Shannon Matthews hoax abduction

Andrew wrote:

Bampots wrote:Interesting programme!
So do those posting above......think this is deliberate? If so who would place this programme at this particular time on our screens? That is a mighty powerful person who dictates the BBC schedules and content....no?
Conspiracy?

What is it Textusa says about 'shakers and movers'. Chess game and all that (can't remember exactly), but I think this is all part of the 'game' myself. Turning public opinion... Changing perception.

This programme of course would've been made ages ago. The release date would've been commissioned what a couple of weeks back at most. I think a couple of weeks ago, then there'd be quite a few 'important' people who would know the outcome and date of when the whole verdict thing was going to be concluded... Heck, the McCanns probably even knew the outcome ages ago hence the transfer of monies.

Just speculating and probably talking bollox

I think you not talking that much bollocks Andrew.....;-)

They started filming it in ~March 2016. I doubt it took more than a couple of months to film?

Well quite, TTWO.

A long time for it then to be sitting about before they decided on a good time to release it.

And no better time until after the Supreme Court verdict was announced.

I can't help but think it was carefully timed....just a gut feeling. Would they have waited to reduce the risk of being sued?

Andrew wrote:Quickly thinking about it... Then I would be inclined to think that the McCanns haven't said a word about this. They've got far more pressing things going on than whipping up a media frenzy relating to the Matthews case.

And whipping up a media frenzy is what it's all about.

Do we really think that Tracey K is best buddies.... Or just someone who has been assigned to 'get close' over the years..... I know what my money is on.

I have always pondered on that one, I sometimes thought the same about Clarence Mitchell.

chrissie wrote:I can't help but think it was carefully timed....just a gut feeling. Would they have waited to reduce the risk of being sued?

Every single Media and Broadcasting company out there will want their pound of flesh at some point.

Inca wrote:

Andrew wrote:Quickly thinking about it... Then I would be inclined to think that the McCanns haven't said a word about this. They've got far more pressing things going on than whipping up a media frenzy relating to the Matthews case.

And whipping up a media frenzy is what it's all about.

Do we really think that Tracey K is best buddies.... Or just someone who has been assigned to 'get close' over the years..... I know what my money is on.

I have always pondered on that one, I sometimes thought the same about Clarence Mitchell.

That'll be his first line of his defence no doubt when/if he gets hauled in for questioning.

Poe wrote:I would have thought that the McCanns would want to keep their heads down right now.

Perhaps the whole article complete with the "friend of the McCanns" comments was produced by Tracey without any input from the McCanns.

Their ploy of getting their message out through friends and sources might be being used against them leaving the McCanns powerless to stop her.

Didn't see your post at the time, Poe, and just seen it now when I was flicking back.

I said something a bit later which was along the same lines and totally in agreement with you.

Being done up like a kipper also springs to mind. And they cannot do a damn thing about it.

As you mentioned earlier, CF:




1966

2017...

I've now managed to see the whole programme after some tantrums from the computer.

I don't see how the McCanns could object to comments about them as they were relating truthfully to things that they did (like Cuddlecat) or to the difference in media coverage of the two cases. Of course they could have a problem with themselves being compared to another dodgy as hell case!

Oh dear, the behaviour of Craig and Karen - him unable to drag himself away from his computer games even when the police were there and Karen's complete lack of emotion when seeing Shannon again.

Craig was not involved in the kidnapping plot so you'd think that he would have shown some concern for Shannon.

Portuguese Bombshell

The McCanns aren't cleared

..... Just predicting the next batch of headlines before I log out.

Andrew wrote:Well quite, TTWO.

A long time for it then to be sitting about before they decided on a good time to release it.

And no better time until after the Supreme Court verdict was announced.

I would agree there Andrew. I read the 'bad timing' inference from the McCanns spokesperson as being too close to the 10th anniversary, I must have got it wrong.

I found this clip by chance of the real Julie Bushby and the font of all wisdom relating to criminal cases, Mark Williams Thomas, when Karen was released from prison in 2012.

So when is the timing suitable for them. Never is the answer, they are always seething, furious, appalled. Surely it can't be the anniversary, that is nearly 3 months away, so what is so appalling and such bad timing

They're obviously planning some sort of commemoration, and IT'S JUST NOT FAIR, EVERYBODY'S SPOILING IT!!

I didn't watch the programme, and have no desire to. I object to it because of Shannon and her siblings.

Most of us do think it's appalling too, but then ... the other way around. Right?

