This is such  dreadful case.    I do hope that now her 7 children will be taken into care and put into foster homes where they can learn proper values.   Poor, poor children.

And I'm thinking of Maddie McCann's parents, who must be wishing that they had the yorkshire police working for them when Maddie went missing in Portugal.

I shudder to think what the plan was to stop Shannon revealing the truth when "discovered".  Although it is possible this pair had no plan at all of course!

Was discussing this with the runners tonight.
I wont say the comments as would be banned.
Needless to say the calmest one was :- She should be locked up till the day she dies.
And I tend to agree after the stuff I heard on the news tonight :( :(
Lea.

> Needless to say the calmest one was :- She should be locked up till the day she dies.

She's a very stupid, selfish woman who by all accounts was an uncaring, inadequate mother but she didn't kill anyone :-)  I think her real punishment will begin when she is released actually.  I can't think she will have endeared herself to her peers so there will be no welcome back into the community and she will hardly take well to throwing herself into a new career and a relocation I would not think :-)

True Isabel!!!!(another debate looming about what sentances should be given out, but then again maybe not as think we would all disagree with the judges!!!!!!! Shannons mum has got more than some crimes that have got less but should have got alot more!!!! (if that makes sense) )
one thing that was said tonight was that she didnt look 'all there' (shannon I mean)
I said it looked as if her eyes were dead.
Normally a child that age (I have a son about the same age) has light in their eyes, has something that they are always looking forward to, but maybe Shannon didint, thats why her eyes were 'dead'
I just hope now she is with a family that will help her to be strong enough to deal with what her mother and uncle did, and move on and make something of her life.
And hope the other kids have also been taken into care to be adopted by parents that want them.
Lea.

> Shannons mum has got more than some crimes that have got less but should have got alot more!!!! (if that makes sense) )
>

No! :-D

> I just hope now she is with a family that will help her to be strong enough to deal with what her mother and uncle did, and move on and make something of her life.

Oh, I hope so.  I like to think that they are making extra special efforts to see her right but I suppose that is unfair to all the other children in this world that need something more than they get at home.

> has light in their eyes, has something that they are always looking forward to, but maybe Shannon didint, thats why her eyes were 'dead'

Strand tests carried out on her hair showed that she had been drugged for up to a year. Anti depressants were amongst them,no wonder her eyes looked dead, poor children. 7 kids by 5 different men......
Shame we can not do anything about that sort of irresponsible breeding !

Ok Shannons mum has got more than some murderers!!!! but then its all relative. (As I say, another debate that would go on forever LOL)
Hopefully Shannon gets the help she needs.
I was remebering a case of someone who was poisoining her children. The son died.
I know someone who got pictures of the sister afterwards and they had the light back in their eye. And this was a child that was being poisoined the same way as her brother.
But What I heard was that she was getting on well at school and looked 'alive' again, as she was in foster care. The photos showed a child happy that this person had never seen her as,
I hope this happens with shannon
Lea

Can't believe how sick some people are- thats just disgusting :-( Feel so sorry for the lil girl, how traumatizing for her.

> Ok Shannons mum has got more than some murderers!!!!

Has she been sentenced?  What did she get?  I must have missed that!

Thank God for the Yorkshire Police!  I dread to think what would have happened to this little girl had they not found her.  I hope that she will go on to have a happy life with her new foster parents, she has probably never experienced a 'normal' life, bless her!  As for her Mum..........words fail me!!  :(

Does it not make you wonder how a mum can drug her child for 2 years and no one noticed. What about the other 6 did she do the same to them or was Shannon just singled out?

A neighbour has alleged that she reported her concerns about the way Shannon was being treated three times to Social Services but that nothing was done! 

hmm why am i not suprised??? inept once again...
although only alleged it wouldnt shock me...

well it was obvious from day one she was complete scum!! we both said that straight away....seems we were right!

there was something that didnt sit right when she gave her televised appeal..
if my daughter was missing i would be inconsolable and desperate
she was neither, i said at the beginning that something wasnt right...
a mother knows! always trust your instinct..

