Original subtitles

[Matthews] If anybody's got my daughter, my beautiful princess daughter,

please bring her home safe.

[reporter] More than 200 police officers have just one thing on their minds.

Where is nine-year-old Shannon Matthews?

It was considered from the get go a very, very serious case.

[reporter] There have been comparisons with the Madeleine McCann case.

-Do you feel it's been unfair? -[officer] I do, yes.

[Vine] The overarching thought about the McCanns is,

middle-class parents.

That could have been our child.

With the Matthews case, the initial reaction was,

the wrong side of the tracks.

[radio reporter] Very kind of deprived area.

Dewsbury Moor full of poor families.

Bad for car crime, lots of single mothers.

It didn't matter. It was about the nine-year-old child.

No one knew where she was.

We know she's out there.

We know she's still alive.

The problem was we had no evidence or information of an abduction.

Twenty-one days after she disappeared, there's still no sign of Shannon Matthews.

This was a much darker story than what it first appeared.

[siren wailing]

[dogs barking]

When the lady who lived in the flat below,

heard the tiny footsteps of a toddler coming from Donovan's flat,

I said, "We need to get in here."

We'd made determined effort to rouse him, to get him to come to the door.

I shouted through the letterbox, but he wouldn't answer the door.

My fear was then that he knew that we were here.

Could he be doing any harm to whoever was in there or to himself,

knowing that the game was up?

So we needed the assistance of the Operational Support Unit.

They've gone up the staircase to the flat.

I could hear a lot of banging and crashing,

smashing of woodwork and doors.

I went up the staircase and as I got to the top,

my colleague appeared from inside the flat,

carrying Shannon in his arms.

Just saying, "I've found her.

I found her under the bed."

I just got a glimpse of her face as we passed on the stairs,

and she just looked totally bewildered, you know.

[Gregg] I was astonished.

It was one of those moments of just pure relief

that we'd found this girl and we found her alive.

When the team leader said,

"Right, this is a crime scene, lock it down."

I said, "Not yet, it's not."

There's a suspect in here somewhere.

And we started to search the flat again.

And the cops in the bedroom were shouting and bawling

that they'd found Michael Donovan also under the bed.

With that, we took Shannon to Dewsbury police station,

where she was ultimately handed over to the emergency social services.

[Jamieson] I'd gone down to Karen's a couple of times that day,

and just so happened to be there when the police turned up.

And we heard the police talking to Karen about Shannon,

saying that she'd been found,

and we were bouncing about like…

[breathes deeply]

[voice breaking] We didn't know if that would happen.

[Bushby] We were all down at community house

and I got a text message and it said that the kid's been found.

It's going round you've found Shannon at Batley Carr?

It was a case of everybody were ringing everybody

to see whether… who had the right story.

It's going round ASDA. It's got to be true.

I mean, I suppose within an hour, all of Dewsbury knew.

It's true.

[resident] Oh, man, can't believe it.

Oh, come on.

[resident 2] I don't believe it.

[Megan] I've come out the school and my dad's been like,

"They've found Shannon."

I just broke down crying because I was so happy,

but I was so scared at the same time.

Like, what if she'd been hurt?

Where was she? Who was she with?

How far away was she?

[Jamieson] When is she gonna come home?

You know, the kids. All the kids were excited to see her.

I wanted to hug her like…

It was like a massive bubble of pressure and tension and stress

that had been hanging over that estate.

A massive needle had been popped through it and it had gone.

And while I had to continue telling the story,

it was a completely different one.

And it was one that it would be a joy to tell.

It turned it on its head in one quick moment.

Karen Matthews was initially a very unsympathetic figure,

because I think there was this reaction of…

disordered parenting, disorderly life,

and this is the kind of life in which you suddenly just lose a daughter.

But then suddenly, Shannon was found

and they began then to get behind her in a massively sympathetic way.

I think all of us, not just the media,

but people generally thought we should not judge this woman.

[reporter] Tonight, Karen Matthews and her partner Craig Meehan

had the look of relief on their faces.

Shannon is alive and well,

but there are still many questions over her disappearance.

Finding Shannon was the most important part.

Now, it's, "What happened?"

And how did she get there and who was involved.

