Shannon Mathews disappearance linked to that of Madeleine McCann
Although no evidence was heard in court to suggest such a link, Shannon’s disappearance came at the height of the search for Madeleine in Portugal.
But police at the heart of the investigation dismissed rumours that the kidnap plot had been inspired by the television series Shameless
An episode of the Channel 4 series shown just a month before Shannon disappeared involved the faked kidnap of a boy, Liam Gallagher, in an attempt to claim a £500,000 ransom. The child was hidden a few doors away from his home, with a friend of his sister.
Asked about the possible link, detective superintendent Andy Brennan, who headed up the investigation into Shannon’s disappearance, said: “I’d have picked up that straight away if it was correct. I was born in Gorton in Manchester where Shameless is made.”
Although the 24-day hunt for Shannon was a repeat of the agonising search for Madeleine in Portugal, Mr Brennan said connections between the two cases were speculative.
“You can see the possibility. Madeleine was still fresh in everyone’s minds,” he said.
“A young, pretty girl was being looked for in Portugal, and Shannon was a photogenic girl missing here in Dewsbury.
“You can see why two and two has been put together.”
Neighbours on the Moorside estate contacted the McCann campaign to ask for funding, but Shannon’s mother was not involved.
After Shannon was found, Kate and Gerry McCann, Madeleine’s parents, said the news had given them fresh hope that their young daughter would also be found safe and well.
Mr Brennan, who led the investigation, said the scale of the search meant detectives working on major “live” inquiries, such as murders and rapes, were redeployed to help in the hunt for Shannon.
The strategy of the investigation team was influenced by its belief – based on years of accumulated national police experience – that there was a very high probability that Shannon had been murdered.
They knew the chances of her being found alive, if she had been abducted by a paedophile, were remote and diminished rapidly with every passing hour.
Mr Brennan told the trial that, in all other recorded cases, abductors who kill children have always committed the murder within three days of snatching their victim. And, he said, the death would occur within 24 hours in 96 per cent of cases.
So when senior officers received the call to say Shannon had been found alive, they were surprised.
Detectives began their search with no firm leads. Witnesses, many of whom were children, were not even clear about which direction Shannon had gone out of the school gates and there were no firm sightings of her at all after this.
Mr Brennan’s strategy, again based on national police experience of child abduction cases, was to concentrate on the half-mile radius from where Shannon was last seen.
In the event, she was found less than a mile from her home.
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