Featured Image Credit: Getty/Christopher Furlong
Topics: UK News, Crime, True Crime, Parenting
Olivia Burke
Topics: UK News, Crime, True Crime, Parenting
It's been nearly two decades since Karen Matthews' fake kidnap plot was foiled and her nine-year-old daughter Shannon was found safe.
She managed to fool the UK into believing that her daughter had disappeared on her way home from school, sparking a major missing persons investigation.
Police in West Yorkshire searched thousands of houses and quizzed hundreds of motorists, while cops worked around the clock to crack what they believed was a kidnapping case.
However, it later transpired that Shannon had not vanished at all - and despite posing as a distraught parent for 24 days, Karen had known where she was all along.
On the afternoon of 19 February 2008, Shannon was last seen outside of her school in Dewsbury Moor, which was around half a mile away from her home in Dewsbury, West Yorkshire.
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Hours later, her mother, Karen, called the police to report the youngster missing, prompting a huge response which ultimately became a nationwide hunt.
The British press heavily covered the case and the subsequent search - which ended up costing a whopping £3.2 million - while Karen made a series of tearful TV appeals calling for her child's return.
After keeping up the elaborate ruse for over three weeks, it then emerged that the mum-of-seven was in fact at the heart of the kidnapping and had orchestrated the whole thing.
Along with Michael Donovan, the uncle of her boyfriend, Craig Meehan, they had supposedly been inspired to fake the abduction after being wowed by the attention which the Madeleine McCann case garnered.
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While hundreds of members of the community were tirelessly searching for Shannon, the pair had drugged the schoolgirl and were keeping her hidden at Donovan's flat.
They intended to later release her at Dewsbury Market, where they would then ‘find’ her and scoop a £50,000 reward.
Despite putting on a front for the waiting cameras and police, behind closed doors, the mother was letting her mask slip.
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Family liaison officer Detective Constable Christine Freeman revealed that Karen displayed a host of unusual behaviours while her daughter was supposedly missing, which set alarm bells ringing.
She told The Telegraph in 2017 that the mum 'hardly looked up' when she entered her home and had continued to play on an Xbox with her boyfriend Meehan.
"After a few minutes my phone rang," Christine continued. "I had a pop song as my ringtone and Karen got up and started dancing to it. I remember thinking, 'This is really odd'."
At one point, the Matthews brood had to stay with Karen's friend Natalie Brown while police searched their home - and even this pal picked up on Karen's strange conduct during what was supposedly a time of crisis.
"Karen came to stay at my house and when the TV cameras weren’t around, I realised that it was as if she didn’t care, she was back to her normal, happy self," Natalie said, as per The Mirror.
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Karen's former friend also claimed that the mum bragged that Shannon was 'famous now' when coverage of the case flashed on TV.
Suspicions surrounding the mum's involvement in the case were ultimately followed up by police, who uncovered that she had been communicating with Donovan - and they raided his flat on 14 March 2008.
There, Shannon was found at the bottom of a bed frame.
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After the hoax kidnapping was rumbled, both Karen and Donovan - who died last year - were locked up for eight years after being found guilty of kidnapping, false imprisonment and perverting the court of justice.
The mum, who is now in her late forties, only served half of her sentence, and she changed her name after gaining her freedom, according to Prime Video’s new documentary, The Hunt for Shannon Matthews.
Karen continued to maintain her innocence despite the overwhelming evidence against her, but has lain low ever since her release from prison.
In a 2018 interview with The Mirror, she claimed that she had been made a 'scapegoat' while alleging that she 'didn't know where' Shannon was 'from the start'.
"Others were involved," Karen claimed. "I didn’t have a clue. You can’t kidnap your own child. I know the truth, and I wasn’t involved in it. I still have nightmares thinking that it’s all going to happen again.
“I want to take a lie detector test to prove my innocence," she said, while recalling how she was 'beat up' by fellow lags in jail 'because of who she was'.
At the time, Karen had been relocated to an unspecified town in the south of England for her own safety, and she told the publication she had been volunteering in a Christian charity shop.
She was living in a one-bedroom basement flat with only her budgie Bob for company, while Karen had also sworn off men, saying: "I will never get married. I don’t trust them at all."
It is believed that Karen has not had any contact with her daughter Shannon since she was arrested for her role in the kidnap plot back in 2008.
The schoolgirl, who is now 26 years old, was taken into care after being found and was placed with a new family. She was also given a new identity after her ordeal 17 years ago, while her six siblings were also taken into care.
There is a special order in place to prevent anyone from contacting Shannon, but at the end of the new Prime Video doc, producers revealed they had communicated with her while making it.
However, nothing is known about who or where she is now, as her right to privacy and anonymity has rightfully been respected.