JUSTICE FOR KIDNAPPED SHANNON AS "MOM" GETS 8 YEARS

Karen Matthews sentenced to eight years in jail for kidnapping daughter, Shannon
Andrew Norfolk

Karen Matthews and her accomplice in the "truly despicable" kidnapping of her nine-year-old daughter were each jailed for eight years today by a judge who revealed the girl was deeply traumatised by her time in captivity.

Shannon Matthews was so damaged by the 24 days during which she was held drugged and at times tethered inside a flat that she continues to suffer flashbacks, including nightmares in which she is tied up, Leeds Crown Court heard.

Mr Justice McCombe told Matthews, 33, and Michael Donovan, 40, that he found it "impossible to conceive how you could have found it in you to put this young girl through the ordeal that you inflicted upon her".

In a startling development, he also suggested that the pair's low intellect made it "doubtful whether they could have conceived or continued these offences without the assistance or connivance of others".
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* PICTURES: Karen Matthews

Matthews claimed during the trial that other members of her family, including her boyfriend, Craig Meehan, and his sister, Amanda Hyett, knew of the plot to grab Shannon on her way home from school in February last year.

The plan, possibly inspired by the 2007 abduction of Madeleine McCann, was to hold the child prisoner before later claiming a reward – £50,000 was offered by a national newspaper – for her safe return.

Shannon later told police that there had been contact from other family members during her time at Donovan's flat, one mile from her council home in Dewsbury, West Yorkshire. He is Craig Meehan's uncle.

Speaking after the sentencing, Matthews's friend, Julie Bushby, who chairs the residents' association on the Dewsbury Moor estate where the family lived, spoke of her conviction that the full truth behind the kidnapping had not yet emerged.

"I don't think Karen's done it on her own. She's not got the intelligence, but if she isn't going to break and say what the full story is, what can us little people do to help her? She's got to put her cards on the table."

Detective Superintendent Andy Brennan, who headed the £3.2 million police hunt for the schoolgirl, insisted later that the case, for now, remained closed.

"If new evidence comes to light, it will of course be investigated, but the Crown Prosecution Service has reviewed all the evidence in this case and concluded there was insufficient evidence to charge anyone else in connection with Shannon's disappearance."

The 999 call made by Matthews to report her daughter missing led to a massive search operation involving 300 police officers and numerous members of the public. More than 800 potential suspects were identified.

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Shannon, who had been doped with temazepam and a travel sickness drug called Traveleeze, was eventually rescued when police officers forced entry to Donovan's flat and found the child hidden in the base of a divan bed.

The judge read a statement from a senior social worker which revealed that Shannon and her three siblings had all "suffered adversely" from their mother's crime.

Shannon had been left "disturbed and traumatised and frightened" and would need to undergo periods of psychotherapy and specialist "therapeutic interventions" over a long period to help her to recover.

"She appeared to relive her experiences and she often complains of having nightmares where she is being tied up."
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* Shannon Matthews suffers recurring nightmares

* She came from the wrong sort of family

* Social services deemed Shannon was safe

Multimedia

* PICTURES: Karen Matthews

Mr Justice McCombe told Matthews and Donovan: "It is incomprehensible that you could have permitted your friends, neighbours, and in your case, Matthews, even your children to sacrifice time and energy in extensive searches for the supposedly missing child.

"It is also incomprehensible that you could stand by and watch enormous police resources being wasted in an earnest and distressing search which many officers would have thought could only lead to a tragic discovery."

Matthews and Donovan were each sentenced to a total of eight years in prison, a six-year term for kidnapping running concurrently with three years for false imprisonment, plus a consecutive two-year sentence for perverting the course of justice.

Because each has served more than 280 days on remand in custody, they are likely to be released on licence after serving little more than three years of their sentence.

Frances Oldham QC, in mitigation for Matthews, said she had been demonised by the media coverage of the case and by a senior police officer's inaccurate description of her as "pure evil".

Away from "the hysteria and hyperbole", Matthews should be viewed as "an inadequate woman who found herself in a situation beyond her control". She had an IQ of 74, low self esteem and a limited attention span.

"The one thing Karen Matthews is not is pure evil. She is not Myra Hindley; she is not Rose West."

The court heard that Matthews had seven children by a number of fathers and that "most of her relationships have been characterised by domestic violence".

Alan Conrad, QC, for Donovan, said that Shannon had been well looked after and well-nourished during her imprisonment. She had been "treated with a degree of respect and allowed her own space".

Both barristers argued that their clients would have been intellectually incapable of organising and carrying out the kidnap plot without the assistance of others.