Oh dear, my faith in the human race is knocked into the gutter again.

How can a mother do what she did to her own flesh and blood, money was more important than her daughters welfare and long term mental health.

When this story first surfaced without the full facts of Shannon's imprisonment, I could just about grasp (trying really hard) the thoughts of a greedy mother arranging for her daughter to be kept at this relatives house to make out she had disappeared for money. In my head to justify this I thought that Shannon must have at least been told by her mum that she would be safe and even why they were doing it, bad enough in itself, but even so the mother would have still been kind of acting 'motherly' in not frightening her own child at the very least, well, ish.....

But to then learn she was drugged, and tethered with a noose and living as a real abducted child, can't grasp that a mother can do that to her own child.  What on earth is this world coming to. It's evil.

She fully deserves everything that she has got, not just for what she did, but to destroy that most precious mother/child bond for me that is the worst thing of all.

I hope that that little girl will now live a 'normal' life along with her siblings, she was no mother!

It makes my blood boil.  How could anyone put their kids through this.  I hope she gets beaten black and blue and worse!!

>I hope she gets beaten black and blue and worse!!

If her face is anything to go by, that's a normal state of life for her, so I don't think she'd learn anything positive from it at all.

Don't sink to her level!

> Don't sink to her level!

quite right.

it feels impossible to get my head around though- its just inexplicable :(

> it feels impossible to get my head around though- its just inexplicable

On the documentary last night,the way this family lived and bred within a small "unsocialised" group, brought into sharp focus the fact that there is an underclass of people in this country which have very different rules, morals and aspirations.Although there were hundreds of individuals on this little girl's family tree (extended to include all the fathers extended families) they appeared to only mix with a handful of people and never went anywhere.
To one of us, this mother's actions may seem abhorant - but to one of them it may seem like a great idea.
It would appear that none of this woman's children were longed for and loved, just methods of getting more benefits and a bigger council house (perhaps conceived whilst under the influence of drink or drugs.)
Easy come - easy go to her....... but frightening to us.

It would appear that none of this woman's children were longed for and loved, just methods of getting more benefits and a bigger council house (perhaps conceived whilst under the influence of drink or drugs.)

And the numbers grow with each generation.  :(

> And the numbers grow with each generation.

We must just hug our own children closer for I dont see an answer to it.

After watchin Panorama last night and the documentary about Karen Matthews there is one word that describes that evil woman - scum!!!!
She deserves everything she gets and more.
To think there are loving kind people in this world that cant have children and that vile creature had 7 yet didnt care for one of them. To say it makes me livid is an understatement

Unfortunately due to the national hate for her she wont get whats coming to her from members of the community. She will be protected from the police and when she is released she will probably be given a new identity, given accomodation, and claim from the state so she neednt work ever again!!! Theres just no justice in this country

It's actually very frightening. When I was in hospital after giving birth I shared a room with a 14 year old girl who had given birth to a daughter on the same day as me. She's had no visitors, not a clue about how to care for her baby and not the slightest common sense (small wonder at that age!). Although the nurses tried their best to teach her, she wasn't interested. NO family, NO social services came to see her in the 3 days I had to stay. I often wonder what became of her and the baby :(.

While I believe that the welfare state was one of the great achievements of the last century, it seems we have now reached an historical point where abuses of this system are so pervasive, that they almost seem to be a norm rather than an abuse.  There are countless women like Karen Matthews for whom children are little more than a meal ticket.  By all accounts, the Baby P mother also saw having a baby as a means to an end (ie. a flat). I was shocked to discover, when the Shannon Matthews story was originally reported, that her mother was claiming in benefits each month more than I take home from a professional job (which I do not consider to be that badly paid) which I have spent eight years at university qualifying for and have being doing for six years.

Sadly this is nothing new. Several girls at school with me  saw having a child as a great way to get given a council flat  at the age of 16 (where they only pay a pittance in the way of rent). When they wanted to "upgrade" they had another child so they would get given a house. i kid you not. These are not stories i've heard but from the mouths of these people doing it.
Social services seems to be like the RSPCA. You think they do a fantastic job until you come into contact with them and report something only to find nothing gets done about it.

