Kidnap mother and accomplice get eight years
Karen Matthews, aged 33, from Dewsbury Moor, West Yorkshire, and Michael Donovan, age 40, were found guilty last month of kidnap, false imprisonment and perverting the course of justice.
They were sentenced at Leeds Crown Court where the judge described their offences as “truly despicable”.
Nine-year-old Shannon Matthews vanished in February last year, sparking one of the country’s biggest searches — costing £3.2 million (€3.3m) and involving 300 police officers plus three-quarters of Britain’s police dogs.
Shannon was kept for 24 days in Donovan’s flat, where she was drugged and kept tied to a beam with a loose strap which had a noose on the end, prosecutors said.
She was found in the base of a divan bed.
Prosecutors alleged the pair committed the crime because they wanted to claim reward money for the girl.
The judge told the convicted pair: “The offences that you committed were truly despicable.”
The judge also said it was doubtful that they could have carried out the scheme without the help of others.
“It is argued for both that they were not of sufficient intelligence to conceive and implement this plan without the involvement of others,” he said.
