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 is now believed to be in Wales. Photo / Supplied 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. Nicola Flint. Photo / Supplied 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. Nicola Flint convinced many people she had terminal cancer. She has now been charged with forging medical documents and police say there is no evidence she was ever diagnosed with the disease. Photo / Supplied 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...