> Ok Shannons mum has got more than some murderers!!!! Has she been sentenced?  What did she get?  I must have missed that!

Oooooppppssss Sorry, I believe I was going on what the news is speculating she will get :o :o
I really shouldnt post when tired LOL
Lea :) :)

> Unfortunately due to the national hate for her she wont get whats coming to her from members of the community. She will be protected from the police and when she is released she will probably be given a new identity, given accomodation, and claim from the state so she neednt work ever again!!! Theres just no justice in this country

I think that is very correct justice.  You serve your sentence for the crime committed and this civilised society of ours protects you for the barbaric actions of a few lawless individuals.  It is just a terrible shame that such things are ever necessary
I think people are getting a bit carried away here.  I don't think she is the only mother in the world that has not concept of caring motherhood and I don't suppose she will be the last. 

Lea, I thought that I must have had a 'senior moment' and missed her sentence!! :)  I was relieved to find that she hadn't been sentenced yet and that I am not 'losing it' after all.......Well, not this time anyway!!!  :)  :)

I don't think she is the only mother in the world that has not concept of caring motherhood and I don't suppose she will be the last. 

That doesn't make her actions right nor the actions of those who may follow in her footsteps.

They are definitley an 'under class' which frighteningly is growing.  These type of people should not be allowed to have children, is it 7 this 'being' has had?

The actions of people like this are not human, I can't even compare them to animals as we all know most animals love and care for their offspring.  With this case and also the case of Baby P.  We have to start changing the way we sentence for of child abuse.  I think I read in the paper that it was going to cost taxpayers millions to give Baby P's mother a new identity and round the clock protection when she is let out of jail.  It is a mad mad mad mad world and this cannot possibly be allowed.  Maybe while she is in there someone could do the same to her as she did or allowed others do to her innocent child.  As for the social services that didn't pick up on it HELLO lights on but nobody home???  I have taken dogs away from less cruel surroundings than that, why on earth can't they just take the child and put them into safe care?    

> That doesn't make her actions right nor the actions of those who may follow in her footsteps.

Not at all but I do think the notoriety she has gained due to this rather inept crime outstrips the extent of her actual neglect and abuse.

Scary stuff... very scary (and ive not specially watched much of the coverage of the case).

There is a 'under class', however you want to define it - there always has been I think, but the divide seems to grow greater and fewer people can break free of it, or so it seems (and the way things appear can be deceptive).

Unfortunately if we choose to decry people like Karen Matthews as 'not human' and say things like 'they should not be allowed to breed'... how much better are we?

If we trusted our laws and our justice system and actually believed that justice had been done, and did not take such things into our own hands, then people would not need thousands of pounds spent on them, changing their identities and finding them safe places to live.

However long Karen Matthews gets in prison, its not going to be the cushy hotel type experience some people choose to believe prison is - I highly doubt shes going to be able to mix with other prisoners for her own saftey and few prisons hae sufficient space for every inmate who has to be kept solitary, to be kept that way 'comfortably' (our prisons are seriously over crowded!)... then theres the suicide watch she will undoubtedly have to be on.. i should think every meals she eats will have been spat in or worse.. and lets not go into how prison officers may or may not treat people convicted of child abuse crimes....

None of that makes it any better for Shannon though (in fact in some cases the victim feels worse when these things do happen)... nor would it if Karen was let loose for the public to deal with.

That just makes us as unthinking and callous as her. To prevent such things happening again we have to understand WHY people do these things - and saying 'tehy are not human' is evidently not the case, and thinking up longer or harsher punishments clearly doesnt work. (Lets face it.. no one here thinks 'i wont abuse my kid beacuse if i do ill spend 10 years eating spitty food, in solitary confinement and 'falling down teh stairs' every week for the rest of my miserable life'.... its not the threat of punishment that stops us doing these things!)

