Shannon ‘drugged and tethered’

Shannon Matthews, the schoolgirl whose disappearance saw one of West Yorkshire's largest police searches, was drugged and tethered to a roof beam in a kidnap plot orchestrated by her mother, a court heard yesterday. The nine-year-old was held for 24 days after her mother Karen Matthews hatched a plot to make £50,000 from newspaper rewards with Michael Donovan, 40, her boyfriend's uncle. The massive police search cost almost £3.2m, the jury was told.

Prosecutors told Leeds crown court how Shannon was held captive in Donovan's flat, after accepting a lift from him on her way home in February. She was drugged with a mixture of temazepam and travel sickness tablets and ordered to stay away from windows.

The court heard how the pair planned to release the girl in Dewsbury market where she would be "found" by Donovan, who would then have claimed the various rewards for Shannon's safe return.

Prosecuting QC Julian Goose described how Karen Matthews, who had made a tearful public appeal for the return of her "beautiful princess daughter", was actually "a proven, consummate, skillful and convincing liar".