The kidnapping of Shannon Matthews rocked the UK in 2008, and now a new documentary following the fake abduction plot will arrive on one of the world’s biggest streaming services
The kidnapping of schoolgirl Shannon Matthews dominated the headlines in February 2008 and created mass panic across the country. On a Tuesday evening, stay-at-home mum Karen Matthews reported her nine-year-old daughter missing to Dewsbury police, and West Yorkshire officials launched what became the biggest investigation in that area since the hunt for the Yorkshire Ripper.
After three weeks and three days, the search, which was also spearheaded by residents of the Dewsbury Moor estate, came to an end when Shannon was found alive in a flat in Batley Carr, just mere miles from her home. She was found at the home of Michael Donovan, the uncle of her mother’s then-partner Craig Meehan, who was convicted of possessing 49 indecent images of children in 2008 but was not involved in the kidnapping of Shannon and was never charged with any offences relating to the incident.
In a shock twist, it turned out that Karen, now 49, had plotted the entire thing from the start to in an attempt to claim £50,000 in reward money that had been offered by national newspapers. It emerged that she arranged for Donovan, who died in 2024 at the age of 54, to collect Shannon after school and keep her at his flat until she saw fit. It comes after Bonnie Blue is hit with hundreds of Ofcom complaints as viewers slam ‘sick’ documentary.
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Karen, who had seven children by five different fathers, was found guilty of found guilty of kidnapping, false imprisonment and perverting the course of justice sentenced to eight years in prison along with her accomplice, although by the time she was released early in 2012, he was already out.
Shannon, who had been drugged and tied up in the small flat, was immediately placed under police protection once she had been found and was given lifelong anonymity with a new High Court ruling. Now, the events of the entire plot have been re-explored in the The Hunt for Shannon Matthews, which viewers can watch on Amazon Prime Video from Sunday 17th August.
In the years since the bizarre case shocked Britain, the story has been told through several books and documentaries. In 2017, it was adapted into the BBC series The Moorside, starring Game of Thrones actress Gemma Whelan as the woman who was dubbed the nation’s worst mum, and Sheridan Smith as Julie Bushy, the kindly neighbour who headed up the communal efforts to find Shannon, completely unaware that it was all a hoax.
It was also the subject of a satirical musical, which premiered at the Edinburgh Fringe in 2022, and that was made into a film which was also released by Amazon’s Prime Video service.
But TV insiders have insisted that this time round, the new documentary, which features new interviews with former friends and neighbours of Karen Matthews, will offer up a fresh perspective on the whole story, especially because such time has passed since the events took place. A source told The Sun: “The original case dumbfounded the nation when it happened and it took years before many could truly grasp what had happened.
“Shows like 2017, The Moorside which starred Sheridan Smith , tried to shed some light on the events but it continues to be a subject that stirs up an array of emotions. The creators of the new documentary hope that the passing of time and the benefit of distance might help lend some perspective on the story.”
It is the third in a series of recent true crime documentaries released by the streaming giant, the first of which was The Wimbledon Killer, which looked back on the murder of mum Rachel Nickell in the early 1990s, and the second was Surviving The Tunisia Beach Attack, which examined the shooting of 38 holidaymakers, more than a decade on from when the atrocity took place.
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