An investigator searching for Shannon Matthews has described the moment the nine-year-old girl was found tied-up and hidden by her own mum as part of a fake abduction plot.
Missing Shannon had seemingly vanished on her walk home from swimming in February 2008, with her mum Karen Matthews crying on camera appealing for the safe return of her daughter.
After 24 days of searching, investigators found her bound and heavily drugged in a drawer in a grotty council flat just a few miles from where she had supposedly disappeared from.
Mick Donovan had kidnapped the schoolgirl with Karen in an attempt to claim a £50,000 reward for her return, even trying to extort money from the Find Madeleine McCann fund.
Detective Constable Nick Townsend was part of the team of detectives who spent sleepless nights trying to locate missing Shannon.
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But recalling the moment he saw her for the first time, he revealed the team feared she was close to being seriously harmed by Donovan.
He said: ‘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 made a determined effort to rouse him to get him to come to the door, but he wouldn’t answer.
‘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 the game was up?’
With the help of the Operational Support Unit, officers were able to force their way into the council flat, finding the ‘bewildered’ schoolgirl beneath Donovan’s bed.
(Picture: PA)
Speaking on documentary The Hunt for Shannon Matthews, Nick added: ‘You could hear a lot of banging and crashing, smashing of woodwork.
‘I went up the staircase and as I got to the top, my colleague appeared from inside the flat carrying Shannon in his arms saying, “I found her, I found her, under the bed”.’
Karen was jailed for eight years, while Shannon was given a new identity and removed from her family’s care.
Dovonan was also jailed for eight years and was disowned by his family following the plot, and died in prison in April 2024 reportedly not having a single visitor in the last few months of his life.
He had insisted he was ‘only looking after’ the terrified schoolgirl that people ‘would understand’ why he kidnapped her if he was allowed to share his side of the story.
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