Kidnapping of Shannon Matthews

Shannon Louise Matthews (born 9 September 1998) is a British girl who was reported missing on the afternoon of 19 February 2008 in Dewsbury, West Yorkshire, England when she was aged nine.^[1] The search for her became a major missing person police operation which was compared to the disappearance of Madeleine McCann.^[2] She was found on 14 March 2008 at a house in Batley Carr, a short distance from Dewsbury. The house belonged to 39-year-old Michael Donovan, uncle of Craig Meehan – the boyfriend of the kidnapped girl's mother, Karen Matthews. The kidnapping was subsequently discovered to have been planned by Karen and Donovan to generate money from the publicity. Donovan was to have eventually "found" Shannon, taken her to a police station and claimed the reward money, which would be split between Donovan and the child's mother.

Donovan – also known as Paul Drake – was arrested at the scene, and charged with kidnapping and false imprisonment.^[3][4] Karen Matthews was charged with child neglect and perverting the course of justice on 8 April 2008. The joint trial of Donovan and Karen Matthews at Leeds Crown Court commenced on 11 November 2008^[5] and concluded on 4 December with both defendants found guilty of kidnapping, false imprisonment, and perverting the course of justice.^[6] They were both given eight-year prison sentences.^[7] Karen Matthews's boyfriend Meehan was convicted of possessing child pornography which was discovered on his computer during the investigation, but had nothing to do with the kidnapping.^[8]

Disappearance

Investigation

Shortly before her disappearance, nine-year-old Shannon Matthews was seen at 15:10 on 19 February 2008, outside her school, Westmoor Junior School, Dewsbury Moor, after a visit to the Dewsbury Sports Centre swimming pool.^[9] The school was about half a mile from her home.^[10]

The investigation was led by Detective Superintendent Andy Brennan.^[11] The West Yorkshire Police questioned 1,500 motorists^[12] and searched 3,000 houses.^[13] By 5 March, more than 250 officers and 60 detectives were involved in the investigation, about 10% of the West Yorkshire force's operational strength.^[13] It became the largest police search for a missing person since the Yorkshire Ripper investigation 30 years previously.^[2][14] Of 27 specialist victim recovery dogs in the United Kingdom, 16 were involved in the search.^[15]

Publicity

The Sun newspaper offered a reward of £20,000 for information leading to Matthews' safe return.^[16] It was increased to £50,000 on 10 March.^[17] A business in Huddersfield – nine miles from Dewsbury – offered £5,000.^[18]

West Yorkshire Police created a web page, 'Missing Shannon Matthews Appeal', and on 7 March, released a photograph of Shannon on the website.^[19] The police released the recording of the 999 call made by Karen Matthews reporting the child's disappearance.^[20] An official website, 'Help Us Find Shannon', including the Shannon Matthews Appeal, was launched on 11 March.^[21] Both websites were removed after Shannon was found.

Media reaction

A comparison was drawn between publicity given to the disappearance of Madeleine McCann and the much lower level of publicity for Matthews in early March 2008. Roy Greenslade, in the guardian.co.uk blog, explained it by stating that "Overarching everything is social class" but added that Matthews being taken hostage in the UK made a difference. The Independent took the same line saying "Kate and Gerry McCann had a lot: they were a couple of nice middle-class doctors on holiday in an upmarket resort... Karen Matthews is not as elegant, nor as eloquent".^[22][23]

The Times noted that the local community had pulled together but that the hunt appeared less newsworthy than the most minor developments in the search for Madeleine McCann.^[24] The Brisbane Times said that Karen Matthews and Kate McCann represented two sides of the social class coin in Britain.^[25] The Daily Telegraph speculated that had Matthews been part of a middle-class family, in which articulate parents were conversant with the mechanics of mobilising a slick public awareness campaign, then more public attention would have been focused on the effort to find her.^[26]

