Kidnapping of Shannon Matthews
On 19 February 2008, nine-year-old Shannon Louise Matthews (born 9 September 1998) was reported missing in Dewsbury, West Yorkshire, England.
Donovan—also known as Paul Drake—was to have eventually "found" Shannon, taken her to a police station, and claimed the reward money, which would be split between Donovan and Matthews.
Their joint trial at Leeds Crown Court commenced on 11 November 2008[5] and concluded on 4 December with both defendants found guilty.
Roy Greenslade, writing for The Guardian blog, explained, "Overarching everything is social class" but added that Shannon's disappearance 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".
[25][26] 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 McCann.
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.
[38] Meehan was arrested on 2 April on suspicion of possessing indecent images of children, after police had examined computers in the home.
[39] He was remanded in custody by Dewsbury Magistrates, at a hearing on 3 April charged with 11 offences of possessing indecent images of children.
On 16 September 2008, he was convicted by Dewsbury Magistrates of 11 counts of possessing child pornography, relating to 49 images of level one, two, three and four found on his computer after it was seized from the house he lived in with Matthews, on Moorside Road.
[51] The Daily Telegraph 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.
On 4 December 2008, Karen Matthews and Michael Donovan were found guilty of kidnapping, false imprisonment and perverting the course of justice.
[57] 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 Daily Telegraph described a "dysfunctional family where children equalled benefits", a claim that was supported by Shannon's aunt, Julie Poskitt.
[58] Writer and political activist Owen Jones later proposed in his 2011 book Chavs: The Demonization of the Working Class that for both the Conservative Party and those parts of the media traditionally supportive of its agenda, "Karen Matthews had become a convenient political prop"; that the case was cynically used to garner public support for the party's subsequent programme of austerity and cut-backs to spending on welfare.
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] 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.
[62][63] On 18 May 2009, an ITV programme, Tears, Lies and Videotape, documented cases of people who manipulated the media for personal attention.
In 2010, dark comedy act Kunt and the Gang wrote a musical based on the case and released it on CD that same year.
Tuppence Ha'penny Productions subsequently worked with Kunt to produce a live version which premiered in August 2022 at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival as Shannon Matthews: The Musical.
On 8 December 2022, Channel 5 aired the documentary The Man Who Took Shannon Matthews, which focused on Michael Donovan and included a look at his background prior to and his whereabouts following the kidnapping.