Just to put my opinions into perspective - my mother used to beat me.. thump and smack me in teh face and then pin me head first under a cold tap to shock me out of screaming and remove the red marks/lessen the bruising. I wont go into all that occurred, theres no need to do so here and now - but as a young child, would I have been happier if shed then gone on to be beaten up or burnt at the stake..

No, I would have felt worse - id feel worse if that happened now, despite that im now an adult and understand that what happened was not my fault and was very definately, wrong.

I feel for Shannon, shes got a lot of stuff to sort out in her head in the years to come, a lot of questions shes likely never going to get answers to and must resolve in her own head. Comments like those saying her mother was not human, or shouldnt have been allowed to breed will not help her - they just lead to  a person thinking along the lines of 'well if she wasnt human, what am i.... ' (believe me, they do!) and 'i shouldnt exist'...

No child needs to think those things, regardless of what their parent has done.

> No child needs to think those things, regardless of what their parent has done

Hear hear,

No child deserves to have a mother like that but being taken into care is unlikely to turn Shannon's life around. Despite everyones hopes for her,going through the care system gives this poor kid quite a low likelyhood of turning out a model citizen.
As I said, I cant see an answer to this. Many people express the opinion that all bad parents shoud have their children taken into care, and in the light of current news, the call has become louder but where to put these thousands of children?
The link between the prison population and the numbers in care is a real one.

That was a very moving post...............
You plainly can speak from experience, as if you said what you did I have no doubt you could have told us a lot more.
My OH worked in this area, he asked me what I thought would be an appropriate sentence fro Karen Matthews and all I could say was...it cant matter, nothing is good/bad enough. I have no feelings for her at all.
I just feel for Shannon and her siblings, how is that child meant to survive in this world now? No living person can rebuild her.

Karen

Finding out that she'd been systematically drugged during each school holidays (hair can be very revealing) horrified me almost more than the 'abduction'.

I feel the same JG.

i expect shannon will grow up and sell her story in a book for a fortune

To hear of the way that she had been drugged makes believe that this probably goes on a lot in certain stratas of society ..........now I know I'm a grandmother now, but it would never even have occured to me that one could keep a child quiet using travel sickness tabs !

I just have that sort of gut feeling that this sort of knowlege is nothing new to some people....... :(

> I just have that sort of gut feeling that this sort of knowlege is nothing new to some people.......

I have read articles in the past regarding concerns that drugs such as Ritalin are sometimes prescribed where struggling, or inept possibly, mothers cannot cope with children that are no more than lively and ordinary children.  So it does not surprise me in the least that some may make their own "prescriptions".  I think this has probably always happened as I am sure I have heard tales of brandy or gin being given to babies in previous centuries.  Always condemned of course but surely not that surprising.

I remember reading about middle class parents giving drugs to their kids on flights to keep them quiet around the time that Madeleine Mccan went missing and it was suspected the parents were drugging the children.I know what a nightmare it is to take young children on a plane but it would never have occured to me to use drugs.I don't think it is restricted to any class...

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/travel/holiday_type/family/article2521355.ece

> i expect shannon will grow up and sell her story in a book for a fortune

Nothing is ever going to recompense, that poor girl.
Karen :(

Unfortunately if we choose to decry people like Karen Matthews as 'not human' and say things like 'they should not be allowed to breed'... how much better are we?

A million times better theemx.  It would not cross most 'normal' people's minds in our society to act like this.  And it doesn't take a brain surgeon to know that they have behaved less than any normal 'human' parent would.

I do feel that there are different reasons that people choose to beat a child or abuse them in other ways, but that does not excuse it.  You obviously suffered a lot as a child at the hands of your parent so you have an idea how Sannon feels.  Surely we have to punish these people when they are found to be guilty, because if we allow it that is when we have to ask 'how much better are we'?

Sadly in my opinion there is not a punishment harsh enough for the likes of this woman and Baby P's abusers. 

> Sadly in my opinion there is not a punishment harsh enough for the likes of this woman and Baby P's abusers. 

The level of abuse is widely different between these cases though surely.

