Karen Mathews with Shannon's cuddly toy

Tears, Lies and Videotape, 18 May 2009

Tears, Lies and Videotape - Monday, May 18 STV In 2008, Karen Matthews made tearful TV appeals for the return of her missing daughter Shannon, all the while knowing where she was. Similarly, Gordon Wardell and Tracie Andrews attended press conferences after having killed their partners. Psychologist David Canter and Paul Ekman examine footage of these and others who made appeals on crimes to the media but who later were found guilty themselves, including Ian Huntley and Fadi Nasri, to explore their behaviour and look for telltale signs of their dishonesty.

Real Crime: Crocodile Tears (Full Episode)

Tears, Lies and Videotape - The Transcript: Parts 1-4

Tears, Lies and Videotape - The Transcript: Part 1, 29 May 2009

Tears, Lies and Videotape - The Transcript: Part 1   29 May 2009 Transcript by 'constant_dieter'   Begins with footage of Karen Matthews standing outside her home, tearful, puffy-eyed: “If anybody’s got my daughter, my beautiful princess daughter, please bring her home safe.” Voiceover showing general scenes of police activity: “High-profile crimes – played out on the TV. A person goes missing. A body is found. The cameras arrive and the police make full use of the publicity.” Clip of Gordon Wardell in front of the camera, sunglasses on, shaky voice: “I would urge anybody who knows anything about the death of my wife to come forward.” Voiceover showing clips of people later featured in the programme: “Desperate relatives appear to make appeals for information. It’s emotional. It’s raw. But sometimes it’s fake.” Clip of Michael Gifford-Hull at a press conference: “If anyone has seen her, please let us know where she is.” Voiceover showing pictures of Professor David Canter and Professor Paul Ekman: “Tonight, the UK’s leading forensic psychologist and the foremost criminal body language expert in the world examine the tears, the lies and the videotape.” Professor David Canter: “The big challenge when lying is to keep the whole fiction unfolding and developing.” Professor Paul Ekman: “The best way to mask a lie is with a strong emotional display.” Voiceover showing Karen Matthews crying: “Could we have known they were lying?” Journalist who covered the Shannon Matthews case: “I was absolutely taken in by her.” Neighbour of Karen Matthews, Petra Jamieson: “I felt like I’d been punched in the stomach by someone I trusted.” Voiceover showing footage of Karen Matthews smirking: “Were the signs there all along?” 999 call made by Karen Matthews is played. Operator: “Police emergency?” KM: “Hiya. I want to report my daughter is missing please.” Operator: “Right. How old is she?” KM: “Nine.” Operator: “Nine?” Voiceover: “February 19th, 2008. A distraught mother calls 999 to report her daughter missing. It’s 6.48 in the evening and the temperature is near freezing.” Operator: “What do you call her?” KM: “Shannon Matthews.” Picture of Shannon Matthews. Voiceover showing footage of police activity: “With that phone call, Karen Matthews triggers the biggest police action in West Yorkshire for 27 years. But is it a smokescreen for the real story? Local reporter, Richard Edwards, is one of the first to cover the story. Richard Edwards: “You think, a nine-year-old girl, that is instantly of interest. But never in a million years did I think the story would unfold the way it did.” TV news clip on Shannon showing the CCTV footage of her leaving school the day she disappeared: “CCTV photos shown across the world. The last sighting of missing schoolgirl Shannon Matthews.” Voiceover showing scenes of Dewsbury Moor, people in Shannon t-shirts, putting up posters, etc: “Karen Matthews and her extended family live in Dewsbury Moor, an estate on the outskirts of Leeds. The strong sense of community here meant that word soon spreads that Shannon Matthews is missing. Neighbours are quick to start helping the police search.” Julie Bushby, Community Organiser: “Everybody turned up. People that you don’t normally see. You know that they live on the estate but you’ve never spoken to them. But everybody was there, just trying to do their bit.” Voiceover showing Karen Matthews in slow motion: “24 hours after she made the 999 call, the distraught mother, Karen Matthews, comes out of the house to make an appeal before the TV cameras.” KM: “Shannon, if you’re out there, please darling, come home. We love you so much. Me and your Dad. Your brothers. Your sisters. Everybody loves you. Your Dad’s missing you so much, Shannon. He’s even out looking for you. Please come home, Shannon. If you’re out there, come home. If anybody’s got my daughter, my beautiful princess daughter, please bring her home safe. I need her home.” RE showing footage of Karen Matthews in slow motion again: “Not only were, erm, were the words that she was using all absolutely spot on, as though she had scripted those, full of emotion, it was her physical appearance as well that was absolutely striking. She was every inch the mother who didn’t know what to do, didn’t know where to turn. I mean, you look at her eyes. They are the eyes of a woman in utter despair.” Voiceover showing expert at a computer: “But to a body language expert, like Professor Paul Ekman, there’s more to Karen’s behaviour than is immediately obvious.” Prof. PE: “It’s very small. That shoulder (points to an image of KM on the screen in front of him) goes up a little bit. Twice in a row (he demonstrates with his own shoulder). Behaviour doesn’t occur randomly. It’s like a slip of the tongue. This is a gestural slip. She doesn’t know she’s doing it. Every time we have seen it – and we have seen it in many situations – the person has always been lying.” Clips of news reports of the Shannon case: “Once again the police helicopter hovered over Dewsbury Moor… determined to leave no patch of ground within sight of Shannon’s front door unchecked.” Voiceover showing Karen and Craig outside the house at night in ‘Find Shannon’ t-shirts, looking concerned: “For the media, now encamped in Dewsbury Moor, Karen Matthews and her partner, Craig Meehan, sound and look like anxious parents.” Clip of a news interview with them outside one night. Reporter: “Are you hoping that this time next week you haven’t got to have something like this (meaning a big search event)?” KM (nodding): “Yes. I’m hoping she’s home by then.” Voiceover: “But away from the camera lens, people are beginning to notice a different Karen.” RE voiceover showing footage of a news reporter and camera in the street: “Now a live broadcast came on that was actually taking place in the street outside the house. So one of the people in the house decided to test just how live it was by waving to the camera outside and rustling the curtains around. Then when this appears on screen about a second later, there was a big cheer in the room and Karen was one of those cheering. Now that seemed… That jarred.” Footage of KM inside the house putting clothes into cupboards. Voice of Petra Jamieson: “Well, looking back now, yes, she was shy and tearful in front of the cameras and really outgoing, laughed a lot and joked when there were no cameras around.” JB: “She saw the cameras walking down the street and she was jumping up and down and laughing in the community house. But I just put that down to nerves.” Footage of KM walking around the neighbourhood, child gives her a card for Shannon. RE: “Karen just didn’t quite seem concerned enough. When she saw Shannon’s face on the screen she said ‘Here’s Shannon. She’s famous’. And I remember thinking: She’s not famous. She’s missing.” News clip from Shannon case showing police divers dredging an icy river: “Police have left no stone unturned in their search for the nine-year-old. Every possible hiding place is being examined.” Voiceover: “Shannon Matthews has been missing for seven days. Still the search produces no clues. The police are under pressure. The Madeleine McCann case is in the forefront of people’s minds and police in West Yorkshire want to avoid the criticisms of the Portuguese investigation.” Policeman: “This is the biggest operation in my 28 years of service that I’ve been involved in. But it is important that we do this work in order to find Shannon.” Voiceover: “Thirteen days after Shannon is first reported missing, the police set up a press conference to appeal for help. But it’s a changed Karen Matthews who appears on stage.” Footage of KM taking her seat at the press conference. RE: “Now at this one, Karen’s face is enormously different. The red rings from her eyes have eased a lot. She still looks pale but she looks almost serene. She’s so calm.” KM at press conference: “Well, it’s hard to sleep really. It’s just… House doesn’t feel the same without… with her not being there, really. It just…feels empty.” Professor David Canter: “There’s a certain distance in what she’s saying. She’s not really expressing how she feels. She’s actually saying what she wants people to know.” KM at press conference: “Whoever’s got Shannon, just please let her go. Her family’s missing her. All her friends are missing her at school.” Prof PE: “We see very little signs of anguish, of anxiety, of fear. That was rather flat, emotionally. But why should it be there? She knows her daughter is just fine.” KM at press conference: “Well I think that somebody out there who knows Shannon…they probably know me as well…and it’s…I just want her home safe, really.” Prof DC: “Pretty well everything she says is actually the truth. She says that Shannon is probably with someone who knows her.” KM at press conference: “It makes me think now that I can’t trust people who are really close to me anymore. I just can’t trust them.” Prof DC: “She actually draws on what she knows to be the truth in order to keep the whole fiction alive.” RE: “She doesn’t cry at all until towards the end when she is asked by the reporter if she could remember the last words that she and Shannon exchanged.” KM at press conference, nodding and starting to cry: “I’ll see you at tea time, Mum. Love you.” Wipes tears from her eyes. RE: “Then the tears come. So was that Karen again the actress turning the tears on or were those words genuinely said and they did pluck at Karen’s heartstrings?” Prof PE: “So now we see some genuine emotion. Why it occurs at this point, I have no idea. But the fact that she is capable of it tells us that its absence right from the start in the earliest points when you really expect to see it most severely is suspicious.” Footage of KM at the press conference with a little teddy bear. RE: “Then Karen picks up Shannon’s favourite teddy bear and holds it very close to her face and poses for pictures that way. And it’s a scene that is heavily defined – as was much of the Shannon case – by the McCanns’ trauma.” KM holding the teddy bear up. Prof DC: “She doesn’t quite know what to do with it. It’s totally different from the way Kate McCann carried the teddy everywhere with her as some sort of reassurance of her daughter.” RE: “I think that is one of the most striking images of the whole Shannon situation.” Footage of KM in her house with piles of posters on a table. Voiceover: “Press conference over and Karen Matthews’ behaviour away from the cameras is getting harder to ignore.” PJ: “I can remember going into the chip shop and Karen ordered fish and chips and some other stuff and I ordered my dinner and the guy in the fish shop said ‘That’s all right, Karen. These are on us.’ And she turned round, started giggling, bold as brass and said ‘Oh I should get rid of one of my kids more often.’” RE: “We’d arranged to go and see them to discuss the story I did for the following day. So I turned up, knocked on the door and walked in. And the house was empty. And then the next thing I heard was someone shouting ‘Boo!’ And then it was Karen, she’d been hiding behind the living room door, leaped out and tickled me on my sides. And I was absolutely flabbergasted by that. I mean, what do you make of that?” Footage of KM, Craig and an obscured child in the front room being interviewed for GMTV. Voiceover: “On the 6th of March, Karen gives an interview to GMTV.” KM: “Wherever she is, she’s going to be frightened. And it’s just breaking everybody’s heart on the street.” GMTV: “And what would you say to anyone holding Shannon?” KM (shaking head): “Just let her go.” Prof PE: “Just let her go?” (shakes his head) “This is a NO” (nods) “This is a YES” Repeat of KM on GMTV saying “Just let her go” while shaking her head. Prof PE: “So she’s caught in a conflict between ‘Please let her go’ and ‘Don’t let her go – you’ve got to keep her.’ So I get something from this. It’s another gestural slip.” Voiceover: “The more Karen Matthews appears on camera, the more her behaviour is starting to raise eyebrows.” Footage of KM and Craig in their house looking at cards and letters received from the public. Voiceover: “Even to the untrained eye.” RE: “She almost at times gives a strange half-smile.” Footage shows KM turning away and half-smiling at the camera. Prof PE: “If you’re an anguished mother, we wouldn’t expect that you would be smiling.” Footage shows KM on the sofa at home, smirking. Prof PE: “She’s getting a kick out of being able to pull the wool over the eyes of the community and the police. She thinks this whole plot is going to succeed. And so far it is succeeding. She’s on television. The community’s supporting her. Everyone believes her. Footage of KM, Craig and some other adults outside the front door with a poster. Singing hymns with a vicar. Prof DC: “On a number of occasions, she seems to have a slight sort of, some people might call it a smirk, a slight upturn of the lips. And I think that’s actually an indication of embarrassment of what’s going on...” Footage shows KM looking embarrassed, smirking. Prof DC: “which a person emotionally engaged with the whole process of telling the truth wouldn’t express. For a few occasions where she looks to Craig and you wonder ‘Is she thinking to herself, I wonder if he knows the truth?’ It sort of implies she’s checking him out.” Footage of KM turning to Craig and studying his face. Prof DC: “But then she will turn her head into his shoulder, which is a way of getting her face away from the crowd and just hiding any sort of emotional expression.” Footage of KM burying her head in his shoulder so her face cannot be seen. Voiceover: “And there’s a new tactic.” Footage of KM with Megan Aldridge, Shannon’s best friend. Voiceover: “Deflecting attention from herself by shifting the focus to Shannon’s best friend, 8-year-old Megan Aldridge.” Mr Aldridge, Megan’s father: “She definitely used Megan. ‘Let Megan stand here with me and Craig. Let Megan do this. Let Megan do that.” KM at press conference: “Her bestest friend, Megan Aldridge, is missing her, because she’s the only friend she’s got is Shannon.” Footage of Megan holding some balloons. Mr A: “One time, when they were releasing balloons, Megan didn’t want to write a message for Shannon. And Karen said to Megan ‘You write this message and Shannon’ll get it and come home.’ I thought Karen was taking comfort in Megan but looking at it now it was just another piece of her plan. That’s all it was. It was a bit of extra leverage. Definitely.” Aerial footage of flat where Shannon was found. Voiceover: “After 24 days of searching, there is astounding news.” News reporter: “The long search for Shannon Matthews ended just over a mile from her home. The police’s trail of enquiries led them to the upstairs flat of a man who lived alone. The back door kicked in by police who went inside to find nine-year-old Shannon hidden in the base of a divan bed.”   RE: “I was at home on my day off. The phone rang. And it was my boss. So she said ‘Yep, Shannon’s been found in a flat in Batley Carr.’ We know very little at that point about it other than that she was safe. So I rang Julie. And the first thing Julie was shouting down the phone to me was ‘Is it true?’” Footage of Julie Bushby, holding a mobile phone in her hand, shouting to a group of gathered people ‘It’s true! And nodding her head. People start to hug one another. News reporter: “Yesterday ITV news filmed as family and friends realised Shannon was alive.” Voiceover: “But Shannon’s reappearance is not the end of the story.” Footage of KM and Craig outside the house after they were told she had been found. Cameras flashing. Voiceover: “As we’ll see, the biggest drama was yet to come.” Zooms in on KM’s face. End of part one.