[Gasson] Part of the post arrest of Michael Donovan

was the securing of his flat,

and then the forensic examination that was conducted from there on.

The forensic search at Donovan's house revealed a story,

you know, as to what had been happening in that house

when Shannon was held there.

[Townsend] I was assisting one of the uniform lads to get up into the loft space

and as soon as he got his head through the hatch itself,

he said, "There's a tether."

That tether that was fastened to a roof beam

that had been used to fasten around Shannon's waist,

which would allow her to get to the lavatory

and to turn the television on.

But it prevented her from getting to the door or the window

so that nobody could spot her there.

[Gasson] The actual place where both Shannon and Michael Donovan were found.

He'd actually made the bed the base of the bed,

a place where both him and Shannon

could actually hide in case somebody came looking for her.

So that was all premeditated.

The fact that he'd got that set out.

[Townsend] And forensic analysis of her hair samples

showed that she had been given prescription drugs

over a quite a long period of time,

which were used to just to keep her subdued.

Also, one of the items that were recovered from the flat

was, erm, a piece of A4 paper

with a list of commandments on it for want of a better description.

And it states, "You must not make any noise or bang your feet."

"You must not go near the windows."

"You must not get anything or do anything without me being there."

It says, "Keep the TV volume low."

"You can play the Super Mario games

and you can play some DVDs."

[interviewer] What was the purpose of those rules?

What were they supposed to achieve?

No comment.

Were they supposed to help maintain the secret that Shannon was at your flat?

No comment.

[Townsend] Donovan was interviewed at length about that,

but he wouldn't disclose any information at all.

[interviewer] You can see at the bottom in large letters are the initials "IPU."

What does that mean?

No comment.

It's despicable. It's absolutely a disgrace.

Hopes are high that Shannon will at some point be able to return home,

but it's unlikely to be anytime soon.

That process of gently interviewing the nine-year-old has really just begun.

-[fireworks burst] -[cheering]

That night we decided to have this bonfire in the back of the community centre.

We had all kids throwing leaflets in.

[reporter] These are not needed anymore and Shannon's friends are celebrating.

[kids] Shannon! Shannon!

[Bushby] We had karaoke. We had discos.

We had fireworks.

It were one hell of a community celebration.

We all went from being all these sad, depressed people

to being over the moon, happy, crying because she'd been found.

It meant everything.

Like, no parent wants to ever think that the child's not going to come home.

I bet you could have filled the air with the amount of sighs.

You know, the heavy sighs. Thank God…

the nightmare was over.

[kids shouting, cheering]

[Freeman] On the day that Shannon was found,

the house at Dewsbury Moor was just inundated,

surrounded by people from the press.

And so we felt it safer to take Karen and Craig to a hotel.

I remember sitting in the hotel with them,

watching a party going on on Dewsbury Moor Estate.

All the neighbours celebrating.

But in actual fact, the atmosphere between Karen and Craig

was one of a very low…

Erm, not what you'd expect at all

when you know my daughter's been found safe and well.

[Bushby] That night, it was about, "That child had been found."

It was the following morning that the questions were asked.

[Jamieson] We knew that there'd be a police investigation.

Why she was where she was,

where they took her from, why he took her….

So we knew it wouldn't be the end of it.

But what came next, we didn't--

I personally, didn't expect.

[Bushby] People started coming out of their houses

and started talking amongst themselves.

[Jamieson] When I heard that news that Shannon had been found

in Michael Donovan's house,

my first initial reaction was…

who's Michael Donovan?

And why would he hide a child under the bed?

[Bushby] I didn't know who Michael Donovan was until they actually told me.

Michael Donovan was Craig Meehan's uncle.

Craig Meehan's uncle.

It seemed deeply weird for various reasons.

Why on earth is she with Craig's uncle?

How well known was the uncle to the family?

How did Shannon come to be in his flat?

[Bushby] I think there was a lot of confusion around the estate

and the fact that she'd been found at a family member's,

but why had it taken them so long to find her at a family members?

[Jamieson] Initially, when I found out that he was family,

I just thought it was strange.

Why didn't he phone Karen and Craig and tell them that she was at his house,

You know, how come this family member suddenly just popped up?