Inca wrote:So when is the timing suitable for them.  Never is the answer, they are always seething, furious, appalled.  Surely it can't be the anniversary, that is nearly 3 months away, so what is so appalling and such bad timing

No, Inca, occasionally, from time to time, they are buoyed - perhaps BBC should've waited until they were all buoyed up

Well now this is interesting, a journalist actually admitting he was made a fool of by Karen Matthews... are we going to see something similar elsewhere?



Mark Simpson: How Karen Matthews made a fool out of me


8 February 2017

From the section UK


Shannon Matthews's disappearance in a 2008 hoax-kidnapping is being recounted in a BBC drama. BBC News's Mark Simpson, who reported on the case, looks back at the deception.

Karen Matthews made a fool out of me.

I looked into her sunken eyes, saw that she was petrified and gave her the benefit of the doubt.

Maybe my judgement was coloured by the fact that she chose to give me her first interview.

Maybe it was clouded by seeing inside her small semi-detached house, and the grim conditions in which she and her seven children were living.




Maybe I was so cold at the time, my brain froze.

Karen's daughter Shannon, nine, disappeared on the coldest night of the year in February 2008.




Police divers who searched a lake near her home in Dewsbury Moor in West Yorkshire had to break through ice to get into the water. The air temperature had dipped to -4C.

The night Karen agreed to talk to me, I was shaking with cold after spending hour after hour talking live on the BBC News Channel (or BBC News 24 as it was then).

Karen spotted me out of her front window and came out to talk. She was shaking too, but out of fear.

She was scared - scared of being found out.

She gave me no eye contact. She looked down the barrel of the BBC camera and said; "Shannon if you're out there, please come home. We love you to bits, we miss you so much. Please, I'm begging you baby, come home."





When the police saw her interview on the BBC Ten O'Clock News, they were annoyed.

They had advised her not to talk to the media. They were as surprised as me that she agreed to give me an interview.

So was this erratic behaviour the first sign that all was not what it seemed?


In hindsight, it may seem so, but at the time, it seemed simply a desperate act by a desperate mother.

Fresh in my mind were the Soham murders of schoolgirls Jessica Chapman and Holly Wells. When children disappeared for more than 48 hours, the outcome was usually not good.

That is why there was such a huge community effort to try to find Shannon. People realised that time was short.

Yes, I did wonder if Karen Matthews was telling the truth. Everyone did.

However, I believed her. And I was not alone.



As well as searching hedges and parkland, the police drew up a map showing where convicted paedophiles lived in the Dewsbury area.

They checked, and double-checked. There was no sign of Shannon.

As days turned to weeks, the more convinced detectives became that Shannon would not be coming home.

However, Karen's friends and neighbours never gave up, and neither did the police.

About 10% of the force's officers were put on the case and more than £3m was spent in what was one of the largest search operations since the hunt for the Yorkshire Ripper.




Shannon was eventually found, 24 days after she disappeared. A BBC colleague got a tip-off and phoned me.

I was shopping in Ikea in Leeds at the time, and nearly dropped my phone on a multi-coloured Swedish rug when I heard the news.

As I drove down the A6110 to Dewsbury, I wondered if Karen would give me an interview again.

We could do it in the same spot where we had first spoken.

The only difference would be that this time she would be with Shannon beside her.

The tears would turn to cheers. For once, it would be a story with a happy ending.

What a fool I was.

It later emerged that Shannon had been kept drugged and hidden in the base of a divan bed by the very people appealing for her safe return.

That September Karen, and Michael Donovan, the uncle of Karen's partner, went on trial for kidnap, false imprisonment and perverting the course of justice. They were jailed for eight years after the court heard about their plot to hide the child and claim a £50,000 reward that subsequently had been offered by the Sun.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-38906967

There could be a lot of red faces to come!

A factual error in the article - only four of Karen's children had the misfortune to be living with her.

She probably was genuinely terrified at the thought of what she'd done and what would happen if she was found out.

I wonder how long the hoax would have gone on if Shannon had not been found when she was.

