Entry was forced into alleged kidnapper Michael Donovan's home on March 14 and a number of officers were searching the premises when a child's voice was heard in a bedroom.

Paul Kettlewell, then a detective constable, told the jury at Leeds Crown Court that at first he thought the flat was empty until: "I plainly heard a child say "Stop it, you're frightening me."

He went into the bedroom and two uniformed officers were by the base of the divan and he saw "a small girl start to emerge from the bed".

They went round to the side where she had started to "extricate herself". The two officers helped her and passed her over to him. He then carried her in his arms to a police car.

"She was frightened and crying," he told Julian Goose QC prosecuting. Once outside he asked if she knew where Donovan was and she replied: "Where I was, he's under the bed."

The officer, now retired, denied under cross-examination by Alan Conrad QC, defending Donovan, that the schoolgirl also said "leave us alone" when she was found.

Pc Ian Mosley said he and another officer had started to move the divan and things started to spill out from an opening where a drawer should have been and they heard the cries of a child.

"It was quite surreal actually, as I heard the noise obviously Shannon started to pull herself out," he said.

He helped her and handed her over to a colleague. He then heard a thud and thought it came from above so went out and pushed open the hatch to the loft where he saw "a beam and some kind of rope on it".

As he was looking he heard a colleague saying "stop resisting, stop fighting" and returned to the bedroom to see him struggling with a male who turned out to be Donovan.

He denied under cross-examination by Mr Conrad that police were hostile to Donovan, letting emotions get the better of them, banging his head on the floor and one shouting: "Now we've got you, you bastard".

Donovan, 40, of Lidgate Gardens, Batley Carr, and Shannon's mother Karen Matthews, 33, of Moorside Road, Dewsbury Moor, both deny kidnap and false imprisonment of the nine-year-old and doing acts intending to pervert the course of justice.

The prosecution claim Donovan kept her prisoner, drugged and probably restrained with an elastic strap as part of a plan to claim reward money.

Pc Mathew Troake told the jury in a police van after his arrest Donovan said: "Get Karen down here. We've got a plan. We're sharing the money, £50,000."

He said he was the officer who found Donovan inside the base of the divan bed after the schoolgirl had been taken away. The only thing he had heard her say was : "I'm Shannon."

"I looked down into the hole where she had come from and I saw a man looking back at me. He was laid facing me in a foetal position."

He shouted at him to come out but the man did not respond. After he failed to move the officer said he made the hole bigger and pulled him out while he resisted. "I do remember he was screaming at the time," he added.

Another officer helped him handcuff him and they lifted him, resisting, down the stairs, which were narrow and he was banging his head on the wall as they went down.

He denied under cross-examination by Mr Conrad he was mistaken about the comment in the van and Donovan had actually said "Go and arrest Karen".

The jury was shown a video of Donovan at Halifax Police station where he told officers he suffered from dystonia and could not walk at the time for a muscle spasm. He also said he suffered from depression.

Pc Matthew Haywood said he recorded Donovan as saying "Karen is in on it as well."

He said it was an emotional situation for officers "purely because I'm a parent myself".

At the start of the day the judge told the jury Donovan had received further treatment after an assault in prison last week: "Following an X-ray Mr Donovan was found to have suffered a fractured jaw, hopefully well treatable." He said surgery was not now required.

The trial continues.


Neighbour 'saw mother at flat after hunt began'

A WOMAN seen outside Michael Donovan's flat a couple of evening's after schoolgirl Shannon Matthews was reported missing was later identified by a neighbour as Karen Matthews, the jury heard.

Carol Battye told Leeds Crown Court she was leaving for work at 10pm on February 21 when the woman stepped out from the shadows of Donovan's doorway in Lidgate Gardens, Batley Carr.

"She asked if I knew what time Mick would be in," she said. "I said I didn't know."

Mrs Battye said she was smoking a cigarette at the time and the woman asked for one but she refused. "I don't give cigarettes," she told the jury.

She said she had the impression Donovan was "a bit of a loner". She saw police bringing Shannon out of his flat on March 14 and later Donovan being brought out.

On April 7 she attended an identification procedure at Dewsbury police station when she watched a DVD of nine women and picked out the one at number four as the woman she had seen outside the flat in February – the jury was told that was Karen Matthews.

Under cross-examination by Frances Oldham QC defending Matthews, Mrs Battye agreed she only saw the woman's face for a few seconds in the light outside the flat that night.

More coverage:
Day five: Shannon 'frightened and crying when we found her'>>Day three: 'Creepy' Shannon kidnap accused attacked in prison>>Day two: Shannon mother 'joked about sex with policeman' during search>>
Day one: Shannon 'drugged and bound in £50,000 fraud plot'>>