[Edwards] Very early on in the search, we'd been shown a Matthews family tree.

There was spirals going off all over the place

and all sorts of different names.

And when I thought about the number of names that were on that list,

it made perfect sense for them to take a bit of time

to get to Michael Donovan.

[Jamieson] I've never met Michael Donovan,

but someone described his car

and I can remember it once being on the estate.

But that was weeks and weeks prior to Shannon going missing.

[Edwards] And then you start to think, well, hang on a minute.

Given that she was so close to the Moorside Estate

and the Matthews family home,

it seems improbable that the only person

that knew she was in there was Mick Donovan.

When Donovan was arrested, he implicated Karen

and it was captured on CCTV.

[officer] Is there anything you want to say?

[Donovan] Yes, go and arrest Karen.

[officer] Yes, go and arrest Karen.

Donovan straight away said that Karen's pre-planned the abduction.

[officer] When you were arrested in the back of the van,

you made some comments to me after you were cautioned.

You've said get Karen down here.

We've got a plan.

We'll share the money. £50,000.

And after his disclosure that he made,

saying that Karen was involved in it,

Karen was later interviewed and she looked a bit shocked.

[interviewer] He says that you asked him to look after Shannon

and that there'd be some money in it for him.

No, I didn't.

That's a lie is that.

I've never let him go nowhere near my kids on his own.

He says that you were supposed to take Shannon back to his house.

He's trying to get himself out of it.

He's not going to get out of it because it's a load of lies.

During that interview, Karen totally denied

any involvement with Mick Donovan.

I'd even asked her if she was having an affair with him,

if there were a relationship going on,

and she sort of laughed at me and said, "Don't be daft."

He's saying that you were going to report her missing

when all the time she was going to be at his flat?

I didn't even know where his flat were.

[Gasson] Michael Donovan had a very imaginative mind,

for want of a better phrase.

He'd already changed his name from Paul Drake to Mike Donovan,

who was a sci-fi hero back in the '80s, a fictional character.

So there was that likelihood that he was making this up

in his imaginative world.

[interviewer] "She said I was to keep Shannon

and look after her and she, Karen, would report her missing.

I said, I wasn't happy about this

and she then threatened if I didn't do it, to get three lads onto me.

And I was frightened that if I didn't do it,

they would come after me."

[shutters clicking]

[Gregg] There were suspicions around Karen,

but suspicion is one thing.

Hard evidence is another.

[Freeman] Donovan's claims had to be investigated.

We did CCTV, neighbour investigations.

All sorts of enquiries went into checking Donovan's story

and we couldn't find anyone that could support his account.

We knew something wasn't right.

[reporter] Karen Matthews and her boyfriend Craig

are trying to get back to some kind of normality.

Today, friends brought shopping.

They say Karen fully understands

that police need to keep speaking to Shannon.

[Gasson] One of the first things we had to do

from an investigation point of view,

was to have a formal identification with, of course, Karen.

[Freeman] So I was sat with Shannon in one room

and Karen was outside looking through.

And Karen said, "Yeah, that's Shannon."

And that was it. No emotion.

This is a mother who's seen her daughter

that's been missing for over three weeks for the first time.

[Freeman] She never asked where she'd been found.

She never asked how she was.

She showed no inkling of wanting to hug her,

to speak to her.

[Freeman] As a detective, I did find it strange.

But as a mum, I found it absolutely appalling.

[Gregg] The SIO was receiving a lot of information

from the family liaison team.

Karen was behaving what could be described as unusually

to what would ordinarily be expected from her mother in these circumstances.

But is this the way that she would usually behave,

or is it suspicious?

Is she involved?

Tonight, ITV News has learnt

that whilst Karen has seen her little girl,

she hasn't spoken to Shannon or been able to give her a cuddle.

They will be properly reunited in the days to come.

Imagine what that will be like.

[Bushby] After Shannon were found, we'd arranged this day out

for all families on the estate to two museums.

Just trying to relax the kids.

Karen came to my house.

I was making the sandwiches for the day trip,

she went, "They're arresting Craig, they're arresting Craig.

And I went, "What are they arresting Craig for?"

As part of the search for evidence about what had happened to Shannon,

the Matthews family computer was seized

and as is standard was forensically examined by the police.