Tears, Lies and Videotape - The Transcript: Part 2, 29 May 2009

Tears, Lies and Videotape - The Transcript: Part 2   29 May 2009 Transcript by 'constant_dieter'   Footage of police activity at a roadside. News reporter: “It was just before 9 o’clock this morning that a man, on his way to work, discovered Carol Wardell’s body beside bushes in a lay-by.” Voiceover: “Fourteen years before the Karen Matthews case, the TV cameras recorded another sensational appeal for help. There’d been a murder in Warwickshire.” News reporter: “Detectives went to her home and found her husband bound and gagged and in a severely distressed state.” Footage shows Tony Bayliss walking along the road where the body was found. Voiceover: “Detective Superintendent Tony Bayliss was in charge of the investigation.” Tony B: “I drove here and arrived at the scene and found Carol Wardell’s body lying here” (points) News footage: “Then staff at the Woolwich building society in Nuneaton called police to say they couldn’t get in because their assistant manageress, Mrs Wardell, hadn’t turned up for work.” Footage of building society, police tape across the front, zooms in on a bunch of flowers left by the door. Tony B: “Our theory was that it was a professional robbery in which Mr Wardell had been held captive at his home. Mrs Wardell had been forcibly taken to the building society and forced to open the safe and that for some reason after that she’d been killed.” Mirror Reporter Rod Chayter: “This was a huge story. A story like one I hadn’t covered before.” Footage from press conference. Mr Wardell brought in sitting in a wheelchair. Sunglasses on. Voiceover: “The police held a press conference featuring their star witness, the victim’s husband, Gordon Wardell.” Tony B: “I thought it was very important for Gordon Wardell to take part in this press conference because I knew that it would keep the media interest alive and thereby give us more chance of getting information in from members of the public.” Gordon Wardell at press conference, shaky voice: “I would urge anybody that knows anything about the death of my wife to come forward.” RC: “His account was that he had been out to post a letter for Carol, gone for a pint in The Brooklands, driven back to Merridon, walked into his home, smelt cigarette smoke in the home of two non-smokers, walked into the lounge and there was Carol, trussed up at knife point.” GW at the press conference: “As I walked into the lounge, I was grabbed. That was the first time I saw my wife.” Voiceover: “But the assembled press corps smelt a rat. RC: “There was no medical need for him to be in a wheelchair whatsoever. There was some token hoarseness of the voice, soft speaking…” GW at press conference: “The man had got hold of my wife and was threatening her with a knife. I was grabbed from both sides from the back and forced down. He was wearing a clown’s mask, a dark blue boiler-type suit…” RC: “Almost from the word go, the story didn’t seem right. The clown’s mask seemed to be an unlikely extra detail…” GW at press conference: “I lost consciousness and didn’t… The next thing I know I’m on the floor, bound and gagged.” RC: “No sense of grief. No sense of loss. No sense of outrage. No real anguish at all. Just cold fish.” Tony B: “Well, obviously following the press conference we were hoping that would stimulate a lot of public interest. Unfortunately it had the effect that a lot of people came to the view that it was Mr Wardell who was responsible for the offence. And I even received a phone call from my mother, who said, more or less ‘What are you messing about at? It’s obviously that husband who did it.’” Prof DC: “If you’re listening to him, you don’t feel upset for him. The natural human process of empathy somehow isn’t triggered.” Tony B: “I’ve learnt after many years of police experience not to make snap judgements about people just on the way they happen to behave in a particular set of circumstances. It’s far more complex than that. And when you’re dealing with a serious like this, a murder investigation, you have to keep an open mind and only go where the evidence takes you.” Footage showing GW taking part in a police reconstruction. Voiceover: “The police stage a reconstruction of Wardell’s movements on the night his wife died.” News reporter: “Mr Wardell had re-traced every step he said he made on the night before the building society robbery. Mr Wardell said he hoped the police would make a breakthrough soon.” Footage of GW in the pub where he said he was. GW: “Hopefully, yes. That’s why I’m trying to do anything that I can to help.” RC: “The reconstruction was just more of the same, really. Cold. Emotionless. Calculating. Unblinking. Just as he’d been at the press conference. Voiceover: “Wardell’s story starts to unravel.” RC: “He claimed to have been bantering with one of the bar staff.” Bar man at the pub: “No, I didn’t serve the man and all the staff have signed police statements to say they didn’t…they don’t recall seeing him.” RC: “His story was falling apart in front of his eyes and he would have been blind and stupid not to see that.” Footage of the outside of the Wardell home, police tape surrounding it. Voiceover: “It’s the fine detail of his lies that lead to Gordon Wardell’s undoing.” Tony B: “He had said that a cloth was placed over his mouth and he smelt chemicals and the next thing was he came round 8 or 9 hours after he said he was attacked. And an eminent member of the Royal College of Anaesthetists contacted our incident room and said that he knew of no anaesthetic that would have this particular effect.” Footage of the pub. RC: “I asked the question later, had he wet himself? Two pints. Tied up all night.” Tony B: “There was no evidence that he had urinated. This was nigh-on impossible. A forensic examination of the house didn’t show any third parties had been in that house on the evening concerned and it was a combination of things and a very complex circumstantial case against Mr Wardell.” Footage of GW during the reconstruction. Prof DC: “Gordon Wardell is very interesting in contrast to Karen Matthews because he takes a totally different approach. If you watch what he’s doing, he is giving an account that he has carefully thought out, carefully rehearsed, developed and then put this all together.” Footage of GW in handcuffs. Voiceover: “The jury unanimously declared Wardell guilty. He was sentenced to life imprisonment.” Picture of his wife’s face. Prof PE: “The elaborate story that he tells the police suggests this was pre-meditated. Because that would take preparation to think through. So it’s likely that this wasn’t momentary loss of impulse, control or an argument that turned violent. It’s likely that he knew what he was going to do, prepared an elaborate story, memorised it so he could give it again and again consistently.” RC: “The whole thing was utterly unconvincing. From the word go, really. I mean, it was fairly dreadful acting. I mean, it is very difficult to act. He was determined. But in terms of being convincing, not very good at all.” Footage of other killers featured in this programme. Voiceover: “Most killers try in vain to cover their tracks. But only a few are brazen enough to stand in front of TV cameras and lie to the world. In May 2006 in north-west London, Fardi Nasri paid another man to murder his wife, Nisha.” Footage of Fardi Nasri and a photo of his wife in her police uniform. News reporter: “She came out of her house in her night clothes to investigate a disturbance. Her husband had gone out to play snooker. He was called back by the neighbours to find her lying in a pool of blood.” FN: “She had a good heart. Always very, very bubbly. Always willing to help everyone. Everyone’s grieving and missing her very much. Still in shock.” Prof DC: “One of the challenges of lying is to continue to invent and to give information that you are developing so one of the ways in which people cope with lying is actually by avoiding saying anything that’s not true.” Footage of police activity. Voiceover: “The fact that Nasri didn’t commit the actual murder himself may have made that easier.” FN: “Obviously someone’s got a guilty conscience. They’ll be worrying about what they’ve done or shocked or maybe it was an accident or a mistake or…or…whatever. You know, er… But someone’s got to know something.” Footage of Soham. Voiceover: “Soham, Cambridgeshire. 2002. One of the most infamous killers in recent times, Ian Huntley. Interviewed 11 days after murdering schoolgirls Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman, his portrays no hint of emotion.” Ian Huntley on news report: “It doesn’t help the fact that I was one of the last people to speak to them, if not the last person to speak to them. I keep reliving that conversation, thinking perhaps something different could have been said. Perhaps kept them here a little bit longer. Maybe changed events.” Reporter: “Of course at the time it was just a normal chat with two girls that you knew.” Huntley nodding. IH: “Well that’s just it. I didn’t even know them.” Prof DC: “If you listen to what he says, he actually says ‘I was the last person to see them’ Repeated footage of IH claiming to be the last person to speak to them. Prof DC: “How does he know he is the last person? If they were abducted by somebody else, somebody else would have seen them.” Footage of other press conferences featured in the programme. Voiceover: “Other killers don’t appear so composed under the spotlight. The ones that look for public sympathy by shedding tears.” Footage of Paul Dyson, crying. PD: “I love her to bits. I just want her back.” Voiceover: “But what lies behind the tears? Are they for real or just for show? End of part two.

