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VIDEO: The two faces of Karen Matthews: Watch the police interviews
DEWSBURY mother-of-seven Karen Matthews has been portrayed as the epitome of a benefit-dependent, sink estate slob.
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In this police interview footage, she at first denies involvement in her daughter's kidnap - but later breaks down under the pressure.
Now 33, she was born and brought up in the area - one of Gordon and June Matthews's seven children.
Matthews herself described how her relationship with her mother broke down when she was 14.
"I ended up in a children's home because I couldn't cope with all the stress and lies and stuff," she told a TV documentary.
"After I got over that, they took me out of the children's home, I stayed with them for a bit and then I went to live with my boyfriend's mum. I was about 17 or 18."
Shannon was born in September 1998. Her father Leon Rose, 29, split up with Matthews when Shannon was about two. Mr Rose stood by Matthews during the search for his daughter but refused to elaborate on what went wrong in the relationship.
By February this year, Matthews was living at 24 Moorside Road, Dewsbury Moor - a standard council brick-built semi which backs on to a grassy playing field - with Craig Meehan, 22, who worked on the fishmonger's stall at the Morrisons supermarket in nearby Heckmondwike.
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Sunday 12 February 2012
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