Karen Mathews trial: 'It's difficult to grasp what kind of mum does this to her daughter'

HER heartfelt pleas over the whereabouts of her nine-year-old daughter touched millions. But behind the tearful appeals lay a wicked extortion plot involving the kidnapping of her own child.

For 24 days, Karen Matthews kept up the pretence that Shannon, one of her seven children, had vanished on the way home from school.

But the youngster had been drugged and was being imprisoned in the home of her partner's uncle, Michael Donovan.

Hundreds of police officers helped search for Shannon. Matthews had called 999 to report her missing and she made a string of impassioned pleas for Shannon's return.

The youngster was found only when police officers smashed their way into the flat after neighbours reported hearing strange noises.

Matthews – branded "pure evil" by detectives who led the investigation into Shannon's disappearance – was yesterday found guilty of conspiring with Donovan to pocket a £50,000 reward offered by a newspaper.

A court had heard her described as "a proven, consummate, skilful and convincing liar". She showed no emotion as the jury's verdict was delivered – a stark contrast to the "crocodile tears" she regularly shed during the search for her daughter.

Matthews, who was said to have "totally betrayed" her daughter, told five different stories to police, including blaming the crime on her former partner, Craig Meehan, and other members of his family. Detective Superintendent Andy Brennan, who led the hunt for Shannon, said: "It's difficult to understand what type of mother would subject her own daughter to such a wicked and evil crime."

After being discovered by shocked West Yorkshire Police officers in Donovan's flat, Shannon was found to have traces of the "potent hypnotic" drug Temazepam and the travel-sickness medication Melcozine in her system.

Shannon was given a strict list of rules, found by police, which included keeping quiet and not going near the windows. An elasticated strap hanging from the loft was believed to have been used to tether Shannon whenever Donovan went out.

POLICE officers were taken off murder and rape inquiries to help with the hunt for Shannon, which cost £3.2 million.

She was discovered in the base of a divan bed in Donovan's flat in Batley Carr, West Yorkshire, less than a mile from her home in Dewsbury Moor.

Donovan – who has convictions for arson, shoplifting and criminal damage – claimed that he was terrified of Matthews and said he was threatened and told he would be killed if he did not comply with her plan.

The jury heard that Donovan broke down within minutes of police finding Shannon in his flat. He burst into tears on his arrest and told detectives: "Get Karen down here. We'd got a plan. We're sharing the money – £50,000."

Malcolm Taylor, from the West Yorkshire Crown Prosecution Service, described Shannon's kidnap as a "cynical plot".

He added: "This was an abuse of public trust, public services, the public purse and, worst of all, Matthews' own daughter for personal gain."

MATTHEWS has been regularly portrayed as the epitome of a benefit-dependent, sink estate slob. She was born and brought up in Dewsbury, one of seven children.

Her sister, Julie Poskitt, said the two girls had a tough upbringing in the working-class Yorkshire town, along with their five brothers. But, according to Mrs Poskitt, although the children got on well as youngsters, Matthews' life began to go astray as a teenager.

Matthews herself described how her relationship with her mother broke down when she was 14. "I ended up in a children's home because I couldn't cope with all the stress and lies and stuff," she told a television documentary.

"After I got over that, they took me out of the children's home. I stayed with them for a bit and then I went to live with my boyfriend's mum. I was about 17 or 18."

Matthews had her first child at 20. She had another six children in the decade that followed as she moved from relationship to relationship. Asked in court why she had left so many relationships, she said it was always the men leaving her.

SHANNON was born in September 1998. Her father, Leon Rose, 29, split up with Matthews when Shannon was about two.

Mr Rose stood by Matthews during the search for his daughter, but refused to elaborate on what went wrong in the relationship.

By February this year, Matthews was living in Moorside Road, Dewsbury Moor – a standard, council brick-built semi that backs on to a grassy playing field.

She lived with Craig Meehan, 22, who worked on the fish- monger's stall at the Morrisons supermarket in nearby Heckmondwike.

MATTHEWS and Meehan each have vast, complicated families, which detectives had still not completely fathomed three weeks after Shannon vanished. Matthews has seven children, her parents have seven children, her sister has six children. And Meehan has nine aunts and uncles – one of whom is Donovan.

Also living at the Moorside Road house were four of Matthews' children. Meehan was said to be the father of the youngest girl, who was two.

The others – boys aged 11 and five, and Shannon, then nine – have different fathers.

Matthews' other children – two boys, aged ten and seven, and a girl aged six – all lived away from Moorside Road. Matthews described an average day in her household as getting her children ready for school, watching Meehan play on his games console, surfing the internet and watching Jeremy Kyle on TV.

Ms Poskitt said yesterday: "She's a bad mother. She's not normal, is she? You have kids and you love them.

"I'm ashamed of my family, and thinking what people out there might think of me, knowing that it's my sister."

ONE of Matthews' best friends, Petra Jamieson, said she was shocked that Matthews showed no emotion as the verdicts were delivered. Ms Jamieson said: "She didn't seem bothered. All us lot have been here all the way through it, but she didn't seem to give a s**t.

"I don't think it has hit home yet. Maybe it will when she comes to be sentenced. I feel sick and shocked that we were all fooled. No-one can grasp why she's done it. No-one knows."