Tears, Lies and Videotape - The Transcript: Part 3, 29 May 2009

Tears, Lies and Videotape - The Transcript: Part 3   29 May 2009 Transcript by 'constant_dieter'   Footage of press conferences Voiceover: “It’s rare for there to be a high-profile criminal case in Britain without a major TV and media press conference or personal appeal, often transmitted live into the nation’s living rooms. The bereaved relative is put before the cameras to help the police gather vital evidence and to elicit sympathy from the public. The emotion appears raw but sometimes it’s fake.” News footage. Men in white forensic suits in a woodland. Reporter: “It’s now more than three weeks since mother-of-two Kirsi Gifford-Hull was reported missing from her home in Winchester. And 5 days ago her husband, Michael, made an emotional appeal for information.” Footage of Michael Gifford-Hull at press conference. MG-H: “Please come back. I want you back. The kids want you back. The kids need you back. I need you back. Please get in touch. Please come back.” Voiceover: “Less than three weeks before this press conference, this same man, Gifford-Hull, had murdered his wife and buried her in nearby woods.” RC: “You just know that at the back of their eyes they’re thinking ‘How did I ever get here? How did I get into this? Why did I ever think that killing this person or committing this terrible act was going to be a good idea, that would solve my problems?” G-H at press conference: “If anyone has seen her, please let us know where she is.” Prof PE: “Normally in a blink it opens and closes in an instant.” Footage of G-H at press conference blinking slowly Prof PE: “But a longer eyelid closure, which we have found in the past is a sign that the person is thinking a lot about what to say.” Footage of G-H at press conference G-H: “There’s two small children who are going frantic…who are desperate for their mother. Thank you.” RC: “Eventually they probably manage to squeeze out a few crocodile tears, thinking of something sad but they’re not crying for their lost loved one or whatever they’ve done. They’re crying for themselves.” Prof DC: “People are impressed by the tears that are generated by a lot of these people who fake grief. But talk to any actor about how they generate tears. They do it by drawing upon their actual emotional experiences and in these cases the individuals are going through certain emotional traumas in relation to what they’ve been involved in.” Picture of Paul Dyson Voiceover: “Like Paul Dyson who strangled his fiancée, Joanne Nelson, in Hull in 2005.” Picture of Joanne Nelson. News footage of Paul Dyson at home with a photo of Joanne. Reporter: “Yesterday it was the turn of her boyfriend to appeal for the woman he said was one in a million to get in touch.” PD, crying: “She’s absolutely beautiful. Real bubbly. Real outgoing. Real forward. Really friendly. I love her.” Prof PE: “The best way to mask a lie is with a strong emotional display that could be appropriate to the situation.” Footage of the Valentine cards in PD’s front room. Voiceover: “He’d murdered Joanne on a Sunday morning, the day before Valentine’s Day. He spent Sunday afternoon clearing the evidence and disposing of her body.” Footage of CCTV showing PD in a shop Voiceover: “CCTV footage from a local shop shows Dyson buying cleaning products and bin bags, which he then uses to wrap Joanne’s body.” CCTV footage of PD at a petrol station Voiceover: “And at this petrol station Dyson casually buys petrol while his girlfriend’s body lies in the boot of the car. But to a TV crew he’d given a detailed account of a loving Monday morning kiss and cuddle. The reality was, he’d already buried her body,” Footage of PD crying in living room PD: “We’d…Monday morning, because I couldn’t get Valentine’s Day off, erm, we swapped cards upstairs. Sniffs. Erm, I gave her a kiss and a cuddle, got ready for work. She was going to get her head down for another hour or so. Got back in bed. Cuddled her. Kissed her goodbye. Went to work.” Prof DC: “He is crying about what he has done.” PD crying in living room PD: “I love her to bits. I just want her back”. Holding a photo of Joanne. Prof DC: “He says of his victim she’s the only person I ever loved. I would like her back. Clearly he is deeply upset about what he has done. But we interpret it as if he’s really asking for somebody to come forward.” PD: “I want to know where she is.” More crying. Prof DC: “You can see that he has an enormous amount of remorse about what he did and that’s what he’s expressing. And that’s why it’s not surprising that he did actually eventually confess.” Footage of a car driving fast down a country lane. Voiceover: “December 1996. Alvechurch, just south of Birmingham. The case that almost defines the term ‘crocodile tears’. This time, thought, the murderer does not confess their guilt. Former glamour model, Tracey Andrews, is a passenger in a car driven by her fiancé, Lee Harvey. They’re on their way home from a night at the pub. They get into a road rage wrangle with another car. It escalates out of control and Lee is murdered. At least, that’s what Tracey Andrews tells the police.” DC: “It was a huge story. Road rage was the flavour of the month, in terms of news. There had been various incidents. It was a new concept and nobody could quite believe at that time that people would get out of their cars to start fighting each other over some imagined sleight which had happened on the road. And now here we had the road rage murder. And not only was it a road rage murder, it involved a pretty blonde and additionally her boyfriend, a good-looking young man.” News report from the time. Reporter: “Here Lee Harvey lost his life because of road rage. His Escort Turbo was chased from Bromsgrove to Alvechurch at 60 miles an hour down narrow country lanes.” Ian Johnston, West Mercia Police: “There was no evidence to contradict what Tracey was saying at that stage. Hers was the only evidence that the inquiry had at that particular moment. It was feasible. We had to go forward on what she was saying.”   Footage of press conference Voiceover: “Immediately, the police call a press conference. Tracey Andrews takes centre stage.” News report of the press conference. Reporter: “At Redditch police station Lee Harvey’s girlfriend, accompanied by his parents, bravely came forward to appeal for information.” RC: “I was astonished that this young lady was being put up to the media so quickly.” IJ: “The police are well aware that the media is a very effective tool, and particularly in these sorts of cases where you haven’t got a lot of evidence to start off with.” Footage of Tracey Andrews walking into the press conference in slow motion RC: “When she walked through the door the atmosphere was electric. All the photographers’ motor drives started going off immediately like a choir. That always adds to the tension, the expectation, the electricity and there was a tremendous sense of anticipation as she was shown to her chair.” Footage of the press conference. Tracey Andrews is crying. TA: “Both Lee and the other person were playing cat and mouse with each other for a while.” IJ: “She was clearly upset. She was shivering. She was pale. She had all the hallmarks of a woman who had been through this sort of ordeal.” Pictures of TA in her modelling days (to show the difference in her appearance) RC: “But we had seen pictures by that time of… She had posed for some modelling shots with her face fully made up. The person who presented herself was in totally marked contrast to that. No make up, obviously. Black eyes. Black and bruised face. Red-eyed. She looked every inch the victim that she was portraying herself to be.” Footage of press conference TA: “And then I got out the car because I’m not the sort of person to sit there. I got out the car and then I went over to the man. We had a confrontation. He hit me. I can’t remember. I fell to the floor. I can’t remember if I was… knocked out for a bit or what. I don’t know, but…” DC: “The interesting thing about Tracey Andrews is she was a model so she’s actually quite used to being in front of cameras and photographed and I think her confidence in giving an account of what happened to her and her willingness to portray it is drawing on her being used to being in front of cameras and she has her hair down in front of her face so that she doesn’t actually need to show too much of her… of her face in this process.” RC: “But there was a moment about half-way through where she started to mention the ‘starey eyes’ of one of the men who had apparently been involved in the attack on Lee.” Press conference TA: “It was just the way he looked. His eyes. He had starey eyes.” RC: “And her eyes flashed. And what you saw in that moment was that the woman is capable of rage.” Photo of TA looking very angry RC: “And again all the motor drives hit instantly on that moment. Even if you just sort of missed it or she’d been looking the other way or whatever… The fact that all the photographers reacted meant that everybody’s eyes were focused on this brief flash of anger which was instantly controlled and contained.” Prof PE: “She gives an account without being asked questions, without being prompted. That suggests that she prepared what she would say. She did her homework.” Press conference – TA sitting holding hands with Lee’s mother who is holding hands with Lee’s father Voiceover: “Tracey grows in confidence as she tells her story. And she takes one step further than the police expect.” TA: “The…er…driver…er…walked off. It was nothing to do with the driver. And all I want to say is please will the driver of the car just come forward because you are not blame for this. And I know that.” RC: “So often when you see someone involved in these situations in these press conferences, they…they…kind of over-egg the pudding. They over-do the story. They get the details wrong.” Press conference TA: “Please, just tell us who he is because you won’t get in any trouble at all. It was not your fault.” RC: “Now, you just have to think about this. This guy, the driver, had been involved in, according to Tracey, a cat and mouse game in which he pursued them up country lanes. He was absolutely complicit in what happened. He may not have dealt the actual blows, according to her story, but he’s the one who overtook their car. He’s the one that forced their car to a halt. He is utterly complicit. How can he be forgiven 48 hours later?” IJ: “If she was lying, then I didn’t want to stop her lying. I wanted her to lie even more.” Footage of press conference – Tracey is leaving. RC: “We all gathered outside…er…as we tend to do and just sort of said ‘What do you think?’ and we all kind of looked at each other and I thought ‘I think she did it.’” Footage of Ian Johnston driving down a country lane IJ: “After the press conference we were going to move on into things like timelines and fine detail and all that sort of thing, making sure that we got the exact story and then we found that she’d taken this overdose. Now I have no doubt about it that this was a serious attempt by her to commit suicide.” Footage of police forensic activity at the scene Voiceover: “While Tracey Andrews recovers from her attempted suicide in the Alexandra Hospital in Redditch, the evidence against her begins to mount up.” RC: “We now knew that the timings didn’t add up. However you stacked it. However you tried to do it, we drove the route ourselves and did all that kind of stuff. You just could not make what was alleged to have happened fit in that timescale.” Maureen Harvery (Lee’s mother): “This murder had actually happened outside Cooper’s Cottage and obviously the little girl that lived there had given her statement to the police. And she thought there was a man and a woman arguing. That was her description of what went on.” RC: “And we had heard about a man and a woman who had been driving on a route that coincided with Lee Harvey’s and Tracey Andrews’ that night. Their paths had crossed. And they saw no sign whatsoever of a pursuing car.” Footage of Tracey Andrews’ arrest IJ: “On the Saturday she was released from the Alexandra and she was arrested.” Picture of a penknife News reporter: “The police said it was a knife like this one with which Lee Harvey was stabbed. Blood stains on Andrews’ sweater also showed she was very close to Harvey when he was attacked.” IJ: “He must have struck her the face. She’s got out of the car. He’s got out of the car. The forensic evidence indicated that they’d met at the back of the car and she’s turned round and she’s stabbed him straight in the neck. She must have totally lost all control and I envisage that at this stage she was sat over him repeatedly stabbing him at his neck. Lee had been stabbed 42 times in total.” Court sketches of the trial IJ: “At the trial I didn’t feel anymore confident than 50:50 that we would obtain a conviction in this case.” RC: “Juries give the benefit of the doubt. And I was no means convinced that a jury would convict on the evidence. By no means convinced.” MH: “She sat there with crocodile tears and she sat there and she lied to the world and to me.” IJ: “She’d convinced herself that there was feasibility in this and all she had to do was stick to script and keep going.” RC: “And the prosecution QC just took her story apart over 3 days. When you thought there was nothing more he could ask her, he just kept on remorselessly going over her story with her, checking the details. There were some parts of her story which she apparently remembered in great detail perfectly and other parts of it that all she could say was constantly ‘I don’t know’, ‘I can’t remember’, ‘I don’t know’. And in the end, the cumulative effect of all that ‘I don’t know I can’t remember’ was just it’s an invented story.” Footage of TA entering court for the verdict Reporter: “She was branded a killer by the police, a woman of profound deceit by the prosecution and the jury agreed. In through the front door, 90 minutes later she was in a cell waiting to go out the back door in a prison van.” Footage of press conference again, showing Maureen Harvey holding TA’s hand Voiceover: “For Lee Harvey’s mother, who had even held hands with Tracey at the press conference, it was the story she didn’t want to hear.” MH: “I wanted it to be the story that she’d told. And I preferred that story. I wanted Lee to die in the arms of his lover. Not at the hands of his lover. And this is what had happened. She’s stabbed him and he’d died at the hands of his fiancée, the girl he was going to marry.” Footage of Lee Harvey and TA followed by Craig Meehan and KM Voiceover: “It was the betrayal of a lover. After the break, how the world discovered the betrayal of a mother.” End of Part Three.

