Michael Donovan, who passed away from cancer on Tuesday, was involved in a conspiracy devised by Shannon Matthews’ mother, Karen, in which he hid the child beneath a bed in his council apartment for twenty-four hours. To collect the £50,000 reward, the two intended to “discover” Shannon.
However, it has now come to light that Donovan devised a complex scheme to impersonate a psychiatrist named “Wendy” who had evaluated him following his 2009 incarceration. This allowed him to perpetuate his lies about the kidnapping and absolve himself of responsibility.
If he would not carry out the evil plot to abduct her daughter, Karen had threatened to set fire to his home. After spending £3.2 million looking for Shannon, the police discovered that she had been held captive at Donovan’s house for 24 hours, drugged and bound. She was found in his bedroom, along with notes on acting. He confessed that the huge reward was the driving factor for the crime, and they planned to divide it amongst themselves if they were successful.
According to him, the plan was to let Shannon go toward the center of Dewsbury, then pretend to track her down, grab her, and rush her to the closest police station so she could claim the prize and play the hero.
After she went missing on February 19, 2008, from her home estate in Dewsbury, West Yorkshire, the nine-year-old was finally discovered in the drawer under a bed a few miles away. Donovan and Matthews were sentenced to eight years in prison in January 2009 after their convictions for abduction, false imprisonment, and obstructing the administration of justice. After completing half of her sentence in April 2012, she was granted a new identity and a residence subsidized by the public. Donovan passed away yesterday at Three Valleys Hospital in Keighley, West Yorkshire, after a diagnosis of Stage 3 throat cancer in February. He had collapsed in the hospital’s courtyard.
