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Shannon's lying mother faces jail for kidnap
Paul Cheston, Courts Correspondent4 Dec 2008
The mother of Shannon Matthews was today facing a long jail term for orchestrating the kidnap and imprisonment of her daughter for a £50,000 newspaper reward.
Unanimous guilty verdicts were returned for mother-of-seven Karen Matthews, 33, for kidnap, false imprisonment and attempting to pervert the course of justice.
Michael Donovan, 40, the uncle of Matthews's former boyfriend who had held the nine-year-old girl for 24 days in his flat, was found guilty of the same charges. Mr Justice McCombe told the pair they face a "substantial custodial sentence". He adjourned sentencing for reports.
Outside Leeds crown court, Crown lawyers attacked not only Matthews' and Donovan's abuse of public service and money, and of "a child's trust for personal gain". Crown Prosecution Service reviewing lawyer Malcolm Taylor added: "This was a story of total disregard for their family and the public. [Matthews] lied, lied and lied again."
Donovan has suffered beatings in prison during the trial and Matthews can expect little sympathy from fellow inmates after today's verdicts.
For almost four weeks in February and March this year the nation was consumed by the Shannon Matthews story.
On 19 February Matthews reported her daughter missing, beginning a police hunt which was to cost the taxpayer £3.2 million. Detectives were taken off murder and rape inquries to help and TV cameras stood by outside the Matthews home in Dewsbury, West Yorkshire.
But it was all a scam hatched by Matthews and Donovan, who was to keep Shannon drugged and bound in nearby Batley Carr. Their aim was to release Shannon, then "find" her and claim the reward offered by the media for her safe return.
Mr Taylor added: "The people of Dewsbury gave unstinting assistance to the hunt for a defenceless child whom they thought was missing during the coldest part of the year."
Reader views (16)
Kezza of Brighton - right on. Time to tell it the way it is.
- Anglo, Sussex UK, 05/12/2008 17:43
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What a waste of our hard earned money(£3.2m).The government seem happy to dish out money.
- V, London
So V you think searching for a missing child (regardless of where she was eventually found), and punishing the perpretators was a waste of money? you obviously hate children - i feel very sorry for you! and what has it got to do with 'the government'?????!!!
- Kh, London UK, 05/12/2008 10:43
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Kezza from Brighton you are truly a moron. She is in the minority thank god and she will pay for her crime
- Louisa, london, 05/12/2008 09:32
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This evil woman has made it hard for the next mother who has a child who genuinely goes missing. Everyone will wonder...
- Martin H Watson, Teddington, 05/12/2008 09:00
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The irony of this case is that ALL of the Matthews' kids have, as a result of their mother's behaviour, ended up better off. Had this not happened, all them kids would still be living a **** life with that low life mother of theirs.
Lets hope that Shannon and all the other children are gonna have their bestest Christmas ever!
- Julie, London, 05/12/2008 08:45
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I am a southerner who has lived in West Yorkshire since 1997. Quite simply this is another world and this behaviour is fairly normal and accepted by the police and other authorities. what is needed is an investigation of the feral populations that infest northern England by outside authorities as northern bodies are useless and at worse extremely corrupt. The worse thing is is that so many people here sneer at London but seem to miss the disgusting mess that is the norm in northern England. we are still a tale of two nations.
- Evan Mcgilvray, Leeds, 05/12/2008 07:47
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This is what happens when you get 2 halfwit chavs trying to outwit the entire nation.
They're too stupid!
- Fred Scuttle, London, 04/12/2008 21:51
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I say send her to broadmoor. She is obvioulsy mentally ill and that way she can't destroy anyone else's life or breed anymore!!
- Kate Ross, Hertfordshire, United Kingdom, 04/12/2008 21:07
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I hope that Shannnon and her siblins will all learn a lesson from this disgrasful act of evil. That they all try their best to build a decent life where they have gained some moral understandings of why they should never forgive this women of her crime.
At least now her children have a chance of a
life.........Before all they had was a rech of a lazy mother who would sell and drug her own kids for a few bob!
This country is producing these misfits who are using our resorces to the limit and then off they go into prison with a few hours of watching TV and the Internet and even allowed a social life......Making costumes for the monsters ball.........While us nutcases are bringing in the doe to keep them there for a while then pay to let them out and have more poor kids for us to look after!
- Valerie, Hanworth Middlesex, 04/12/2008 20:01
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Living near Dewsbury I have been aware of all the goings on, to the delay in emptying bins while police searched, to paper stuck around Dewsbury asking for money to help the family. The list goes on so I hope that a severe sentence is going to be given, it will stop others who may try the same thing, ensuring searches for children that go missing are not blighted by this in the future.
- Helen, Mirfield, Yorkshire, 04/12/2008 19:53
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Typical British benefit cheating scum, that's how alot of council tenants mind's work, what do people expect! This country could save so much money going into council estates and throwing out a hell of a lot of tenants like her, her "Zombie looking" family and (ex!) friends. Put them on the streets and don't pay them a penny (it only goes on booze and fags anyway), they are TYPICAL of every council estate in this stupid "give lots of money to scum" country, that's why we are now a sad embarrassment in the world. This is the type of person Britain now breeds due to it's soft approach on spongers, they just think they can cheat more out of the state.
- Kezza, Brighton, UK, 04/12/2008 18:57
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What a waste of our hard earned money(£3.2m).The government seem happy to dish out money.
- V, London, 04/12/2008 17:02
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Let her rot for 30 years, evil woman
- Kerry, Purley, 04/12/2008 15:27
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God will she get a hammering off the other inmates, at least some justice will get done.
- P I Staker, London, 04/12/2008 15:11
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I know there are a lot of stupid people in the country, I can tell by see how many people read The Sun every morning. But, Karen Matthews is probably in the bottom 0.5 percent. Not too sure if it's right to lock her up... Surely just being Karen Matthews is a life sentence in itself.
£3.2 million is a snip at the 10 to 20 billion the Olympics will cost (and this case is lot more entertaining). Shannon Matthews is even a winner; surly now having a better chance in life away from such a useless parent.
- Paul, London, 04/12/2008 14:24
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they should be made to work in prison until they have paid back the cost of the police operation and the chritable fund set up to help find their daughter. That should be the barrometer for how long their sentences are. Without it, they will simply sit on the backsides for 12 months wathching sky tv (like they have been all their lives) and then let out. The only one truley hurt by all that would be the poor girl who was the victim of all this.
- Ag, The Village of London, 04/12/2008 13:41
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