The world’s most REVILED MOTHER
Karen Matthews was vilified for kidnapping her daughter in 2008. Now a new drama with Sheridan Smith explores her twisted mind
Even today, nine years after she staged the kidnapping of her own daughter, Karen Matthews is still reviled as the worst mother in Britain. Her audacious lies, the crocodile tears and the betrayal of the locals who rallied around to try to find nine-year-old Shannon make her crime one of the most shocking of the century.
For 24 long days and nights, police and the people of the deprived Moorside Estate in Dewsbury, Yorkshire, searched for Shannon, not knowing that she had been drugged and shackled to a bed a mile from her home by the uncle of her mother’s boyfriend – all with her mother’s knowledge. The pair had hoped a reward would be offered to find Shannon so they could cash in.
It’s ripe territory for the TV team who have offered us a different perspective on some of the most notorious criminals, from Fred West in the award-winning Appropriate Adult to the Moors Murderers in See No Evil. ‘This story still reverberates,’ says Neil McKay, who wrote two-part drama The Moorside with longtime collaborator Jeff Pope for BBC1. ‘But we didn’t want the show to be purely about Karen or the crime. As with Appropriate Adult, we looked at her behaviour from the point of view of an outsider, to bring the audience in. We don’t show the crime but the people around it. It’s a story about people who had nothing but gave everything for the sake of a child.’
Neil and Jeff were first inspired by Julie Bushby, a local mother who spearheaded the campaign to find Shannon. She came to their attention because she had demanded an apology from then Tory leader David Cameron when he called Moorside ‘a place where decency fights a losing battle against degradation’ after Karen’s conviction.
‘David Cameron came to Moorside to apologise but he wasn’t wearing a tie and Julie berated him for it,’ says Neil. ‘He started to read from a prepared statement and she stopped him and said, “An apology comes from the heart, it isn’t written by someone else.” It made me think about how we’re often judged by where we’re from. All society’s problems were made out to be the fault of these people, but when you meet them they’re good people. That’s the story we wanted to tell.’
From the start, the kidnap was compared to the case of Madeleine McCann, who disappeared while on holiday in Portugal with her middle-class doctor parents nine months before Shannon went missing. ‘This disappearance was judged in relation to Madeleine’s, and initially there seemed to be a lot less attention given to this missing child from a council estate,’ says Neil. ‘And then, after Karen’s betrayal, people piled in to say these people really were the low-lifes they’d been assumed to be.’
Award-winning actress Sheridan Smith plays Julie in the drama, and felt an instant connection with her when they met. ‘The most important aspect of the story for me was how the community came together,’ says Sheridan. ‘It shows how much good there was on that estate and how much people cared about that little girl, especially Julie, who refused to give up.’
In the drama, as in real life, Julie never doubted her friend until Karen was forced to confess she’d known where her daughter was all along. Shannon had been taken by Michael Donovan, the uncle of Karen’s boyfriend Craig Meehan. Even after Shannon was discovered at Michael’s home, Karen – played brilliantly by Game Of Thrones actress Gemma Whelan – claimed she hardly knew him.
Events started to unravel when Craig Meehan was arrested for having unrelated child pornography on his computer. Karen’s children were removed by the authorities and she finally admitted she’d always known who had taken Shannon. In a confession in the car of policewoman Christine Freeman, played by Downton Abbey’s Siobhan Finneran, she claimed she’d been trying to leave Craig, and Michael had been helping her by picking Shannon up after school. But on the day she planned to leave, Craig stayed home from work so she didn’t leave. Michael picked Shannon up as planned and Karen couldn’t explain why she hadn’t come home, so she claimed she was missing.
Another friend of Karen’s, Natalie Brown, played in the drama by Sian Brooke, was immediately suspicious. ‘Natalie had been friends with Karen for a long time and she picked up on things not being right,’ says Sian, who spent time with the real Natalie to find out what motivated her. ‘Karen wasn’t acting like a mother who’d lost a child. One time a phone rang while the police were there and the ringtone was Brown Eyed Girl. Karen stood up and started dancing. Another time she said Shannon was famous now because she was on the telly. It was odd behaviour. Natalie told me many times how close the community was. When Shannon went missing they searched day and night for 24 days. You get an idea of the huge sense of betrayal there was for the whole community.’
The show is even-handed in its portrayal of Karen, which may prove controversial. Neil insists that Karen, who served half of her eight-year prison sentence for kidnapping, false imprisonment and perverting the course of justice, isn’t a demon. ‘She’s a deeply vilified character,’ he says. ‘We don’t make apologies for her crimes, but we show a balanced picture. To categorise her with Fred West and Myra Hindley is daft.
‘We don’t defend or condemn her; we just called it as we saw it.’
Karen now lives several hundred miles away from Dewsbury and has changed her appearance to escape her notoriety. Shannon now lives in anonymity. Julie visited Karen in prison but has only spoken to her once since she left; Natalie hasn’t spoken to her but approves of this more-rounded portrayal of the friend who let everyone down.
The Moorside starts on Tuesday at 9pm on BBC1.