Sadly intelligence does not seem to be a strong point for this woman, in the film they said she was bordering on having learning difficulties.  I wonder if something isn't 'wired' right in her brain as she seems to have little understanding of what her role as a mother should be. 

I have always assumed that because I have the ability to feel love, compassion and responsibility that everyone else does too but maybe her brain is under developed in some way and she just doesn't have the ability to feel these things.  I'm not making excuses for her, she must be punished for what she has done, she just didn't seem all there to me.

I wonder if something isn't 'wired' right in her brain as she seems to have little understanding of what her role as a mother should be. 

Nature or nurture?

A female animal gets much of it's parenting skills from it's parent- by the experience of being the child of a good parent.
Many woman who had a bad mother worry that they will replicate this in the future, but role models are often found in the extended family which make up for maternal deficiencies. Thank goodness for grannies.
Unfortunately, it would seem that this poor girl lives in an extended family that has little in the way of morals and good principles from any quarter. 

Of course we have to punish things - I cant envisage how we could get by without punishing human beings (where i can when its dogs!)...

But seriously think about it, people do not obey the law because they fear being caught, generally (and its not such a wide generalisation either).

We have our set of moral and social rules that we stick to, and many of these fall in line with our laws (not always, but again, generally), but say if it was legal to steal... would you? Of course you wouldnt - its not the law or the threat of punishment that stops you from stealing.

We need to find out why, where, how people like Shannons mother, my mother, .... anyone who abuses a child (or another adult, or an animal...) in whatever way... lack that empathy, morality, rationality, whatever it is thats missing or warped or broken.

How has that happened? And yeah you can say oh well its beacuse they are uneducated, have learning difficulties, are stupid... my mother most certainly wasnt, she was a member of Mensa, held a degree in zoology, worked hard all her life and was well liked by a lot of people (as was evidenced by the number of people at her funeral a few weeks back). I dont think for a second that she was unusual either, but maybe its easier for us to rationalise that this lack of empathy or decency, stems only from a lack of intelligence.

If we are serious about stopping child abuse in whatever form, we have to understand why it happens - and that does mean acknowledging that these people ARE human and do not fit neatly into any easily identifiable category.

As for limiting who can and cannot breed, or how many children people may produce - much as I see the logic in that unfortunately where that has been applied historically, it has gone horrifically badly. I wont say it (for fear of invoking godwins law!)..

I wish I knew the answers, Im thinking now would I rather have been brought up in care... would that have given me the 'proper' childhood that I was denied (and then wasted ten YEARS of my life being bitter and angry about that)... I dont think so.
There are experiences and lessons I learned in my family that I wouldnt want to have missed, and I wouldnt have had in the care system, no matter how good that could be. So I have issues with some of the things that happened... and Im eternally grateful for others.

(SOrry folks if im rambling, Mother died at the end of september, aged younger than some of the posters here, theres a lot of stuff i have yet to sort out in my head!)

Take a cyber hug from me..................
Death of a parent is hard enough, without the extras you have had to deal with.
This is why I am so sorry for Shannon, because with all her mother has done to her she is the only mother Shannon has.
None of us, only you a bit perhaps can quite comprehend how that feels .

Karen

Thanks for the hug (please dont worry about me, i might not have had the best mother but i DO have a fantastic network of friends, online and 'irl').

> This is why I am so sorry for Shannon, because with all her mother has done to her she is the only mother Shannon has.

I have to quote that bit of your post ... and though i can *begin* to imagine some of what shannon will feel, has felt, will think and question and feel angry and guilty about... (only begin though...!!) im struggling to put into words all the bizarre and conflicting emotions i feel about my mother, what she did, what she didnt do, what she should and shouldnt have done...

I hope Shannon is young enough for some one to show her that people can love, care, show affection and teach her how familys really should be, and undo some of the awful things shes learned so far in life, and I hope fervently that there is someone there to do that for her.

> SOrry folks if im rambling

You have no appology to make here Ems!
Grounded sound intellegent rationale can take up all the space it wants in my book :)
Thank~you for sharing what must be intensely personal experience to lend a voice of reason to this debate where it was sorely needed.