Tears, Lies and Videotape - The Transcript: Part 4, 29 May 2009

Tears, Lies and Videotape - The Transcript: Part 4   29 May 2009 Transcript by 'constant_dieter'   Aerial footage of housing estate where Shannon Matthews was found Reporter: “The long search for Shannon Matthews ended just over a mile from her home.” Second reporter: “Their hunt leads to a house in Dewsbury. Shannon Matthews is found alive.” Reporter: “The back door kicked in by police who went inside to find nine-year-old Shannon hidden in the base of a divan bed.” Picture of Shannon Voiceover: “When Shannon Matthews was found alive after being missing for 24 days, there was nationwide relief.” Footage of neighbours hugging each other and the party in the street Voiceover: “In Dewsbury Moor, where people had put so much effort into finding her, it’s a time for celebration.” Children shouting “Shannon! Shannon!” Fireworks going off Voiceover: “But one person didn’t seem to be sharing the celebratory mood.” Footage of KM and Craig Meehan outside the house with a policewoman Voiceover: “Shannon’s mother, Karen.” Prof DC: “When Shannon was found and they got filmed, she seems a bit shocked and surprised by the whole situation. She would have been thinking to herself ‘I wonder how she’s been found, I wonder what’s going on’ and that’s clearly expressed on her face.” Voiceover: “She even needs to be told to look happy.” JB: “We were watching it on the telly and we’re giving it ‘She ain’t smiling, she ain’t smiling’. So we just opened the front door slightly and shouted ‘For God’s sake, Karen, smile!” Footage shows Karen turning around to look at the front door and then turning back round, smiling. Crowd outside the house cheers RE: “My suspicions really started to prickle that something wasn’t right within 24 hours of Shannon being found.” Picture of Shannon with a dog Voiceover: “Shannon had been found in the house of Michael Donovan, who – it turns out – is the uncle of Karen’s partner, Craig.” Footage of KM and Craig leaving the house JB: “Once it was released who she was found with, then people’s minds started thinking ‘Well, hang on, with family?’ It just didn’t make sense. Pictures of KM being taken to court Voiceover: “Three days later, Donovan is charged with kidnapping and false imprisonment. But the spotlight was turning onto Karen herself. Had Karen known where her daughter was all along? Footage of press conference KM at press conference: “Well I think there’s somebody out there who knows Shannon…they probably know me as well…” Footage of police activity Voiceover: “Had Karen allowed Shannon to be abducted? If so, why had she done it?” RE: “The rumours, and I’m not sure where they were coming from but the community were fantastically well informed, really started to crank up that Karen had had some sort of involvement.” Voiceover: “Local women, Natalie Brown and Julie Bushby decide to confront Karen with their theory of what she had done.” JB: “Well basically me and Natalie were sat talking on the Saturday night and Natalie went ‘Do you know I’d love to be able to speak to Karen.’ So I went ‘Well, I’ll see if I can arrange it, if you want.’ So we met her at 6 o’clock down in Batley.” Footage of the local area Voiceover: “Karen is driven to the rendez-vous by a police liaison officer, Christine Freeman.” RE: “Then the two women got into the back of Christine and Karen’s car and Natalie said that the rumours had been going round the estate and asked her quite bluntly ‘Were you involved?’ saying to her that she believed that Karen had known where Shannon was all along and Karen replied ‘Yes, it’s true.’” JB: “She was sobbing and they weren’t crocodile tears. They were proper tears. They were proper tears. It was the first time I had actually heard her cry that way.” Footage of police cars Voiceover: “Karen was immediately arrested.” JB: “We weren’t looking for all the signs then. We have now, obviously. We’ve sat down and thought about it and there is a lot of tell-tale signs there. But at that moment in time it wasn’t about Karen. It was about a nine-year-old child.” PJ: “She told that many lies to me and everybody else. She just made a fool of everyone.” Footage of KM and Craig during the search RE: “Those performances were Oscar-winning and I don’t hesitate to hold my hands up and say that I, like everyone else, was absolutely taken in by her.” JB: “People felt anger, frustration. Yeah, I suppose they felt a lot like me. Used. Used and abused.” Footage of neighbours carrying a banner during the search MA: “Everyone just got taken for idiots. I think everyone just pulled back after that. Just being used made us look stupid.” PJ: “I felt like I’d been punched in the stomach by someone I trusted.” MA: “She’ll get out. Sell her story, no doubt. Then she’ll be off. No problems. It’s Shannon now. And Shannon’s brothers and sisters. She’s hurt all them people and she’s not bothered. So long as she’s alright herself.” Footage of boarded-up house, former home of KM Voiceover: “Karen Matthews and Michael Donovan were both sentenced to 8 years for kidnapping and falsely imprisoning Shannon. Even after the trial, it was still no clearer as to why Karen had allowed her own daughter to be abducted.” MA: “To be honest, I just told Megan straight away it was Shannon’s mum that had something to do with it. ‘Why? Why would her mum do that to her?’ ‘I can’t tell you that. I’ve no idea’ and then it’s just ‘Why? Why? Why?’” Picture of KM in handcuffs Prof DC: “I think the claim that Karen and Donovan were somehow or other setting things up to get some reward money for finding Shannon doesn’t really hold a lot of water. It’s very difficult to work out how they thought that could happen.” JB: “I personally don’t think it was for the reward. I don’t know what it was for. I don’t know… It could have been attention.” Footage of a taxi driving along a street Voiceover: “It’s now a year since Karen was arrested. Is she ready to give us anymore answers?” Julie is in the back of the taxi Voiceover: “Julie Bushby visits Karen in prison to see if she’s ready to talk.” Taxi turns down a road sign posted ‘HM Prison’ JB: “I just said ‘Why did you do it?’ and she just glared at me actually and then says ‘I didn’t do it’ She’s adamant she’s totally innocent. Absolutely adamant. I mean, a year on and she’s still coming out with the same story. Well, she’s still claiming that she’s innocent and she’s being used as the scapegoat but I think she’s lying to herself that much that she’s convinced herself. But…it was worth a try.” Footage of press conferences Voiceover: “Have Karen and others like her made it impossible now for anyone else in that situation to be believed?” MA: “If someone goes missing and you come on TV and appeal for them, straight away people are going to think you’ve got something to do with it. This is what’s annoying. There are genuine people out there who do want their loved one back and they are innocent but it’s people like Karen and others that make you question them.” JB: “You’ll always be there looking now. Looking for a tell-tale sign in their eyes, their mouth, the words. Looking for that little grin.” Prof DC: “People will always be curious about whether they’re telling the truth or not and I think now with all these cases of crocodile tears, the public will be even more sceptical.” IJ: “As a result of the Tracey Andrews case I am more sceptical about victims. You know, you start to look to see if you can spot the flaws. You start to think about whether they’ve set themselves on this sort of story or not.” JB: “I’d do it again. If a child went missing again I’d do it again.” RC: “I don’t think my attitude has changed. I think that genuine people making public appeals touch my heart now just as much as they ever did. And I can give you an example. The McCanns. Clearly innocent. Absolutely clearly innocent. And they have my greatest sympathy. Nothing’s changed.” RE: “What I’ve been concentrating on, as hopefully have a lot of people, is that there is actually a happy ending to this, in that Shannon was found. She was found safe and she’s now going to go on to a better life.” Closes with a picture of Shannon Matthews

