer.
I believe the results were clear and that’s when the cancer lie began.
For the next seven years, her lies were extensive.
She claimed her tumours had spread to her neck, her spine, her uterus and lungs.
She was well researched, able to detail various cancer treatment options, their costs and how the system worked. She would relay fictitious scans or blood test results and tell us what they meant.
Nic often lamented New Zealand’s health system and lack of cancer treatment options – an entirely believable story.
She said her cancer was not treatable with chemotherapy, but at various times would have radiation and Kadcyla treatments that she paid for, claiming to have spent hundreds of thousands of dollars battling her illness.
I remember ringing her, excited to see a government announcement that Kadcyla would now be funded. She said the public funding wouldn’t apply to her as she was being cared for in the private system.
While there were times our suspicions were raised, Nic always had an answer for every question - or would shut down conversations saying she thought about cancer from the moment she woke to the moment she went to sleep and simply did not want to talk about it.
There is no doubt in our minds that Nic’s husband and children believed she had cancer.
We all shared tears over her illness.
The children’s schools were alerted and wrapped extra support around them.
The pandemic was an especially worrying time with her daughter staying elsewhere when she was Covid positive to protect her supposedly immunocompromised mother.
The fact she told her husband and kids was also a major reason we believed Nic when others raised concerns.
Who would tell their husband and children they were dying if that wasn’t true?
At the time, we thought Nic was weirdly private about her illness.
She would often refuse help, saying the family had to learn to cope on their own.
Now that police have confirmed she was faking the illness, that desire for privacy is understandable.
What’s not easy to understand is why New Zealand police did not investigate the cancer claim more thoroughly.
Her children have spent most of their lives with a “terminally ill” mother.
While in many ways Nic was an exceptional mum, that is the worst kind of emotional abuse - something the New Zealand Police’s website claims they take seriously.
While the family left New Zealand for the UK due to a medical emergency - unrelated to Nic’s “cancer” - Nic booked tickets and was keen to leave as soon as she found out the rugby club was investigating her.
They left behind their home, their dogs, every friend their children had ever known and most of their possessions.
It wasn’t the first time they’d relocated, moving to Christchurch from the southern South Island after things began to sour with Nic’s in-laws.
They had seen through her claims that her dad was an earl, that she’d grown up in stately homes, came from wealth and suffered cervical cancer.
That fallout worsened over subsequent years, with Nicola regularly accusing her in-laws of all sorts of things, often backed up with documents.
Her husband was estranged from his once close family when he left New Zealand.
Given Nic is now charged with forging medical letters, you have to wonder how many of those documents she fabricated.
Weeks after the Flints arrived in the UK, a warrant was issued for Nicola’s arrest and police publicly stated that she did not have cancer.
Since then, the family has seemingly cut themselves off from everyone they knew in New Zealand.
Many people have criticised her husband for not knowing the truth and accused him of being part of Nic’s ruse.
Those people don’t understand how controlling and manipulative she is.
The reality is, when Nic is in your head, it’s impossible to think straight. Belle and I know that from first-hand experience and no one will have been lied to or manipulated more than her husband.
I’ll never forget finding out Nic has lied about her cancer. I immediately thought about his family and how clearly her lies had destroyed that relationship.
If someone is prepared to lie about having cancer – to their own children – we should be in no doubt they will lie about anything.
It is heartbreaking to think the family have lost their son, brother, uncle and grandchildren.
Having now got to know them a little, it is heartbreaking to think Nic’s children have missed out on being part of a big, loving family who share their interests – sport, the outdoors, dogs and laughing.
Had the police taken action and contacted him to confirm his wife had lied about her cancer, it may have helped him see the truth.
Instead, he is away from all family and friends in Wales with no external support.
After arriving in the UK, Nic told me that she finally had the “cyberknife” treatment she had been unable to have in New Zealand.
Looking back at my messages, she claimed to have had the treatment in Birmingham Hospital over five days in February and that it “obliterated” the tumour in her spine.
Belle and I believe she will have claimed to be cured of cancer by the UK health system. We have no doubt she will likely continue her pattern of lying and manipulating people, and suspect it is only a matter of time before she commits fraud there.
If that happens, we hope her husband and kids will be able to finally see through her.
We hope they’re not forced to up sticks and leave everything and everyone they have become close to again.
The reality is, when someone lies as Nic does the pattern will not change without serious psychiatric intervention and a genuine commitment to change.
All we can do is hope that when this happens, her family know that despite her claims, there’s not a lynch mob after them in New Zealand. They can come home.
If they do return, they will find there are plenty of people who love them, will welcome them with open arms and help them heal.
Until that day, Belle and I and our families will think about them often, hoping that they will, one day, have truth in their lives and be able to live a much healthier and happier life.
*Names have been changed to protect the privacy of Jane and her friend, Belle.
Anna Leask is a senior journalist who covers national crime and justice. She joined the Herald in 2008 and has worked as a journalist for 20 years with a particular focus on family and gender-based violence, child abuse, sexual violence, homicides, mental health and youth crime. She writes, hosts and produces the award-winning podcast A Moment In Crime, released monthly on nzherald.co.nz