LONDON, Dec 4: The mother of Shannon Matthews was branded “pure evil” after being found guilty on Thursday of a plot to kidnap her daughter to claim a large newspaper reward for the girl’s recovery.

Prosecutors said the West Yorkshire schoolgirl was drugged and probably kept captive on a leash during her incarceration as Karen Matthews and Michael Donovan, the uncle of her then boyfriend, plotted to collect the 50,000-pound reward.

Matthews, 33, and Donovan, 40, were both convicted at Leeds Crown Court of kidnapping, false imprisonment and perverting the course of justice, the Press Association reported.“Karen Matthews is pure evil,” said Detective Superintendent Andy Brennan outside court.

“She started deceiving those closest to her from the very moment that Shannon was kidnapped. It’s difficult to understand what type of mother would subject her own daughter to such a wicked and evil crime.”

The judge, Justice McCombe, warned the pair that they faced a “substantial custodial sentence”.

Shannon was nine when she disappeared on Feb 19 as she walked home from school in freezing weather. Matthews made a series of tearful TV appeals for help in finding her daughter as West Yorkshire Police launched one of the force’s largest searches, at a cost of 3.2 million pounds.

Many local residents also joined the hunt, fearing that the girl had been abducted. She was eventually found by detectives in Donovan’s flat, around a mile from her home in Dewsbury, 24 days after she disappeared.

The court had heard that when a detective told Matthews her daughter was safe, she was more interested in his phone ringtone than in knowing where the girl was found or how she was.

During the trial, Matthews and Donovan blamed each other for the plot. Donovan said the schoolgirl’s mother had offered him money and had threatened him into looking after the youngster.

Matthews told the jury she did not know her daughter was at Donovan’s flat and that she was shocked when Shannon was found there.

“Karen Matthews is a manipulative individual who has demonstrated a remarkable ability to lie,” Brennan said. Donovan too was an accomplished liar, he added.—Reuters