Freedom wrote:http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4212368/KATIE-HOPKINS-Madeleine-McCann-Shannon-Matthews-link.html#ixzz4YIpflaZ2

KATIE HOPKINS: The McCanns hate Maddie being named in the same breath as Shannon Matthews. But were the two little girls really so very different? 
By Katie Hopkins for MailOnline
Published: 15:40, 10 February 2017  | Updated: 18:08, 10 February 2017



was only to be expected, I suppose.
Following the BBC dramatisation of the fake kidnap of Shannon Matthews, inevitably the first couple out of the gates for comment were the McCanns.
A source close to the family is said to have told the press the drama is appalling and insensitive.
Well here’s a new idea for the McCanns: this time it’s not all about you. This is not your story to tell.
This is about the tragic life of another little girl: Shannon. 
A little girl born into nothing, treated as nothing and finally freed to be something after her own mother was arrested. 
This is the sort of neglect we associate with mums who cash in kids for benefits, like coupons in a store.
And here’s another new idea for Gerry and Kate: this coverage does not smell slightly strangely of roses. This is unsanitised, and it pongs a bit.
And that seems to be at the heart of the issue: the McCanns resent them and their parenting being spoken about in the same conversation as Karen Matthews.
Detectives think Matthews settled on the idea of kidnap after seeing how much money poured into the McCann fund and the amount of press attention Kate and Gerry received.



She even used a random teddy taken from Shannon’s bed to mimic the Maddie Cuddle Cat that Kate used to carry around with her.
Is that teddy her favourite? Probably, Karen said. Not quite ringing true.
Kate’s Cuddle Cat never quite rang true for me either. If someone took my lovely baby away, I would put Cuddle Cat under my pillow every night to be close to the baby I lost. Not wash its memories away.
Kate put it in the washing machine just days after Maddie vanished into the night.
Karen Matthews copied Kate McCann’s appeal almost word for word when she shed her crocodile tears for the press: 'I need her home. If anyone's got my beautiful princess, bring her home.’
Kate’s sentiments coming out of Karen’s mouth. Kate’s Cuddle Cat, Karen’s brown teddy. Kate and Karen. Matthews and McCann. Clear parallels being drawn.
It’s possible Karen was also influenced by an episode of Shameless, which featured a fake kidnap and aired a few weeks before Shannon was stuffed away, drugged, under a bed.
Karen Matthews had no shame. A complete absence of the stuff.
Her own sister says she taped plastic bags to her babies’ bottoms to save buying nappies.

Detectives say she had so many different relationships with so many different men that when the police built up a family tree it had more branches than Tescos, with 300 names on it.

This same absence of shame allowed her to sacrifice a daughter into the ‘keeping’ of a man whose own daughters had been taken into care after he allegedly made them watch him have sex with a prostitute.

However, I’m not sure the McCanns can so easily set themselves apart.

Would you choose to leave your children in the hands of the monster you know — or all alone and take your chance with the devil you don’t?

Which mother was more desperate: the one with nothing and no hope of ever having anything, or the one with friends waiting at the tapas bar by the pool?

      






 
The search for Maddie cost around £12 million. The hunt for Matthews around £3.2 million 

What is clear is that in both cases the public has paid a price for these decisions. The search for Maddie cost around £12 million. The hunt for Matthews around £3.2 million.

Karen Matthews is clearly guilty of this huge waste. And has paid for it, to some extent, with four years in prison and a pretty uncertain future.

We are told she is now receiving death threats as a whole new generation has been appalled by this monster of a mother.

You might say, for Karen, justice has been served.But the matter of guilt or innocence is never far from the front door of the McCanns. 

This week the Portuguese Supreme Court judges made clear that the archiving of the criminal case into Maddie’s disappearance did not mean Kate and Gerry were innocent. There is a significant and not merely a semantic difference, they said.

What does justice look like for the McCanns?

Perhaps we can agree Karen Matthews is a monster. But some kind of monsters came for Maddie at night. She was lost because she was left to be found. Shannon Matthews was born lost, and desperately needed to be found.

Shameless or desperate? The monster you know or the devil you don’t? Rich or poor? Better or worse? Justice or just deserts? These are hard calls to make.

Two very different families.

Two very different children yet, strangely, uncomfortably connected.

Whoooo! Pretty hard hitting stuff from Katie Hopkins.
Well done!

Oh dear, Ofcom received just one complaint out of the 7.2 million who watched it about The Moorside drama, wonder who that was




Controversial Karen Matthews drama The Moorside receives just one Ofcom complaint


One viewer out of the 7.2 million who tuned in, contacted the TV watchdog to complain

http://www.mirror.co.uk/tv/tv-news/controversial-karen-matthews-drama-moorside-9794469




JillyCL ‏@JillyCL · 8h8 hours ago



#McCann$ #Matthew$

Ofcom received only one complaint about The Moorside on BBC1 last Tuesday.

Any guesses? ;-)

It's interesting. You'd think Kate McCann would be delighted that the makers snuck this subliminal reference to her pet charity into the programme. Blink and you would have missed it!

If it wasn't a direct member of Team McCann who complained, I'll hazard a guess at Pam Gurney!