Shannon Matthews detective says one thing from case still keeps him up at night 17 years later

A retired detective says there’s one thing from the Shannon Matthews case that still keeps him up at night.

It’s been 17 years since the little girl went missing on her way home from school, with the whole community coming together to help find her and bring her back.

But in what became a prolific true crime story, it was eventually discovered that after pleas on national TV for the child to be found, it was actually her mum that was behind the kidnap plot.

Karen Matthews staged the nine-year-old’s disappearance with Michael Donovan in West Yorkshire in 2008, in a scheme to claim a £50,000 reward.

And Nick Townsend was one of the investigators searching for Shannon every day over the three weeks she was missing. He spoke to LADbible about the day they eventually discovered her, hidden in the frame under a bed in Donovan’s flat.

Nick Townsend was due to retire months after Shannon's disappearance. (Prime Video)

Recalling the case, Townsend is one of those featured in Prime Video’s upcoming documentary, The Hunt for Shannon Matthews.

With a nationwide effort to find the schoolgirl launched, the search finally reached its climax after a tip-off led officers to the man’s home in Lidgate Gardens.

The detective says there was a whole ‘family forest’ of people investigators had to look into and therefore, Shannon’s mum’s boyfriend’s uncle hadn’t been considered.

“Nobody had mentioned the name Michael Donovan to the police,” Townsend claims. But it was soon made known that his own children had been taken into care and he’d previously abducted one of his own daughters from outside school 'which rang some alarm bells'.

“That was the reason for our visit on that morning,” he adds.

The retired detective says they’d gone to the flat to ‘do what cops do’ and knock on some doors, ‘shake a few trees, rattle a few cages and see what falls out'. He says there was no thought that Shannon ‘was actually there’ and when they got no answer at Donovan’s door, they’d have ‘been perfectly entitled to walk away'.

Shannon's mum hoped to claim the reward money for her daughter. (Prime Video)

However, neighbours explained that the man must have been in if his car was in the car park, ‘so we knew he was in'.

And then, Townsend spoke to a neighbour from the flat below who said she’d ‘heard some movement'.

“I said, ‘Well, what have you heard?’” he recalls. “And she said, ‘The tiny footsteps of a toddler.' At that moment, a cold sort of shudder went through my spine.

“Hang on a minute – his own children are in care, who’s this in the flat above with him? "Taking into account he was refusing to answer the door.”

Townsend knew they had to get in the flat so had a support unit come and break the door and ‘the rest, as they say, is history'.

Looking back on that decision not to abandon the flats when Donovan didn’t answer, the copper praises his mentor, Stuart Lawrence, for teaching him the meaning of ‘tenacity, dogged determination and never taking no for answer'.

And Townsend still can’t help but think about what would’ve happened if he’d ignored that.

“It would have been perfectly reasonable for us to walk away that day and that sometimes keeps me awake at night – what if we had walked away?” he says.

“Who knows how long it would have taken to find her then? The thought of that is quite mind-boggling but, we did what we did.”

Nick said the thought they could have left the flat that day keeps him awake at night. (Prime Video)

Donovan and Karen, of course, each eventually ended up jailed for eight years for kidnap, false imprisonment and perverting the court of justice.

Shannon and her siblings were placed in care with Townsend never seeing her again after taking her to the police station and doing some colouring while they waited for social services.

With the once missing school girl having been given anonymity of her new life, Townsend adds a message to the now 26-year-old: “People have sort of dismissed this inquiry as ‘an elaborate game of hide and seek’, but Shannon was still a victim. She wasn’t a part of this conspiracy, she was still a victim.

“And I just hope that really, she’s been given a chance for a better life and that she’s made something out of herself, hopefully.”

The Hunt for Shannon Matthews airs on Prime Video on 17 August.