On 7 March, Karen Matthews said on GMTV that her boyfriend Craig Meehan was not involved in the kidnapping and he "would not hurt anybody".^[9] Meehan was defended by Shannon Matthews's father, Leon Rose.^[27] Karen Matthews and her boyfriend, in an interview on Radio 4's Today programme on 12 March, were questioned about suggestions by her parents that Meehan had been violent towards Matthews and on Karen having seven children by at least five fathers (two of the children were registered as having unknown fathers). Commenting on the interview, The Independent said that the case had developed a cruel overtone and that such questions went far beyond necessity and lifted the lid on an uncomfortable hypocrisy in British society.^[28]

Discovery

West Yorkshire Police found Matthews alive at 12:30 on 14 March 2008, 24 days after going missing. She was concealed in the base of a divan bed in a flat in Lidgate Gardens, Batley Carr. Michael Donovan, 39, was arrested at the scene.^[3]

Matthews was placed under police protection and cared for by the social services.^[29] The police exercised powers under section 46 of the Children Act 1989 which allows a child to remain subject to police protection for 72 hours.^[30] Matthews ceased to be subject to police protection on 17 March 2008.^[31] Since then she has remained in the care of Kirklees Family Services on a voluntary basis.^[32]

On 15 March the police reported that Shannon Matthews had begun to recover after her ordeal. Specially-trained officers questioned her to establish what had happened.^[33] The questioning, which lasted for several weeks, took place in ten-minute sessions at a special children's suite resembling a classroom.^[32]

A film of the search for Matthews, and her homecoming, was shown in an episode of the Channel 4 documentary series Cutting Edge on 20 March.^[34]

Post-kidnap pre-trial events

Michael Donovan, uncle of Karen Matthews' boyfriend, was charged with kidnapping, false imprisonment and committing acts tended to pervert the course of justice on 17 March 2008.^[4] Donovan appeared before Dewsbury magistrates on 18 March, and was remanded in custody.^[35] He appeared at Leeds Crown Court, via a video link from his prison cell, on 26 March.^[36] The provisional trial date was fixed for 11 November.^[36] He made an unsuccessful suicide attempt on 6 April.^[37]

Craig Meehan was arrested on 2 April, on suspicion of possessing indecent images of children, after police had examined computers in the home.^[38] He was remanded in custody by Dewsbury Magistrates, at a hearing on 3 April charged with 11 offences of possessing indecent images of children.^[39] On 18 April 2008 Meehan pleaded not guilty, and elected to be tried by magistrate rather than a jury. On 16 September 2008, Meehan was convicted by Dewsbury Magistrates of 11 counts of possessing child pornography, relating to 49 images of level one, two, three and four found stored on his computer after it was seized by police from the house he lived in with the Matthewses, on Moorside Road, Dewsbury. On the same day, he was sentenced to 20 weeks imprisonment. He was released that day as he had spent longer on remand than the length of the sentence.^[40]

Karen Matthews was arrested on 6 April on suspicion of attempting to pervert the course of justice.^[41] She was charged with child neglect and perverting the course of justice, on 8 April.^[42][43] At a hearing on 5 September 2008, she was also charged with kidnapping and false imprisonment.^[44]

Amanda Hyett, Craig Meehan's sister, was arrested on suspicion of assisting an offender on 4 April 2008.^[45][46] Alice Meehan, mother of Craig Meehan and sister of Michael Donovan, was arrested on suspicion of attempting to pervert the course of justice, on 4 April.^[45][46] Amanda Hyett and Alice Meehan were released on police bail on 4 April but were rearrested with Meehan's sister Caroline, on 10 April and held on suspicion of perverting the course of justice before being released on bail.^[47] Hyett and Alice Meehan were later released without charge, although Hyett was jailed the following year in an unrelated conviction for benefit fraud.^[48]

On 8 April the police announced they were investigating approaches to the Madeleine McCann fund for money to assist the search for Matthews.^[49]

Karen Matthews was remanded to face trial alongside Donovan in November 2008.^[5]