Television villains: crocodile tears, lies and videotape, 18 May 2009

Television villains: crocodile tears, lies and videotape Timesonline   A generation of criminals brought up on reality TV shows us how easily the camera – or those in front of it – can lie   David Canter May 18, 2009   We live in a media-savvy age. The game shows and endless coverage of the lives of ordinary people that is called "reality television" educate all who watch how to act in front of the cameras. They also provide a way of shaping the meaning of what people do. Children no longer aspire to be train drivers or astronauts, as they did in the past, but to be "famous". This means appearing on television.   People used to be shy of cameras but now many feel their identity is only given form when it is broadcast on television. Yet there is a price to pay for this growing sophistication and desire to engage with public broadcasts. It can easily be hijacked. A new generation of criminals seems to be emerging who use their time in front of the cameras, shedding tears in public, as a way of maintaining their fictional stories.   In contributing to the documentary Tears, Lies and Videotape, I had the opportunity to study the television appearances of a number of people who claimed to be searching for a missing partner or child whom it later turned out they had killed or helped to abduct. Their understanding of how the media works and their ability to pluck the public heartstrings was masterly. Yet none of these people were particularly intelligent or sophisticated. Nonetheless they showed that you do not need any training as an actor, or a part in a Mike Leigh film, to be able to improvise a fictitious role in front of the television cameras.   We have no obvious label for these cases where the culprit appeals for help, other than them exhibiting crocodile tears, so let us call them "crocodiles". These crocodiles teach us the mechanisms by which big lies are perpetrated. They hook into a plausible story of the moment.   Tracie Andrews claimed that her partner Lee Harvey had been attacked in an incident that was quickly labelled "road rage". As a former model she was comfortable in front of the cameras and so confidently invented a story of being attacked by a driver who had played "cat and mouse" and had "staring eyes". She took advantage of the headline clichés created by current "rages", from "air rage" to "shop rage". These imply a sudden, unthinking outburst of violence, so that by making reference to them no further elaboration seems necessary. The lie is supported by the implicit story in which it is embedded.   The most telling example of how our susceptibility to an apparently plausible sob story can be manipulated was when Karen Matthews declared that her daughter Shannon had gone missing. As often happens when such cases hit the headlines I was approached by journalists and asked to provide a "profile" of the sort of person who would have abducted Shannon. The assumption was that there were close parallels to Madeleine McCann's case. When I pointed out the differences in the age of the victim, the locality, how the child had vanished and the family circumstances, my response was treated with some surprise. When she was found to be involved in her daughter's abduction, the news was then about what a clever actress she had been. But watching the recordings of her during the period her daughter was missing shows that she never really had to lie directly at all. She did what many people do when they want to be deceptive. She played to the expectations of those around her.   On a number of occasions Matthews actually told the truth, but it was interpreted to fit in with an abduction scenario. She said she was sure that Shannon was alive and being held by someone nearby who knew Shannon and her as well. She even hinted that she felt she could no longer trust those close to her. In her television appeals Matthews emphasised how Shannon's father and her family was missing her. The hole that might have been expected in Matthews's own life was never expressed. With hindsight even her initial 999 call was a rather formal "I want to report my daughter is missing".   In earlier studies I have done it emerged that false calls to 999 are often distinct from genuine ones by the false caller's determination to get the message across, as opposed to expressing the anxiety and emotion of a real situation.   Perhaps we should not be so surprised at Matthews's ability to deceive so many people for so long. Studies have shown that police officers are no better at telling whether someone is lying or not than anyone else. Most of us find it far more difficult to spot deception than we realise. If you wanted to reach for a Darwinian interpretation of this weakness we all have, then it may be argued that the hominids who could dissimulate most effectively were most likely to mate, so effective deception has become hard-wired into our very beings.   Detectives identify liars because they tend to assume that most people talking to them are being economical with the truth, especially if their interviewees are known to have committed crimes in the past. But when their interlocutors are apparently the victims of a crime, there is a tendency to respond with sympathy rather than suspicion. This concern is especially likely when the account given by the victim fits well with a storyline that we have all come to accept from earlier headlines and saturation television coverage.   We interpret how these apparent victims act in the frame of the many factual and fictional accounts of crime that fill the media. When Paul Dyson appealed for help to find his missing partner Joanne Nelson he said she meant the world to him and he missed her terribly. He shed real tears. Given the outpourings of genuine grief that are broadcast, it does not occur to most of us that someone who kills in the anger and frustration of trying to prevent his loved one from leaving him will quite honestly say he misses the victim and they were the most important person in his life. He will even be telling the truth when he says, as Dyson did, that he wants her back.   As in other forms of economy the ready currency of grief undermines its value. For a while false sorrow is squandered. The problem this causes is that it can then become valueless. Other stories take the place of the distraught parent or partner and narratives of devious "crocodiles" replace them. As long as exciting stories float free of the facts then the media and the police may be convinced by them. We have to distinguish between reality and the images that appear on our screens. It is only when we dig behind the headlines that the truth will emerge.   David Canter is Professor of Psychology at the University of Liverpool. Tears, Lies and Videotape is on ITV1 tonight at 9pm

Shannon's Mother 'Believes Her Own Lies', 18 May 2009

Shannon's Mother 'Believes Her Own Lies' Sky News   9:06am UK, Monday May 18, 2009   The jailed mother of Shannon Matthews is convinced by her own lies, according to a new documentary.   Karen Matthews is serving an eight year sentence for kidnap, false imprisonment and perverting the course of justice over her daughter's 24-day disappearance.   In a programme screened tonight, neighbour Julie Bushby says she asked the 33-year-old why she did it during a prison visit.   "And she just glared at me actually and then says 'I didn't do it'," Ms Bushby said.   "She's adamant she's totally innocent, absolutely adamant.   "But I think she's lied to herself that much that I think she convinced herself. But it was worth a try."   During the nationwide hunt for the missing nine-year-old, Matthews broke down in tears and admitted to Ms Bushby and another neighbour she knew where her daughter was.   Ms Bushby said she felt "used and abused" as she had led local searches for Shannon.   In Tears, Lies and Videotape, which airs on ITV1, psychologists and body language experts suggest there were clues that Matthews was lying.   They identify tiny movements in her shoulder during her TV appeals and the tendency for her mouth to upturn into a smile as clear signs.   Professor David Canter said the way Matthews clutched Shannon's teddy bear during press conferences was fake.   He suggests she may have tried to copy the genuine signs of distress displayed by the mother of missing child Madeleine McCann.   "She doesn't know quite what to do with it," he said of Matthews.   "It's totally different from the way Kate McCann carried the teddy everywhere with her as some sort of reassurance of her daughter."   Matthews, from Dewsbury, was convicted in January, along with Michael Donovan, her former partner's uncle.

Background articles on the Shannon Matthews case

Missing girls show up class divide, 08 March 2008

Missing girls show up class divide theage.com.au   March 8, 2008 The missing girls MEET the two sides of the social class coin in Britain: Karen Matthews and Kate McCann. From parallel socioeconomic worlds, the two women are bound by perhaps the most traumatic experience a parent can have: the disappearance of a child.   Ms Matthews' nine-year-old daughter Shannon, from West Yorkshire, has been missing since February 19. Madeleine McCann, 4, vanished from her bed in Portugal in May last year. It is suspected that both were abducted.   The unkind have depicted the two mothers as Waynetta Slob — Britain's most famous underclass stereotype — versus Kate Moss — darling of the glamour set. They have compared Ms Matthews' seven children by five fathers and her 22-year-old boyfriend with Mrs McCann's IVF-conceived twins and heart-surgeon husband. The high-minded say these things should not matter; it is the missing girls that are important. But it is clear that the perception of class does matter when trying to capture the public's imagination.   You may not have heard of Shannon Matthews. The little girl, from an impoverished council estate in Dewsbury in Britain's north, disappeared as she walked home after a swimming class. The police have deployed 350 officers and 60 detectives to the search, joined by innumerable local volunteers. A reward of £25,000 ($A55,000) has been raised, with The Sun contributing £20,000.   You will have heard of Madeleine McCann, who vanished from a holiday apartment in Portugal last May. Her comfortable home in Leicestershire, in the East Midlands, became the site of a media stakeout after her parents, Gerry, a cardiologist, and Kate, a GP, returned to Britain.   At this point in Madeleine's disappearance last year, £2.5 million had been raised, with contributions from Sir Richard Branson and J. K. Rowling. Celebrities including David Beckham publicly appealed and the McCanns had begun their sophisticated media strategy: daily briefings, a website, experienced representatives and eventually, a meeting with the Pope and the appointment of a private detective agency.   A distressed Kate McCann: lean, blonde and articulate, clutching her daughter's soft toy and wearing a yellow ribbon of hope, was the figurehead from the outset. Amid accusations of police incompetence, the McCanns were declared suspects but have never been charged. A commentator in the Daily Mail wailed: "This kind of thing doesn't usually happen to people like us."   It was two weeks after Shannon's disappearance before her mother, 32, was put before the television cameras. With no make-up, hair askew, wearing a T-shirt saying "Help find Shannon", Ms Matthews looked the essence of working-class Britain. She, too, clutched her daughter's teddy bear and tearfully appealed for information. But Shannon did not make the front pages. In the first 16 days of Madeleine's disappearance, 519 articles were written about her in Britain. By Wednesday, 16 days after Shannon went missing, she had received 111 mentions.   A former Daily Mirror editor and media commentator with The Guardian, Roy Greenslade, appraises public perception and media judgement. "The mother (Karen Matthews) is unsympathetic. This is a dysfunctional family, and people feel, 'Does she not bring this upon herself? Is she not the author of her own misfortune?' " He says Ms Matthews represents an underclass that Daily Mail readers and their like cannot and do not want to relate to.   But the McCanns, he says, with their seemingly respectable lives, represent the aspirations of Middle England. "It shouldn't matter. But it does. This is a really difficult thing for editors. They don't like talking about this aspect because it really does betray the unspoken way they make their mind up."   This is not what Gordon Brown had hoped for Britain under his reign. In his first Labour Party conference address as Prime Minister in September, he said: "A class-free society is not a slogan but in Britain can become a reality … I stand for a Britain that supports as first-class citizens not just some children and some families, but (that) supports all children and all families."   He may have a long way to go. In a Guardian/ICM poll in October, nearly 90% of respondents said people were still judged by their class. The poorest were most aware of its influence, with 55% saying that class, not ability, affected the way they were judged.   But there has been a backlash. In radio talkback and online forums, people are criticising the perceived media prejudice. In a forum on the Government's family support website, one parent said that the McCanns were neglectful by leaving their children alone in the apartment when Madeleine disappeared: "If they were from a sink council housing estate, and looked like (the boorish Little Britain character) Vicky Pollard, the press would have been screaming for their blood."   Julie Bushby, who chairs the tenants association on the estate where Shannon lives, said: "Listen, we're not pissed out of our trees or high as a kite all the time, like they associate with council estates. Ninety per cent of people here work."   A major difficulty has been a lack of funding to put into a PR campaign for Shannon. Greenslade points out that the coverage of Madeleine has been disproportionate; that she disappeared in a foreign country during the northern summer "silly season" when news dries up. But, he concedes, appearances do count: where there is a multitude of images and video footage of Madeleine to run on TV and websites, there is one stark school photo of Shannon, and grainy CCTV footage of her leaving the swimming pool. "One doesn't want to be rude about the Matthews family," he says. "But cuteness, prettiness, beauty does play a part. The most important thing there (for media attention) is the image."   But pretty or not, underclass or Middle England, even the greatest level of public awareness and sympathy may not win either of these little girls back to their desperate families.

