tagged w/ Shannon Matthews
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An independent review is to examine contact between Karen Matthews and social services in the run-up to the kidnap of her daughter, her local council announced on Friday.
Kirklees Council said it would commission an independently chaired serious case review to look at the involvement social services and other agencies had had with the Matthews family.An independent review is to examine contact between Karen Matthews and social services... more
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Weeping Karen Matthews confessed she knew all along who had taken her missing daughter Shannon, a court was told yesterday.
Her confession was revealed, the same day as test results revealed that Shannon had been fed a 'potent hypnotic' drug temazepam regularly for months before she vanished. She was also given travel sickness drug Melcozine.
Matthews was arrested after admitting knowing Shannon was being held by Michael Donovan, 40, and it was all part of a plot to leave boyfriend Craig Meehan - but she had "bottled it". She found herself having to report that Shannon was missing, and it all got out of hand says Prosecutor Julian Goose QC.
It is alleged Donovan kept Shannon drugged and imprisoned in his flat in a plan he and Matthews had to claim £50,000 in reward money to pay for a holiday. They deny kidnapping, false imprisonment and perverting justice.Weeping Karen Matthews confessed she knew all along who had taken her missing daughter... more
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sallyf
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added this
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3 years ago
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The mother of Shannon Matthews said she had arranged for her co-accused to take her daughter as part of a plan to leave her partner, witnesses told her trial on Wednesday.
Leeds Crown Court heard that friends Natalie Brown and Julie Bushby were in a car with Karen Matthews and a police officer when she admitted asking Michael Donovan to look after Shannon while she left partner, the Press Association reported.
Matthews, 33, and Donovan, 40, are accused of kidnapping and falsely imprisoning Shannon who went missing from her home in Dewsbury, West Yorkshire, for 24 days in February and March this year when she was nine.The mother of Shannon Matthews said she had arranged for her co-accused to take her... more
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Shannon Matthews was "drugged to subdue her" after she was kidnapped by her own mother and an accomplice, a jury has been told.
Shannon Matthews was the victim of a staged abduction orchestrated by her own family following the worldwide attention given to the Madeleine MacCann case last year.Shannon Matthews was "drugged to subdue her" after she was kidnapped by her... more
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The former partner of Shannon Matthews' mother has been sentenced to 20 weeks in jail for possessing child pornography.
But Craig Meehan, 22, is expected to be released from custody imminently because he has already spent 166 days in prison on remand.
He was convicted at Dewsbury Magistrates' Court of 11 counts relating to 49 images on a computer.
Meehan left the court under police escort in an unmarked car and he has been taken to a secret location.
His computer was seized from the home he shared with Karen Matthews, on Moorside Road, Dewsbury Moor, West Yorkshire, by police searching for Shannon earlier this year.
Indecent images of children aged between four and 16 were found on one of two computers at the home where Meehan lived with Matthews, 32, for around five years. The images were graded on a scale on which one is the least serious and five the most.
Meehan was found guilty of possessing 31 images at level one, 10 at level two, two at level three and six at level four.
District Judge Jonathan Bennett told Meehan: "The damage that has been caused to the children in these photographs is unimaginable."
Police experts told the court the computer contained 653 references to "Lolita" - a term commonly used by people interested in searching for child porn.
Officers searching for Shannon, who is now 10, seized the second-hand computer the day after she went missing in February.
Meehan was subsequently charged with child pornography offences in April.
He denied all the charges and told the court he had never searched for, or viewed, child porn.
The former partner of Shannon Matthews' mother has been sentenced to 20 weeks in... more
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JJ3000
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added this
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3 years ago
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The boyfriend of Shannon Matthews' mother appeared in court on Friday charged with possessing child pornography.
Craig Meehan, 22, was remanded in custody until April 18 by Dewsbury magistrates.
The supermarket fishmonger faces 11 specimen charges relating to the possession of indecent images of children.
A number of his family have been arrested in connection with nine-year-old Shannon's disappearance. She went missing after a school swimming trip in February, sparking a massive hunt.
She was found 24 days later in the base of a bed about a mile away from her home in Dewsbury, West Yorkshire.The boyfriend of Shannon Matthews' mother appeared in court on Friday charged... more
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Shannon Matthews' mother has now been charged with child neglect and perverting the course of justice, which puts a completely different spin on the story of the missing child of just a few weeks ago...Shannon Matthews' mother has now been charged with child neglect and perverting... more
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The Sun newspaper reports that the mother of kidnapped nine-year-old Shannon Matthews allegedly confessed to police that she knew where her missing daughter was being held, from the first day of the ordeal.
Shannon was found alive 24 days after she went missing and throughout that time her mother Karen, 32, made emotional pleas for her return. However, she was arrested this weekend on suspicion of perverting the course of justice and newspapers such as the Daily Mail are questioning if she invented the kidnap to make money.
Her arrest came hours after the man accused of abducting Shannon, her step-father's uncle Mike Donovan, tried to kill himself in jail by slashing his wrists. Last week her stepdad was arrested on unconnected child porn charges and his mother and sister were 'held on suspicion of being involved with the youngster's kidnap'.
Timeline of the incidents surrounding the kidnap, courtesy of the Sun:
FEB 19: Shannon vanishes. Search launched.
MARCH 14: Rescued from home of Mike Donovan.
MARCH 17: Donovan charged with abduction.
APRIL 2: Stepdad Craig Meehan arrested on unrelated child porn charges.
APRIL 4: Shannon’s “gran” Alice Meehan and “aunt” Amanda Hyett arrested and bailed.
APRIL 6: Karen arrested.
The Sun newspaper reports that the mother of kidnapped nine-year-old Shannon Matthews... more
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richjm
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4 years ago
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