THE MOTHER of Yorkshire schoolgirl Shannon Matthews was jailed for eight years yesterday for what a judge called the “despicable and inconceivable” kidnap and drugging of her nine-year-old daughter.
Karen Matthews (33) stood impassively in the dock as sentence was passed, with her accomplice, Shannon’s step-uncle Michael Donovan. He was also sent to prison for eight years.
But Mr Justice McCombe signalled that the long and hugely publicised saga of Shannon’s 24-day kidnap last year might not yet be over. He told Leeds crown court: “It must be doubtful whether Matthews and Donovan could have conceived or continued these offences without the assistance or connivance of others.”
Matthews’s friend Julie Bushby, chairwoman of the tenants and residents’ association on Moorside estate, Dewsbury, where the family lived, left the court saying: “There’s no doubt about that in neighbours’ minds. Other people were involved.”
Det Supt Andy Brennan, of West Yorkshire police, who headed the £3.2 million inquiry which involved the questioning of most of Matthews’s large extended family, said the case was closed. “We concluded there was not sufficient evidence to charge anybody else. But if new evidence comes to light, it will of course be investigated.”
During mitigation pleas, Frances Oldham QC criticised Mr Brennan’s description of her client, Matthews, after her conviction last month as “pure evil”. Ms Oldham said it was part of a “demonisation” process which risked bracketing a stupid and inadequate mother with the likes of child murderers Myra Hindley and Rose West. Agreeing that jail for up to eight years would be appropriate, she suggested that the kidnap had been a ploy to help Matthews leave her abusive partner Craig Meehan that had spiralled out of control.
The judge agreed that the “evil” tag “was not a helpful comment” and criticised “hyperbole about this case in some quarters” but did not mince his own words when Matthews and Donovan stood to be sentenced.
As both stood as expressionless as they had during their five weeks in the dock before Christmas, he told them: “The offences you committed were truly despicable. It is impossible to conceive how you put this young girl through the ordeal that you inflicted on her.
“It is incomprehensible that you could have permitted your friends and 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. The cost to the public was £3.2 million, and many well-intentioned people also provided free help and facilities.”
The judge singled out for condemnation the dosing of nine-year-old Shannon with the adult sedative temazepam, not only during the kidnap, but for up to two years previously at her home.
Saying the drugging was done “on a regular basis and as a matter of routine”, he revealed that the schoolgirl continued to suffer from nightmares about being tied up, following her imprisonment in Donovan’s flat, where a looped tether was found knotted to a beam. “It was installed to allow her access to the lavatory but not to the doors or windows,” he said. – (Guardian service)