Shannon Matthews kidnap 'inspired by donations to Madeleine McCann fund', 04 December 2008

Shannon Matthews kidnap 'inspired by donations to Madeleine McCann fund' Telegraph Karen Mathews with Shannon's cuddly toy Karen Matthews arranged her own daughter Shannon's kidnap after being inspired by the huge public donations to the Madeleine McCann fund, police believe. By Paul Stokes Last Updated: 8:07PM GMT 04 Dec 2008 Matthews hoped her wicked scheme would generate an outpouring of generosity and reward money which she and her accomplice Michael Donovan could pocket for themselves. People claiming to be members of Shannon's family approached representatives of the McCann fund asking for a share of the £1 million which had at that time been raised to help in the search for Madeleine. And as Matthews and Donovan were convicted of kidnap, false imprisonment and perverting the course of justice, the man who led the 24-day search for Shannon said he was in no doubt about the link to the Madeleine case. Det Supt Andy Brennan, of West Yorkshire Police, said: "Madeleine McCann gave them the idea - the fund money. Clearly the McCann case was still in everybody's mind. Karen Matthews is pure evil. It's difficult to understand what type of mother would subject her own daughter to such a wicked and evil crime." Clarence Mitchell, spokesman for Madeleine's parents Kate and Gerry McCann, said: "It's beyond belief anyone could have sought to exploit poor Madeleine's plight in this way." Neither Matthews, 33, nor Donovan, 40, showed any emotion as a jury at Leeds Crown Court returned unanimous guilty verdicts after six hours' deliberation. The judge warned them that they both face lengthy prison terms when they are sentenced at a later date. Matthews's impassive reaction was in stark contrast to the tearful public appeals she made for the return of her nine-year-old daughter after she went missing on her way home from school in Dewbury in February this year. Her television appearances were a sham, designed to maximise the reward money on offer, while Shannon was kept drugged and tethered at Donovan's home a mile away. Donovan, an uncle of Matthews's then boyfriend Craig Meehan, had his own two daughters taken away from him after he allegedly made them watch him having sex with prostitutes, and detectives believe that if they had not caught him on the day they did, Shannon would not have survived. Donovan had started packing bags ready to leave his first-floor flat in Batley Carr, fearing he was about to be discovered, and Det Supt Brennan said: "It's my belief that had Donovan taken the opportunity and escaped from Batley Carr on the day Shannon was rescued, I don't believe that we would have recovered her alive." The search for Shannon cost £3.2million and involved 300 police officers, many of whom had to set aside rape and murder investigations to help with the manhunt. She was eventually found alongside Donovan in a space under a divan bed in his flat after neighbours told police they had heard a child moving around inside the flat. As he was driven away Donovan told officers: "Get Karen down here, we'd got a plan, we're sharing the money - £50,000." Donovan told police the idea had been for him to release Shannon at Dewsbury market before "finding" her in the view of CCTV cameras and handing her in to police before claiming the reward. Petra Jamieson, 38, who supported Matthews and took part in the searches, said: "I, like all the neighbours, had stood by her. I just can't believe it. We will have to do police checks on our friends in the future." An investigation is now underway into whether social services could have done more to protect Matthews's children. Matthews had seven children by five fathers. Four of the children lived with her.

She came from the wrong sort of family for many to care, 05 December 2008

She came from the wrong sort of family for many to care Timesonline   Andrew Norfolk: Commentary December 5, 2008 (first appeared online December 4, 2008) The empty family home of Shannon Matthews We all cared a lot in the days after she was found, when the blame for the disappearance of Shannon Matthews moved ever closer to her own family's front door.   It was a rather different story during most of the 24 days when she was missing.   In February, when Shannon was snatched on her way home from school, the search for Madeleine McCann had been under way for more than nine months.   If a butterfly fluttered its wings in the Portuguese holiday complex from which Madeleine was taken, the incident was still being reported with breathless urgency.   She was a photogenic little girl, approaching her fourth birthday, who vanished on holiday with her articulate, middle-class parents.   Shannon, also quite cute on camera, was from a sink estate in a troubled northern mill town that had seen far happier days. There was no eloquent spokesman to appear on her behalf.   West Yorkshire Police threw unprecedented resources into finding the missing child. The residents of Dewsbury Moor did their best to assist the search.   Yet the nation's concern appeared short-lived. The story ran for a couple of days, then interest dwindled. With the exception of the regional media and a few tabloids, attention moved elsewhere.   We wanted a Miss Marple mystery. We got Shameless without the humour. After a fortnight, the hunt for Shannon was already deemed less newsworthy than the most tenuous development in Praia da Luz.   Madeleine joined a list of missing girls whose fate gripped the country and whose names resound sadly to this day. It includes Sarah Payne, Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman.   Not so Shannon. It was not her fault, but the nine-year-old came from the wrong sort of family. She also broke the rules of such narratives by being found alive.   And here the tale did become interesting. If what was lacking before then was the sympathy born of a sense of identification with the main characters, now came a gleeful injection of condemnation.   Those same players who proved incapable of tugging sufficient heartstrings turned out to be the very ones responsible for Shannon's disappearance.   As grief-stricken parents, they had been a letdown. Recast as Madeleine McCann and Shannon Matthews monstrous villains, they fitted the bill perfectly.   There is no small irony in the police's belief that it was probably saturation coverage of the McCann story that first inspired Karen Matthews to plan her own daughter's abduction.   The Find Madeleine Fund raised more than £1 million in public donations. Reward money offered for her safe return totalled £2.5 million.   If Shannon's mother thought her daughter might be worth a similar amount, she was mistaken.   But a newspaper did eventually offer a £50,000 reward. For someone who placed such a small price on her daughter's welfare and security, that must have seemed like a prince's ransom.

Shannon's family pestered McCanns for money but couple were warned off by police, 05 December 2008

Shannon's family pestered McCanns for money but couple were warned off by police Daily Mail   By NICOLA BODEN Last updated at 12:36 PM on 05th December 2008   Relatives of Shannon Matthews pestered the parents of Madeleine McCann for money during the police hunt to find the missing schoolgirl, it emerged today.   Kate and Gerry McCann received phone calls and e-mails from the schoolgirl's family demanding they donate some of the money donated to them by well-wishers.   One man even hammered on the door of their home just as the couple - who have now been searching for Madeleine for 20 months - were leaving for Church.   Their spokesman Clarence Mitchell said: 'They were quite blunt - saying things like "Madeleine's family has got loads of money and we want some for Shannon".'   The McCanns set up the Find Madeleine Fund after their daughter, then three, vanished from their holiday in Portugal's Algarve region in May 2007.   By the time Shannon was kidnapped this February, more than £1million had been donated but Madeleine was still missing.   Detectives believe Karen Matthews was inspired to stage her own daughter's abduction by the McCanns' plight and how it had captured public feeling.   Her trial was told she hatched an 'evil' plot with Shannon's uncle Michael Donovan to pretend her daughter had been kidnapped and then claim the reward money.   Amazingly, even during the hunt for the nine-year-old, relatives - allegedly acting on Matthews' behalf - made several approaches to the McCanns.   Unaware the whole abduction was a scam by Shannon's own mother, Mrs McCann was said to have been particularly affected by the girl's disappearance.   She and her husband were on the verge of giving £25,000 from the money raised to find their own daughter when they were warned off by police.   Mr Mitchell told the Sun: 'Before anything was done, we had advice from the police that no money should be handed over.   'We were told about certain things that had come to light during investigations. It is beyond belief that anyone could have sought to exploit poor Madeleine's plight in this way.'   It was revealed after Matthews' arrest that there had been a 'number of approaches' made to the McCanns by Shannon's relatives, either directly or indirectly.   At the time, the official reason for not donation was that 'the fund had decided against getting involved' and no reasons were given.   The couple are now said to be horrified that their daughter's disappearance and the £1million they raised to help find her might have inspired Shannon's abduction.   They are also reportedly shocked that anyone could treat a child so callously, especially her own mother.   Detective Supt Andy Brennan said: 'Clearly the McCann case was still fresh in everybody's minds. A pretty young girl that people were looking for in Portugal - then suddenly there was Shannon missing in Dewsbury.'   It has emerged that detectives suspected the family almost from the start and placed two family liaison officers with Matthews to keep an eye on her.   She eventually cracked and admitted to friends - in front of one of the officers - that she had known Shannon was safe all along.   Matthews and Shannon's uncle, Michael Donovan, were yesterday found guilty of kidnap, false imprisonment and perverting the course of justice.   Shannon, now 10, refused to go back and live with her mother after she was rescued and before Matthews' admitted she had known her daughter was alive all along.   The 33-year-old has had seven children in total from at least five different fathers.   * Madeleine, then three, vanished from her family's holiday apartment in the Algarve in May 2007 and is still missing.

