Karen Matthews smokes a cigarette 15 years after staging her daughter’s kidnap

Standing outside a supermarket smoking a cigarette with her paedophile boyfriend, one of the country’s most notorious criminals is now living a new life in quiet anonymity.

Karen Matthews, 47, became a household name exactly 15 years ago when her nine-year-old daughter Shannon went missing and a massive police investigation was launched to find her.

The tearful mother of seven made TV appeals pleading with the kidnapper to set her daughter free. But it was all an evil scam.

Matthews knew all along where the schoolgirl was and who was keeping her prisoner. 

Shannon was found by police after 24 days, hidden in the base of a divan bed in a flat in Dewsbury, West Yorkshire. 

The crime had been a plot between Matthews and Michael Donovan, the uncle of her then boyfriend, to claim £50,000 of reward money.

Both were jailed for eight years and Matthews – convicted of kidnap, false imprisonment and perverting the course of justice – was labelled ‘Britain’s worst mother’.

After finishing her sentence, Matthews dyed her hair black and moved to the south of England.

She no longer has any contact with Shannon or her six other children. Matthews also reportedly found God in 2020, went on a health kick and lost weight.

She was pictured recently on a shopping run with her boyfriend Paul Saunders, 60, who is himself a convicted paedophile.

He is the latest in a string of boyfriends including a 72-year old ‘sugar daddy’ who used to shower her with gifts. 

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.

However, it seems the pair have established a long-term relationship.

Matthews, whose story has been the subject of a high-profile TV drama and a documentary, still cuts an unmistakable figure.

The mother-of-seven has drastically changed her appearance since leaving prison in 2012.

Her new image has coincided with a string of boyfriends. One so-called ‘sugar daddy’ reportedly showered her with gifts before they split, she also had a six-week fling with a convicted paedophile and is said to have told friends she wants to have another child since finding God two years ago. 

Matthews has always maintained she wasn’t responsible for Shannon’s kidnap, but it is the crime of February 2008 that she will always be remembered for.

Shannon was found by detectives in Donovan’s flat, around a mile from her home in Dewsbury, 24 days after she disappeared.

Prosecutors said the schoolgirl was drugged and probably kept captive on a leash during her incarceration.

Police described Matthews as ‘pure evil’ after she was found guilty of kidnap, false imprisonment and perverting the course of justice.

Her then-boyfriend, Craig Meehan, was not involved in the kidnapping plot. 

However, he was separately convicted of possessing 49 indecent images of children on a home computer.

Matthews and Donovan were both sentenced to eight years in prison in January 2009 and released in 2012 after serving half their sentences.

Shannon was raised by a new family under a new identity and is now an adult.

In 2021, her former best friend broke down in tears as she spoke to the media for the first time. 

Megan Aldridge was visibly emotional as she described her grief at never seeing Shannon again since she was snatched in 2008 and later put into care.

She told Channel 5: ‘I genuinely hope she is living the life that she wanted now, after everything she’s been through she deserves to be happy’. 

With tears in her eyes, she told a new two-part documentary on the case: ‘I literally lost my best friend. The only person I wanted to talk to and be around’.