[reporter] Computers were seized from the family home

to see if they held any clues.

And on there, they found images of child abuse.

They're saying he's a paedophile.

And I just went, "What?"

So while there were live criminal proceedings against Michael Donovan,

Craig Meehan's uncle,

entirely separate proceedings began against Craig.

But were they well and truly connected

with the disappearance of Shannon Matthews?

[Jamieson] For this now to come out,

makes everybody feel sick and confused,

because everyone will have questions that need to be answered.

[Bushby] When you're given news like that,

you sort of like, what else can be thrown at us?

What else is going to come of all this?

[Edwards] And that did cause a level of anger

amongst the people on the estate.

[reporter] How is Karen today? How is she bearing up having to deal

with the real mix of emotions?

[Bushby] Totally peeved off. At the end of the day,

Craig isn't coming back to the house.

She's totally done with him. Her children come first.

She was totally unaware of what was going on.

[reporter] The couple's neighbours have always stood by them

against any accusations.

Now there's a sense of disbelief here at Craig Meehan's arrest.

Police officers have stood guard outside the family home in case of any reaction.

[Jamieson] People was angry,

and there were a few people who had suspicion

that Karen knew more than she was letting on.

She'd do something that…

You wouldn't act that way if you didn't know anything about it.

[Freeman] I'd spent the whole day with Karen

after Craig had been arrested.

We'd actually been to ASDA,

where she looked at the Sunday newspapers,

and there was a big picture of her on the front page,

and she held it up so all the shoppers could see

the picture of her and her herself.

It was as if she was enjoying the publicity.

It was as if she thought she were a celebrity.

[Jamieson] Me and Karen went into a little fish and chip shop,

and she got a fish and chips for the family.

Person behind the counter said, "They're on us.

We're really sorry about what's going on with your daughter."

And she looked at me and just said,

"Should get rid of one of my kids more often."

And at the time, I would just-- I slapped her on the side of the arm.

Said, "Why would you say that?"

One minute, she'd be laughing and joking, next minute, she'd just go quiet.

And so she were quite hard to read.

There were times when you think, "What you doing?"

Bit by bit, amateur detective style,

people on the estate piece this together,

and Julie Bushby and Natalie Brown in particular, had real deep concerns

and so wanted to put some of those concerns directly to Karen.

[Bushby] Natalie said to me, she says, "There's more to this."

So I said to her, I says, "Right, I'll arrange a meeting with Karen."

So the following morning, I rung Karen,

and I says to her, I says, "Natalie wants to meet up."

"No, I don't want to."

I says, "I'm asking you to meet up with her

because all this wants nipping in the bud now."

I arranged with her to meet in Batley town centre

and I thought, "I better ring Christine."

Both Julie and Natalie had decided they would like to speak to Karen,

so we arranged to meet.

[Bushby] And they parked up in the town centre.

Karen was sat in front.

Me and Natalie sat in back.

[Freeman] I think it was Natalie that opened up with Karen.

You know, "We know something's not right.

We're your friends.

We will support you no matter what.

But you need to be truthful."

[Bushby] Natalie put it to her that she had some bags packed,

and Karen kept saying, "No, no, no," she said, "You did. I saw them."

And that's when Karen took the biggest intake of breath I've ever known.

And said, "Yeah, you're right."

"Yeah, you're right. I was leaving Craig.

I asked Donovan to take Shannon,"

because a taxi will only take four,

and she had four kids.

[Freeman] She'd arranged for Shannon to be picked up by Mick Donovan,

and she was going to go home and collect the other children

and go to Mick Donovan's house and stay there.

When she got home, there was Craig and his cousin,

and she just wasn't able to say the words, "I'm going to leave you."

Which means the plans went tits up.

And so she put up this pretence that Shannon was missing.

Shannon, if you're out there, please, darling, come home.

We love you so much.

[Freeman] And then it just got bigger and bigger.

It snowballed out of hand.

For a few seconds, we were all speechless.

Then I arrested her.

[Bushby] Karen was sobbing,

but I suppose for her, it was relief that she'd actually come out with that.

None of us expected to be arresting Karen for kidnapping her own daughter.

It's just something that didn't feature in my thoughts.

