At the beginning of December, Michael Donovan and Karen Matthews were convicted at Leeds Crown Court of kidnapping and falsely imprisoning Karen Matthews’ daughter Shannon at Donovan’s flat a mile or so from her home in Dewsbury.
The search for Shannon had cost £3.2 million and many people kindly volunteered their time in looking. Donovan later told the police that he planned to release Shannon and to pretend to have found her, so claiming the £50,000 reward money which he would later share with Shannon’s mother. The idea for this scam seems to have had two sources. First, the pair had seen the media interest and reward money offered in the case of Madeleine McCann who disappeared in the Portuguese resort of Praia da Luz in May 2007. Second, an identical plot had featured in an episode of the Channel 4 series Shameless, which is set on a sink estate in Manchester.
What drives such people?
The media accused Karen Matthews of moral bankruptcy for using her daughter in this way. ‘From the day Shannon was born,’ commented The Daily Telegraph, ‘her mother appeared to regard her in the same light as her other six children by five different men: as a means of claiming money from the state.’ Radio 4’s John Humphries intimated on the Today programme that he could not understand the outlook and values of such people.
The re-emergence of heavy shepherds
What would you think if you received a letter from your church leaders that read like this? ‘Are church members …