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Mother 'did not know about Shannon drugs'
THE mother of schoolgirl Shannon Matthews told the jury yesterday she did not know her daughter had been given drugs for months.
Karen Matthews said she had never been prescribed temazepam and at the time did not know it was a sedative.
She also knew nothing of Meclozine, the active ingredient of Traveleeze. Hair analysis showed Shannon had been given the drugs for 20 months before being found in March.
Asked by Julian Goose QC prosecuting at Leeds Crown Court, if it was just a coincidence the same drugs had been given to the nine-year-old while she was held by Michael Donovan for 24 days, Matthews said: "Yes it was nothing to do with me."
"Did you tell Michael Donovan in order to keep your daughter subdued, quiet, she could be given temazepam and Meclozine in the form of Traveleeze?" he asked.
"No," said Matthews.
"How was it your nine-year-old daughter, living in your house, has got temazepam in her system for 20 months?" he asked. "I don't know," she replied. "She wasn't with me all the time."
Mr Goose suggested Matthews was lying and had told Donovan what to give her daughter and that she provided the time and place for Donovan to pick Shannon up on February 19.
"No, I didn't know Michael Donovan had her," she said.
Mr Goose accused Matthews of lying repeatedly. He said she had given five different versions of what had happened to Shannon: "And you come back now to saying 'I didn't know what was going on, it was everyone else'."
A tearful Matthews replied: "I didn't have nothing to do with it."
When Mr Goose suggested that portraying herself as mother beside herself with concern for her missing daughter was an act, she sobbed: "I love my kids to bits."
Mr Goose asked why she had only used Shannon in her "wicked deception".
"I didn't use her," said Matthews.
Mr Goose asked why she was crying now. "Because I'm getting blamed for something I haven't done," she said, wiping her eyes.
Matthews said she was confused when being interviewed by the police and had told officers things because she was scared of her former partner Craig Meehan, who had told her to take the blame.
He showed the jury clips from television appeals. "Do you agree in front of the cameras you looked happy with Craig," he asked. "Sometimes," she replied.
"The man you describe as your rock, you cried each other to sleep and held each other at night, is that the man you are saying has made you do all these things?" Matthews replied: "Yes."
Matthews, 33 of Moorside Road, Dewsbury Moor, and Donovan, 40, of Lidgate Gardens, Batley Carr, deny the kidnap and false imprisonment of Shannon and acts intending to pervert the course of justice.
Earlier under cross-examination by Alan Conrad QC, defending Donovan, Matthews agreed the evening her daughter went missing she had gone to pick up a satellite navigation system with Craig's sister and to the supermarket.
She denied buying beer, saying: "I needed to buy some food for the other kids as well."
Delivery driver Mark Goode called in Matthews's defence, said he had overheard Alice Meehan, Craig's mother, on the phone on the day Shannon was found.
He was delivering a bed to her home when she said: "Don't say nowt, just keep your mouth shut. They'll never, ever find out."
He did not know who she was speaking to.
The trial continues on Monday.
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Saturday 26 May 2012
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