[Bushby] We all got taken down to the police station

because they interviewed us there and then, whilst it were all fresh.

I walked Karen down to where they took them into the cells.

I said to Karen, I'll always be--

I said it all the way through that I'd always be her friend.

Nobody's going to fall out with you.

As they took her in, I turned my back.

I just didn't want to see that door close, I suppose.

It's game over then, it's game over for her.

It's game over for everything that had gone on.

That was it. That was the fi-- That door was the final…

Like the final curtain, if you like.

Tonight, another extraordinary twist in the investigation

into the disappearance of Shannon Matthews.

Nearly seven weeks after Shannon was allegedly abducted,

her mum, Karen Matthews, has been arrested.

That morning that I found out, it was from a news reporter.

And I just thought they were making it up.

She was my friend.

She's a mum.

She loved her kids.

Kids were well looked after.

Why would she kidnap one of her own?

Refused to believe it. Probably for my own sanity.

[Megan] I was absolutely traumatised.

It really, really got to me

because of the fact of how many times I'd been stood there with her,

crying my eyes out, saying that I wanted Shannon home.

If you know where she is, just call and tell us where she is.

And she stood there fully knowing exactly where Shannon is, who she's with,

and to take my best friend away from me

and act like, obviously, she doesn't know what's going on

whilst watching me hurt that whole time.

[Bushby] There was a lot of anger.

Everybody felt betrayed.

Everybody felt used and abused

because we were all taken for a ride.

It were everybody that went out searching,

that were taken for a ride,

it was everybody that was putting posters up, taken for a ride.

[Townsend] She misled her whole community,

her friends and family, the press, the nation,

effectively, for 23 days.

[Jamieson] She wasn't allowed back on the estate by the police.

So I never got to speak to Karen.

Did I want to strangle her for doing it?

Did I want to punch her? Hug her?

All of the above.

The children…

What mum could do that to their own child?

[Edwards] For those that would have done the estate down,

the arrest of Karen took it to a whole different sinister level.

And after that, the tone of the coverage definitely shifted.

[Vine] Talking about the Shannon case, no wonder many children are at risk today

because of the breakdown of solid family structures.

[reporter] Just for the record, is this a decent place to live

where there are decent people living, or is this a sink estate?

[Gregg] We saw a change where the Dewsbury Moor area

was being derided in the media,

and the people were being derided.

[Vine] When I went to Dewsbury to report on this story,

I remember thinking, this is the classic underclass place

and I hate to use the word, but it's the word that politicians used.

Where you had an endemic welfare culture

and in the minds of a lot of people watching this case,

was that terrible thought

that this is a family to whom bad things happen,

because they're not very good people.

[Warsi] It was seen as an example of what happens in these communities

where families are not working.

Families are neglectful. They're not looking after their children.

There is deep sense of irresponsibility.

The then leader of the opposition, David Cameron,

described what was going on on Dewsbury Moor

as an example of Broken Britain.

He condemned the Dewsbury Estate, where the Matthews lived,

as a place where decency fights a losing battle

against degradation and despair.

But the residents beg to differ.

He's judging us by what is read, he's not judged us by what is seen.

[reporter] So he's got to come and have a cup of tea with you guys?

Not just a cup of tea.

Come round and have a look round the estate.

People were judgemental, not just on Karen, it was the full estate.

Anybody and anybody.

If they could target 'em, they'd target 'em.

As a community, I think it got us hackles up.

I mean, maybe they didn't understand the way we lived.

Maybe they were trying to get their heads around it, I don't know.

We are who we are. We can't change anything.

[Edwards] A story was printed in one of the national newspapers,

a national tabloid newspaper,

and it was based on a throwaway comment

about Dewsbury Moor being like Beirut, which is absolutely ridiculous.

Well, you know what papers are like, some of them anyway.

They write what they want to write, don't they?

And it's the story for them.

It's going to sell the papers, innit?

There was this class issue that was bubbling underneath

because there was an element of,

let's observe these people who are not like us,

but actually they're entertainment to watch.

And look how they dressed.

Wow, they're still in their pyjamas at two o'clock in the afternoon

and they're smoking and look at what their homes look like,

and look at what the estate looks like.

