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Complex tale of deceit, betrayal - and a community that cared

Blackpool Gazette

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August 25, 2025

'll never forget the moment Shannon Matthews was found. I wasn't in the newsroom at the local paper in Dewsbury though, where we'd been following every twist and turn of events since she disappeared in February 2008, but on holiday in the Canaries.

Complex tale of deceit, betrayal - and a community that cared

We were having a family lunch in the pool bar when my cousin texted to say she had been found alive - hidden under a bed in Batley Carr. And it must be true because it was all round Asda.

The Dewsbury Reporter had covered it since the day the nine-year-old went missing over three weeks previously and honestly nobody expected that outcome.

However the drama was far, far from over, with the girl's mother Karen, the tenant of the flat where she was found, Michael Donovan, and Karen's boyfriend Craig Meehan all ending up in prison, the first two for hatching a plot to share a £50,000 reward and the latter jailed for possession of child porn.

So it's little wonder it has inspired books, documentaries, a film and even a musical (honestly).

The latest two-parter, The Hunt For Shannon Matthews, is on Amazon Video and features firsthand testimony from Karen's friends, the police family liaison officer involved and Shannon's best friend, who made a tearful TV appeal just after she went missing.

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