This is Karen Matthews, pictured for the first time since the man she conspired with to help kidnap her daughter died.
Kidnapper Michael Donovan had colluded with Matthew’s in 2009 when he abducted her nine-year-old daughter Shannon and held her captive in a plot to claim a £50,000 award.
The schoolgirl, who had been drugged and hidden in the draw of a divan bed, was found 24 days later after police raided Donovan’s council flat in Batley Carr, West Yorkshire.
Donovan and Matthews were both found guilty of kidnap, false, imprisonment and perverting the court of justice and served half their sentence of eight years in jail.
On Tuesday, it was announced that the Donovan had died age 54 after collapsing in a mental health unit at the Three Valleys Hospital in Keighley. He had been suffering from throat cancer.
Emerging for the first time today, wearing a long beige puffer coat and with her face hidden behind a pink scarf, Matthews emerged from her shabby flat and shouted ‘I’m innocent, leave me alone.’
She stared intensely ahead as she rushed away with her hands in her pockets.
Matthews, 47, became a household name exactly 15 years ago when she appeared on TV crying as she appealed for people to come forward with information about her daughter’s whereabouts.
Karen Matthews was seen for the first time since kidnapper Michael Donovan’s death
Matthews’ boyfriend Paul Saunders said she was ‘over the moon’ that Donovan had passed away
Donovan died on Tuesday after collapsing at Three Valleys Hospital in Keighley, West Yorkshire
Speaking on behalf of Matthews, her boyfriend Paul Saunders, a convicted paedophile told : ‘She’s over the moon that Donovan is dead. It’s the best news she’s had in ages.
‘Karen hopes that he rots in hell, we both do. Donovan is scum, we hope that he had a painful death.’
He added: ‘She was told about it in a phone call and she screamed with happiness. She was punching the air because this man deserved to die. Good riddance to him.’
Despite Matthews’ conviction, Saunders insisted: ‘She’s innocent. It was Donovan who did the crime and kidnapped Shannon. She had nothing to do with it. People have got this all wrong.’
Shannon was reported missing from her home estate in Dewsbury, West Yorkshire, on February 19, 2008.
Police launched a £3.2million search to find Shannon, only to discover that she had been tied up and drugged in Donovan’s home for 24 days – hidden in his bedroom with a list of rules on how to behave.
The girl was found in the drawer of a divan bed in his bedroom, just a mile from her Dewsbury home.
Saunders today revealed that Matthews has not seen her daughter or her other six children for ‘several years’ and has no contact with the rest of her family.
He said: ‘Karen has been unfairly portrayed as Britain’s worst mother. But it’s total lies. Donovan is the only criminal here.’
Shannon Matthews, aged nine when she was taken captive, has been granted a new identity and lifelong anonymity along with her six siblings
Shannon Matthews’ mother Karen Matthews plotted the fake kidnap in a bid to claim the £50,000 reward put up for offer in February 2009
Wearing a long beige puffer coat and with her face hidden behind a pink scarf, Matthews emerged from her shabby flat and shouted ‘I’m innocent, leave me alone.’
Saunders was jailed for five years at Oxford Crown Court in 2010 for sexual activity with a child and sexual assault. He must sign the Sex Offenders’ Register for life.
He and Matthews live together in the south of England and are believed to have been together for around five years. They met after Saunders worked as a handyman in her home.
Shannon and her siblings have been granted new identities and lifelong anonymity following a High Court injunction in 2020 and are kept apart from their mother.
Matthews and Donovan were both jailed for eight years at Leeds Crown Court in January 2009 after being convicted of kidnap, false imprisonment and perverting the course of justice.
Each served four years of their sentences before being released in 2012. Matthews was released in April 2012 and given a new taxpayer-funded identity and home.
Julie Bushby, who was portrayed by Sheridan Smith in a BBC dramatisation of the horrific case, has suggested Shannon ‘can get some peace now’.
Karen Matthews’ former best friend Julie Bushby, pictured here on ITV’s This Morning programme in February 2017, has welcomed the death of Michael Donovan as ‘karma’
Karen Matthews and her then-partner Craig Meehan posed for photographs outside their home in Dewsbury, West Yorkshire, after her daughter Shannon was found in March 2009
Karen Matthews was photographed in February last year with new partner Paul Saunders
She told the Mirror: ‘At least now the taxpayer will save some money, and Shannon can get some peace and some closure.
‘Every time a picture of him is shown it must hurt her – every time there’s a picture of Donovan or her mother, it’s alongside her picture. That’s got to be hard to live with.’
Ms Bushby was one of the woman involved in the search for Shannon, later describing how the community ‘paid the price’ for Matthews’ and Donovan’s crimes.
She was among those who slept all night in a community centre with the lights kept on to act as a beacon to help the schoolgirl find her way home.
In 2016, Ms Bushby said many people living in the area felt like they were partly blamed for what had happened, said: ‘It’s as if they punished us for what happened and killed our community spirit.
‘There’s only about a handful of the originals left on the estate – most have moved because they don’t want to be associated with it.’
Donovan is said to have told a relative earlier this year he had been given just three to nine months to live after being diagnosed with Stage 3 brain cancer.
He was given the name Paul Drake when born but later changed it to Michael Donovan after a TV sci-fi character, before another recent switch to Aiden Johnson.
West Yorkshire Police was last year investigating him for the alleged possession of child pornography and he was placed under a sexual harm prevention order after appearing at Bradford Crown Court.
Karen Matthews is pictured in March 2008 holding her daughter’s favourite teddy bear as she feigned an emotional appeal for her safe return
She is seen here leaving Dewsbury police station in April 2008 after being charged
West Yorkshire Police released footage of her being interviewed by officers at the time
A relative of Donovan said: ‘He had told me in the past that he had cancer, but I didn’t believe him at first because he would make things up. I was told he had lung cancer which spread to his brain.
‘I’m glad that his suffering is finally over. I feel sorry for Mick – he was a fool to himself.’
And Ms Bushby suggested she was not surprised by the revelation about the sexual harm prevention order, saying: ‘It’s clear he was still a danger to children – so it’s good he’s dead.’
She told of still feeling it ‘frustrating’ that locals did not know at the time of Shannon’s disappearance than Donovan was previously suspected of abducting his own daughter 15 months earlier.
Ms Bushby added: ‘It would have been over in a breath if we’d been told that but instead it turned into one of the biggest police hunts ever.’
Donovan was pronounced dead on Tuesday afternoon after collapsing at Three Valleys Hospital, whose private operators Elysium Healthcare refused to comment.