So there was an element of, yes, sneery judgement.

[Gregg] I did feel that certain lines were crossed.

What wasn't captured was the true grit and spirit

of people who were so concerned and upset by this.

[Lee] I was actually on a day off, my first day off in a month

and got a phone call asking whether would I come and interview Karen.

[Freeman] I was with the detective chief superintendent

watching a video link in a remote room.

[Lee] When I walked into the interview room,

Karen was sat against the wall

and she looked like she was a beaten lady.

[Freeman] Karen came up with so many different accounts

of what had happened that were different

to what she actually said when we were sat in my car

when she made her confession.

She claimed Craig and his mum engineered the whole thing.

She claimed not to know anything about it,

that she didn't have a clue where Shannon was.

She claimed that she didn't know Mick Donovan.

There were so many different versions you really could not make out

which was the actual truth.

We're not going down another change of story again.

-No, I'm not changing it. -Right.

Well, yesterday and today, earlier on

you've said you met Mick Donovan the day before

and you've arranged for him to pick up Shannon from school.

Haven't you?

She did a few silences,

a few pauses, and then basically thought…

You could see it in her demeanour that… "I'm going to have to tell 'em."

-Pardon? Yeah. -[mumbles]

Well, let's get this straight.

I'm not gonna have any more of these stories again. That is a fact.

-[solicitor] Is that right? You asked him? -Yeah.

Asked him to look after her. Now are you sure of that?

-[Matthews] Yeah. -Right, thank you.

Even the solicitor asked her a question to clarify what she was saying.

-It were a case of that I needed help. -Right.

I just didn't know how to tell Craig

so I just asked a family member the way to do it.

Karen seemed to squirm.

She seemed to try to wriggle out of it, and there was just nowhere for her to go.

[Lee] After a while, she did admit to knowing Shannon was with Donovan.

[solicitor] And what happened then?

It just went all pear-shaped.

It didn't go to plan the way I wanted it to go to plan.

What is your plan? How did you want it to go to plan?

Me to tell Craig it were over and to leave him.

[Lee] Originally, did it start of with…

Mick were gonna take Shannon 'cause you were having domestics with Craig,

and then when the police and press took over,

you realised you could make some money out of this?

No. I didn't want no money.

But that's what Mick's telling us that you've done.

Well, I didn't want no money.

[Freeman] But she totally denied it was about the reward money

or that anyone else was involved.

Tonight, to the trial of the mother of Shannon Matthews,

who was reported missing from her home on Dewsbury Moor

for 24 days earlier this year.

Also in the dock with her is Michael Donovan,

the uncle of Karen's former partner Craig Meehan.

[Jamieson] At the trial, I still didn't want to believe

that Karen had anything to do with it.

And even though she admitted it in the car,

I wanted to see if Karen would sit there and admit it in court.

[Edwards] She chose to plead not guilty.

And throughout the trial,

Karen just continued to deny everything and she stuck to the line.

Well, her own lawyer admitted to the court

that Karen Matthews has given varying accounts of herself,

but she said rather than being manipulative,

she described her as sometimes rather stupid.

[Jamieson] At the end, she still couldn't even be honest.

She lied and lied and lied and lied.

And I don't know if that was because she thought she'd get away with it.

Who knows?

[Edwards] When the trial was on, Andy Brennan,

the senior investigating officer in the case, gave his evidence.

It was about as dark as it got.

[Gregg] We found out that the timing of finding Shannon was critical.

Donovan was cleaning all evidence in the house and his vehicle

to make sure that there was nothing left that could link him to Shannon.

I think he felt the net was tightening around him

and he had to get rid of Shannon.

If we hadn't got to Shannon when we did, even another day late,

it could have had a different outcome.

She kidnapped her own daughter and lied about it.

Karen Matthews is guilty.

What a dramatic conclusion to this extraordinary story.

Michael Donovan and Karen Matthews showed no emotion in the dock today,

as it became clear that the jury here had seen through their lies, at last.

[Edwards] Karen Matthews and Michael Donovan

were convicted of kidnap, false imprisonment

and perverting the course of justice.

Both convicted unanimously.

Both sentenced to eight years in prison.

It's difficult to understand what type of mother

would subject her own daughter to such a wicked and evil crime.

