Sunday Mirror (Northern Ireland)
KAREN MATTHEWS WORKS AS A CARER
Hired by OAPs... then ‘grows close to man, 70’
SHAMED mum Karen Matthews got a job as a carer but has left the post already amid claims she grew “too close” to a 70-year-old churchgoer.
Matthews – jailed for plotting to kidnap her own daughter – was hired by an elderly couple who took pity on her after meeting at church.
They paid her to cook and clean after the frail wife had a hospital stay. But weeks later, it is claimed, Matthews, 43, left as rumours circulated about her behaviour.
The wife, 65, is said to have banned Matthews from the house over fears her friendship with her husband was becoming “too close”.
The 70-year-old man insists the relationship was platonic.
A source close to the couple said: “They are devout Christians and took pity on Karen. They paid her to care for the woman and do housework. It was great at
first but things grew tense.”
FAULTS
Karen was picked up by the couple each morning from her two-bed council house and driven 15 minutes to their home. At the end of a shift she was then driven home.
The couple confirmed that they hired Matthews. The husband said of the relationship: “It was platonic. She’s still a friend.”
But the wife added: “She doesn’t come round here any more.”
Our source added: “The husband is still trying to do right by Karen and would like to be her friend.
“He is telling all of their friends to give her a second chance. He says she was a scapegoat for her crimes. It’s like he’s blind to her faults and won’t hear a word against her.”
The episode comes a year after “sugar daddy” Eric Anderson, 72, admitted showering Matthews with money and gifts and “teaching her about love”.
Matthews, from Dewsbury, West Yorks, has seven children by five dads. She was dubbed Britain’s worst mum in 2008 for her part in the kidnap of daughter Shannon, nine, in order to claim a £50,000 reward. Matthews served four years in jail and now lives under a new identity
in the south of England.