Trial and convictions

In November 2008, the BBC reported that the trial heard evidence that Shannon Matthews had been drugged to subdue her whilst held.^[50] Newspapers reported that "The jury was told Shannon was drugged and restrained with a strap tied to a roof beam after her mother hatched a plan to make £50,000 from her faked kidnap."^[51] The jury was told Shannon was kept locked in a flat for 24 days by Michael Donovan, who police believe used an elasticated strap with a noose on the end to tether her when he went out."^[52]

On 13 November, Detective Constable Mark Cruddace and Detective Superintendent Andy Brennan gave evidence at Leeds Crown Court. A forensic toxicologist told the court that tests on Shannon Matthews's hair indicated she had been given temazepam for up to 20 months before her disappearance.^[53]

Michael Donovan claimed that Karen Matthews had asked him to look after her daughter for several days and that they would make money from newspaper rewards. He told the court that she had threatened him with violence.

On 27 November Karen Matthews gave evidence. Sobbing throughout, she denied having anything to do with her daughter's disappearance, claiming that Craig Meehan told her to 'take the blame' for what had happened. She said she did so because she was scared of him. In cross-examination, Julian Goose QC said that she had told police a total of five versions of the story and accused her of "telling lie after lie, after lie".

On 4 December 2008 Karen Matthews and Michael Donovan were found guilty of kidnapping, false imprisonment and perverting the course of justice.^[6] The plan had been for Donovan to release Shannon Matthews at Dewsbury Market, drive around the corner to 'discover her' then take her to a police station and claim the £50,000 reward. This would then be split between Donovan and Karen Matthews.^[54] On 23 January 2009, both were sentenced to eight years in prison.^[7]

Karen Matthews was released in April 2012 after serving half her sentence.^[55] Donovan had already been released.^[37] Matthews was given a new name for use in public, although authorities did not consider her mentally capable of maintaining a completely new identity and she will retain her real name for engagement with officials.^[56]

Post trial media reaction

In the aftermath of the trial, revelations about the life that Shannon Matthews and her siblings had endured with their mother were widely highlighted and politicised by the media. The "welfare state" was heavily scrutinised. The Daily Telegraph, described a "dysfunctional family where children equalled benefits"; a claim that was supported by Shannon's aunt, Julie Poskitt.^[57] Daily Mail columnist Melanie Phillips claimed the case of Shannon Matthews and several other high-profile cases of child abuse, which were the result of the "culture of greed" that had developed after the introduction of child benefit and other forms of financial support to single mothers since the 1970s. She blamed the welfare system for creating a generation of "feral youths" (more often than not fuelled by alcohol or drugs), perhaps reflecting the growing number of murders and other serious and violent crimes committed by teenagers around the same time. Ironically, Phillips criticised the actions of social workers, who were under pressure from local government to reduce the number of children on the child protection register – Shannon Matthews had been removed from the register at the end of 2005 as social workers thought that the family was "settling down".^[58]

In the media

A BBC One Panorama special: Shannon: The Mother Of All Lies was broadcast on the night of the trial verdict, (4 December 2008), about the disappearance and investigation, featuring the testimony of friends of the family and the police. The special was watched by 5.6 million viewers.^[59][60]

On 18 May 2009, an ITV programme, Tears, Lies and Videotape, documented cases of people who manipulated the media for personal attention. The Shannon Matthews case was the main focus of the show.

Serious case review

On 16 June 2010 the Kirklees Safeguarding Children Board report found that social services could not have anticipated the abduction of Shannon Matthews. It stated: "The Serious Case Review concluded that the historical and current knowledge available to professionals involved with this family could not have led them to anticipate the third child's abduction from her home or her mother's involvement in this. The only way to have avoided her abduction was through her prior removal from home under a Care Order and there is no evidence to suggest that this was warranted on the basis of professional knowledge about this case."^[61]

References

External links

• Transcript of judge's sentencing remarks