Shannon Matthews’ kidnapper Michael Donovan who hid lady beneath mattress dies from most cancers | EUROtoday

Get the free Morning Headlines electronic mail for information from our reporters internationally

Sign as much as our free Morning Headlines electronic mail

A person who kidnapped a nine-year-old lady in a case that gripped the nation 16 years in the past has died from most cancers in hospital.

Michael Donovan, 54, stored schoolgirl Shannon Matthews hidden beneath a mattress in his council flat for twenty-four days as a part of a faux kidnap plot hatched by her mom, Karen Matthews.

Hundreds of law enforcement officials and hundreds of locals looked for Shannon round the clock after she vanished as she made her approach dwelling in Dewsbury, West Yorkshire on 19 February 2008.

Police used 16 out of the UK’s 27 “victim recovery dogs” for what was the most important West Yorkshire Police investigation because the Yorkshire Ripper inquiry.

Karen Matthews, a mom of seven, had placed on a present of changing into tearful as she went on tv to plea with the general public for info on the place her daughter was.

Officers finally discovered Shannon alive within the drawer of a divan mattress a couple of miles from her dwelling. She had reportedly been drugged.

Matthews and Donovan, who collectively hatched the plan in an effort to assert a £50,000 reward for her protected return, have been discovered responsible of kidnapping, false imprisonment and perverting the course of justice in December 2008.

They have been every sentenced to eight years in jail the next 12 months.

Donovan, often known as Mick, was the uncle of Karen Matthews’s then boyfriend Craig Meehan.

He was recognized with stage 3 throat most cancers two months in the past, and was pronounced lifeless on Tuesday at Three Valleys Hospital in Keighley, West Yorkshire, after collapsing in a courtyard there, The Sun reported.

Donovan had been on the safe psychological well being hospital following his launch from jail in 2012, and had modified his title to Aiden Johnson, the paper mentioned.

A spokesperson for West Yorkshire Police mentioned: “Police were contacted on Tuesday 16 April and made aware of the death of a man in hospital in the Steeton area.

“The death is not being treated as suspicious, and enquiries will be conducted on behalf of the coroner.”

Matthews was additionally launched in 2012 after serving half her sentence and given a brand new identification and new dwelling within the south of England.

She was banned from contacting Shannon and her six different kids, who have been put into care.

All the siblings have been granted lifelong anonymity following a High Court injunction in 2020.

The Ministry of Justice declined to remark, saying Donovan was not beneath its jurisdiction after 2016.

The Independent has requested the Three Valleys Hospital to remark.