Hackwatch, 14 December 2008

Hackwatch Private Eye (these articles appear in paper edition only)   (Coverage of the Shannon Matthews/Madeleine McCann cases)   Editon No. 1225, 12 December - 25 Dec. 2008   1. Spot the difference "I was brought up in an area just like the one where Shannon lives. I've never been to the Dewsbury Moor estate but I know about the people who live there... Our reaction to her disappearance has been tepid. It's as if we're saying that disadvantaged Brits don't feel, don't hurt, don't 'do' emotion in the same way the middle classes do. Which is tosh... Karen Matthews just isn't capable of mounting sophisticated media campaigns. She doesn't have the wherewithal or the connections of the McCanns. But she IS doing her damnedest to save her little girl - and we have to help her. Because she's hurting every bit as much as the McCanns are. Her agony, her angst, her guilt, eat into her soul just like they eat into Kate and Gerry's." - Carole Malone, News of the World, 9 March   "Karen Matthews, Craig Meehan and his uncle Michael Donovan belonged to that sub-human class that now exists in the murkiest, darkest corners of this country. A whole legion of people who contribute nothing to society yet believe it owes them a living - good-for-nothing scroungers who have no morals, no compassion, no sense of responsibility and who are incapable of feeling love or guilt. That is Karen Matthews's scummy world." - Carole Malone, News of the World, 7 December   2. How Journalism Works   (...)   Describing the paper's coverage of the story, an unapologetic Sun managing director Graham Dudman last week boasted "We were all over it... We took the story on its face value." Hopefully, however, Sun readers won't have taken the paper's other revelations at face value. As the rag also reported: "Madeleine McCann's heart-broken parents pledged £25,000 to help find missing Shannon after being pestered to on behalf of Shannon's grasping mum Karen... One man even hammered on their front door demanding they chip in."   A police investigation earlier this year, following complaints by McCann spokesman Clarence Mitchell, revealed that the only man to visit the McCanns' home inquiring about their intentions towards the Matthews family was one Barry Keevins, a freelance hack who had been told to do so by... the Sun. His thoughtful mission resulted in the paper's exclusive of 25 February: "Kate and Gerry: 'We Pray for Shannon'."

How do killers fake tears?, 04 July 1998

How do killers fake tears? Daily Mirror (paper edition) By Don Mackay, Adrian Shaw 04 July 1998 THEY are the killers who weep for their victims to save their own skins. Sobbing fathers, husbands, mothers, wives and lovers beg before the cameras for help in tracking down the murderers of their loved ones. But theirs are the crocodile tears of those with blood on their hands. Sion Jenkins - jailed for life on Thursday for bludgeoning to death 13- year-old foster daughter Billie-Jo - is the latest brute who tried, and failed, to con the world. But, like others before him, was he trying to throw detectives off the scent? Or was the knowledge that he had killed a young girl so appalling he could not admit to himself that he was guilty? Some crimes are so awful those who do them blank out any responsibility. Paedophiles are notorious for transferring the blame to their victims. Psychologist Ray Wyre said: "To them, there is no crime. It is all the child's fault for being in a certain place at a certain time, or for smiling at them in a certain way." Others fake their grief and concern before news conferences in the cocky belief that by being brazen they will escape justice. Edinburgh-based forensic psychologist Ian Stephen said: "It's similar to someone who joins the search for a missing person they have killed. You are 'invisible' by being there and believe it will throw people off the scent." But the ruse rarely works. Those pictured below thought they'd get away with murder. Now they are behind bars. SION JENKINS TEACHER Sion Jenkins appeared with wife Lois before the cameras just hours after he battered to death his foster daughter Billie-Jo, left, in a frenzy of rage. Apparently struggling to hold back tears, he said: "As parents our sadness drives us to work closely with police to find her killer. We are totally devastated." It was a cruel charade and once police began investigating, Jenkins' claims of innocence were exposed as a sham. But to this day no one knows if the 40-year-old deputy head from Hastings, East Sussex, was putting on an act or denying the truth to himself. Police said: "He needed to control events and when they didn't go his way he'd resort to violence. He has never accepted this." TRACIE ANDREWS BRUISED and weeping, Tracie Andrews had all Britain fooled as she publicly pleaded for help in catching the road rage killer of her boyfriend Lee Harvey, right. Holding the hand of Lee's mother Maureen, 28-year-old Andrews told a news conference: "I saw the man hit Lee. I went over to him and we had a confrontation. I told him to leave us alone and he called me a slut. He had starey eyes. I can't say he seemed drunk but he seemed like he wasn't normal." Psychologists said her graphic description was the product of a tortured and guilt-racked imagination. Andrews, of Alvechurch, Hereford and Worcester, stabbed 25-year-old Lee to death in a vicious row. She was jailed for life at Birmingham Crown Court in July last year. DAVID HOWELLS TECHNICIAN David Howells appealed for help in "nailing the animal who has destroyed our lives" after wife Eve, left, was battered to death. Unable to live with Eve's bullying Howells, 46, of Huddersfield, had organised the killing with sons Glenn, 17, and John, 15. He was jailed for life at Leeds Crown Court last year. JOHN TANNER STUDENT John Tanner was so confident after he strangled girlfriend Rachel McLean, right, he took part in a televised reconstruction of her last movements. Violent Tanner, 22, later confessed he had murdered 19-year-old Rachel, an Oxford University student, hiding her body under the floorboards of her home. He was jailed for life in 1992. GORDON WARDELL GORDON Wardell tearfully pleaded for the capture of a gang he said had killed his building society manger wife Carol, left, in a robbery. He said: "I saw a man threatening her with a knife." But Wardell, 42, of Meriden, Warwicks, carried out the killing himself even tying himself up in a bid to fool police. He was jailed for life at Oxford in 1995. JEAN DADDOW BLACK widow Jean Daddow, who paid a hitman pounds 9,000 to kill financier Terry, wept as she declared on TV: "I thought the world of my husband." Daddow, 53, of Northiam, East Sussex, despised Terry, right, but realised if she divorced him she would lose out on his £300,000 fortune. She was jailed for 18 years for plotting murder. MILES EVANS TWO days after his nine-year-old stepdaughter Zoe vanished, Miles Evans and wife Paula made an emotional public plea for her return. Sobbing with "distress", army driver Evans said: "Zoe, we really want you home. We love you. You're going to get loads of hugs and kisses and there's a puppy waiting just for you." Detectives looked on as he spoke, having already marked the burly 24-year-old as a prime suspect. Soon afterwards the body of Zoe, left, was found near her home in Warminster, Wilts. Evans had beaten and suffocated her. The reason Zoe died remains a secret. Evans, a sullen loner, has always denied involvement and only once faltered under intensive questioning before recovering his extraordinary self control. An officer said: "Only he knows why he did it." JEREMY BAMBER MASS killer Jeremy Bamber put on the greatest acting performance of his life at the funeral of five members of his family who he massacred. Supported by girlfriend Julie Mugford, he wept hysterically with his face contorted in a mask of grief. Months earlier in August, 1985, the 23-year-old monster had shot dead his adoptive father Nevill Bamber, 61, and, pictured right, his mother June Bamber, 61, half-sister Sheila "Bambi" Caffell, 27, and her six-year twins Nicholas and Daniel. Bamber, who wanted a £436,000 inheritance all for himself, tried to make police believe it was Sheila who carried out the murders at the family home in Tolleshunt D'Arcy, Essex, before killing herself. He was jailed for life in 1986.