Karen Matthews is a manipulative individual

who has demonstrated a remarkable ability to lie.

[Vine] You have the court case

and then the angry coverage proper begins after conviction

where everyone just said that woman is awful.

She ought to have been hung.

Honestly, I agree totally.

She's a total liar. Waste of space.

Look how she lied on the television and stood outside our house crying.

People have been taken in, or…

They just feel that their generosity has been taken advantage of.

And there's nothing that makes people more angry.

She's a bad mother.

She's not normal, is she? She's not all there.

[reporter] Tonight, Karen Matthews' house was boarded up.

It's a shame when, with all that coming off,

it ties everybody, doesn't it, with the same thing.

[Vine] It screwed down these stereotypes

that people who live disorderly lives tend to have bad things happen to them.

It blows your mind, this.

You're trying to get people to understand

that being on welfare does not mean you're a bad person.

And then the most famous person on welfare in the country

is a very bad person indeed.

We all challenged our own preconceptions with Karen,

and she reinforced every single one.

And that's the tragedy of it.

Now, the Shannon Matthews investigation

has put the town of Dewsbury firmly in the spotlight

with the kind of headlines of course, it just doesn't want.

[Warsi] I think Dewsbury has sadly forever become associated with this case.

And there was a lot of judgement.

And when the media circus moved on,

moved on, saying where you are to blame

rather than how have we all failed

that we think this is what we end up seeing in 2008, in Dewsbury.

[Edwards] I've thought long and hard about what Karen's motivation might have been,

and I just cannot ever come to any firm conclusion in my head.

There had been all sorts of chat and chitchat about reward money,

that it was a plot to extract money

from a national newspaper in return for information

that would lead to the arrest and conviction

of the person responsible for the disappearance of Shannon Matthews.

[Megan] What did she do it for?

Was it the attention?

Was it the money or what?

I'll never get the answers to it.

I've always wanted to know what was running through her head

to even plan something like that.

[Jamieson] Did Karen know that Craig had all those images on his computer?

Maybe she did. Maybe that's the reason she did what she did.

To get Shannon away from him.

[Edwards] It's completely baffling.

She chose to keep her mouth shut about what may or may not have gone on

to carry the can, mostly herself,

but with Michael Donovan taking his share of the blame.

[interviewer] Did you believe her?

No.

[interviewer] Why not?

Because it still didn't make sense.

There's a hell of a lot more to that story.

In my head, there is.

Even the judge turned around and said, there's more people involved in this.

Which is what I've said all along.

It wasn't just Karen on her own that came up with this scheme.

Will we ever get the truth from Karen?

I don't think we ever will.

[Warsi] We can't predict what was going through Karen's mind

at the time that she planned this,

but you can see that this was a woman

who felt that nobody really cared for her.

She didn't have any attention or any worth.

And then suddenly, this case made her important,

and it gave her attention.

And suddenly everybody was focussed on her and her well-being.

And they were supportive rather than judgemental.

And they wanted to be there by her side rather than to dismiss her.

So I do think in many ways,

this whole thing was a huge cry for attention.

[Vine] But in the end, she has to stand or fall on her own merits,

crimes, failures.

And she doesn't represent her street.

She doesn't represent her community or Dewsbury.

She was a standalone.

[Bushby] As a community, I don't think anybody

should feel ashamed for what we did.

People slate us, people are proud of us.

It's their choice. They weren't here.

They didn't live through the reality.

The only thing that I am proud of is how the community came together.

And that we've come out the other side stronger.

[Townsend] I'm proud of being a part of a team

that was highly professional

in the way that they conducted that investigation.

I'm proud of the outcome.

The thought, what would have happened

had we not pursued that line of enquiry on that particular morning?

We were heroes for a day, but we would have been chumps for eternity

if we'd have walked away.

[Jamieson] Shannon will be 27.

Her oldest will now be in his 30s.

I'd hate to think that what happened 17 years ago

will affect the rest of their life.

As much as it hurt everybody that was involved,

I just hope they're brilliant young adults

and I hope that they have a happy life.

[Bushby] It should have been a family brought together and it wasn't.

It was a family torn apart.

I hope and pray that there is never another story like this one.