Disappearance of Shannon Matthews

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Shannon Matthews is a British girl who disappeared on the afternoon of 19 February 2008 in Dewsbury, West Yorkshire, England.^[1] The search for the nine-year-old became a major missing person police operation.^[2] She was found alive on 14 March 2008 at a house in Batley Carr, West Yorkshire, belonging to 39-year-old Michael 'Mick' Donovan, Shannon’s stepfather's uncle. Donovan, formerly known as Paul Drake, was arrested at the scene, and subsequently charged with the kidnapping and false imprisonment of Shannon.^[3][4] Karen Matthews, Shannon's mother, was charged with child neglect and perverting the course of justice, on 8 April 2008. Donovan and Matthews are due to remain in jail until they face a joint trial starting on 11 November 2008.^[5]

Contents 1 Disappearance 1.1 Investigation 1.2 Publicity 1.3 Media reaction 1.4 Discovery 2 Subsequent events 3 References

[edit] Disappearance

[edit] Investigation

Shannon was last seen at 15:10 on 19 February 2008, outside Westmoor Junior School, Church Lane, Dewsbury Moor, the school that she attends, where she had been dropped off after a visit to the Dewsbury Sports Centre swimming pool.^[6] This is about half-a-mile from her home in Dewsbury Moor.^[7]

The investigation was led by Detective Superintendent Andy Brennan.^[8] The West Yorkshire Police questioned 1,500 motorists^[9] and also searched 3,000 houses.^[10] By 5 March, more than 250 officers and 60 detectives were involved in the investigation, about 10% of West Yorkshire Police's operational strength.^[10] This became the largest police search for a missing person, in the country, since the Yorkshire Ripper investigation around 30 years previously.^[2][11] Of the 27 specialist victim recovery dogs in the United Kingdom, 16 were involved in the search.^[12]

[edit] Publicity

The Sun newspaper initially offered a reward of £20,000 for information leading to Shannon's safe return.^[13] This was subsequently increased, on 10 March, to £50,000.^[14] A Huddersfield business also offered £5,000.^[15]

The West Yorkshire Police created a web page, 'Missing Shannon Matthews Appeal', to assist in the search. They released a new publicity photograph of Shannon, on 7 March, on that page.^[16] The police also released the 999 call made by Karen Matthews reporting the disappearance.^[17] An official website, 'Help Us Find Shannon', including the Shannon Matthews Appeal, was launched on 11 March.^[18] Both websites were removed following the discovery of Shannon.

[edit] Media reaction

A comparison was drawn, in early March 2008, between the publicity given to the disappearance of Madeleine McCann with the much lower level of publicity for Shannon. Roy Greenslade, writing in the Guardian Unlimited blog, explained this by stating that "Overarching everything is social class" but added that Shannon going missing in the UK made a difference. The Independent took the same line saying "Kate and Gerry McCann had a lot: they were a couple of nice middle-class doctors on holiday in an upmarket resort... Karen Matthews is not as elegant, nor as eloquent".^[19][20]

The Times noted that the local community has pulled together but that the hunt appeared to have been classed as less newsworthy than the most minor developments in the search for Madeleine McCann.^[21] The Brisbane Times said that Karen Matthews and Kate McCann represented two sides of the social class coin in Britain.^[22] The Daily Telegraph speculated that had Shannon belonged to a middle-class family, in which articulate parents were conversant with the mechanics of mobilising a slick public awareness campaign, then more public attention would have been focused on the effort to find her.^[23]

Shannon's mother, Karen Matthews, said on GMTV, on 7 March, that her partner Craig Meehan was not involved and that he "would not hurt anybody".^[6] Meehan was also defended by Shannon's father, Leon Rose.^[24] Nonetheless, Matthews and her partner, in an interview on the Today programme on 12 March, were questioned on suggestions by her parents that her partner had been violent towards Shannon and on having seven children by five fathers. Commenting on the interview, The Independent said that the case had developed a cruel overtone and that such questions went far beyond necessity and lifted the lid on an uncomfortable hypocrisy in British society.^[25]

[edit] Discovery

West Yorkshire Police confirmed that Shannon was found alive at 12:30 p.m. on March 14, 2008, twenty-four days after going missing. She was found concealed in the base of a divan bed in a flat in Lidgate Gardens, Batley Carr. Michael Donovan, 39, was arrested at the scene.^[3]

Shannon was made subject to an emergency Police Protection Order by the West Yorkshire Police and was cared for by the Social Services.^[26] The order was made under section 46 of the Children Act 1989 which allows such orders to remain in force for 72 hours.^[27] The protection order was lifted on 17 March 2008.^[28] Since then Shannon has remained in the care of Kirklees Family Services on a voluntary basis.^[29]

The police reported on 15 March that Shannon had started on the road to recovery following her ordeal. Specially trained officers started to question her to establish what had happened since she went missing.^[30] The questioning, expected to last for several weeks, took place in ten-minute intervals at a special children's suite resembling a classroom.^[29]

A film of the Matthews family's search for Shannon, and her homecoming, was shown in an episode of the Channel 4 documentary series Cutting Edge on 20 March.^[31]

[edit] Subsequent events

Michael Donovan, the uncle of Shannon’s stepfather, was charged with kidnapping and false imprisonment in connection with the incident on 17 March 2008.^[4] Donovan appeared before Dewsbury magistrates on 18 March, and was remanded in custody.^[32] He then appeared at Leeds Crown Court, via a video link from his prison cell, on 26 March.^[33] Donovan is due to enter pleas on the charges at a preliminary hearing on 11 July. The provisional trial date has been fixed for 11 November.^[33]

Relating to examination of computers in the home of Shannon by the investigation team, Craig Meehan, the stepfather of Shannon, was arrested on 2 April, on suspicion of possessing indecent images of children.^[34] He was remanded in custody, by Dewsbury Magistrates Court, at a hearing on 3 April charged with 11 offences of possessing indecent images of children.^[35]. On 18 April 2008 Meehan pleaded not guilty, and elected to be tried by magistrate rather than a jury.

Shannon's mother, Karen Matthews, was arrested on 6 April on suspicion of attempting to pervert the course of justice.^[36] She was charged with child neglect and perverting the course of justice, on 8 April.^[37][38]

Amanda Hyett, Craig Meehan's sister, was arrested on suspicion of assisting an offender, on 4 April 2008.^[39][40] Alice Meehan, the mother of Craig Meehan and sister of Michael Donovan, was arrested on suspicion of attempting to pervert the course of justice, also on 4 April.^[39][40] Both Amanda Hyett and Alice Meehan were released on police bail on 4 April but they were rearrested, along with Meehan's sister Caroline, on 10 April. All three women are being held on suspicion of perverting the course of justice.^[41]

The police announced, on April 8, that they were investigating approaches to the Madeleine McCann fund, for money to assist the search for Shannon.^[42]

Karen Matthews was remanded to face trial alongside Donovan in November 2008.^[5]

[edit] References