To feel a programme dramatising Shannon Matthew's disappearance is in poor taste?

[Annie592]

I watched it. I quite enjoyed it. (I think Sheridan Smith is amazing.). But it doesn't sit quite right with me. I want to be able to say why, but I can't explain it. Maybe because a real life case of a nine year old's abuse doesn't feel like something that should be used for entertainment? Wondering if anyone agrees and can articulate it better? Or whether it's actually an important topic to talk about and I'm being stupid. I honestly don't know. Would appreciate mumsnet thoughts!

Lessthanaballpark Because if it was Craig who was 28 when he started having a sexual relationship with a 17yr old, that would have been in all the papers, and you'd all be discussing it here.

Don't get me wrong, I have no sympathy what so ever for anyone here, but Shannon. The ages & Karen getting together with someone who was no more than a child, shocked me. It shocked me further that no one seemed to think it was odd, or concerning!

Lass, it really is totally artificial to differentiate between primary and secondary victims. There isn't a league table of who is or is not entitled to be hurt by programmes about a time in their lives when something unimaginably awful happened to them.

I enjoyed it, I think it is showing how community sticks together and 'fights'for its own' and it captured that very well.

I remember the case well. Apparently, Matthews got the idea from an episode of Shameless. I think the balloons, marches, vigils etc was heavily influenced from the "Find Maddie" campaign, and the huge amounts of cash being offered by high profile names.

I'll stick my neck out and say if Maddie McCann hadn't gone missing, we would never have heard of Shannon.

I'll watch it tonight. By the way it is an ITV production, for the BBC.

Orange thank you. That does make sense and fill in the gaps I seemed to be missing. So Julie supported her but probably as she herself needed answers and closure after supporting her.
I'm sure I heard that the statement KM have about hiding her to leave Craig and then pick her up was actually what Julie and Natialie suggested to KM herself had happened and she admitted it and that's how she was arrested. So perhaps she wants to know exactly what happened? I do think Km has some LD and real difficulties with emotional intelligence. I don't doubt she loved her Kia in her mind but I'm not sure she truely understood what love is and how to show it.

It's a very sad yet complicated case.

I think you're right to think Shannon probably wouldn't have undergone a fake abduction if the McCann case hadn't happened but let's not forget the follicle test showed Shannon had been drugged with powerful benzodiazepines for months before the "kidnapping" took place so something was very rotten in the state of Dewsbury for a long time prior to this which makes all her friends assertions of Karen being "a great mother " ringing very hollow.

Yes. And also, no one wants to be seen as having stuck up for "Evil" do they? So maybe by making Karen seem less evil, she is dubconciously justifying the fact that she stuck up for her? Hope that makes sense...

Sorry, my reply was to @youarenotkidding . I can only see half a post at a time on my phone.

Apparently Karen has an IQ of 74 so low but above the generally recognised cutoff for learning disabilities which is 70.

Donovans is apparently much lower and he had someone allocated to him in court to explain things to him.

I know Julie thinks Karen lacked the intelligence to orchestrate the whole thing but the whole plan was so obviously ridiculous it seems to be exactly the sort of thing that someone with a low IQ would come up with.

I agree OP when watching it I couldn't help think about Shannon and her siblings having to go through all this again. They are still young and it's really insensitive and cruel to dramatise their childhood traumas while they are probably still trying to come to terms with it.

Not dure I would agree about the low IQ meaning that she wouldn't have been able to plan things. My "egg doner" (she gave birth to me, but I refuse to acknowledge her as my mother) apparantly (according to court papers) had a low IQ, but still managed to fool people- including ss, neighbors, teachers, etc- for years, and to manipulate me and my siblings into hiding the hell which was going on behind closed doors. Sorry for making it personal- my point is that Julie's reasoning that Karen is not intelligent enough to pull it off doesn't wash with me.

Don't apologise for making it personal orange. I'm sorry to hear your childhood was so difficult but it's brave of you to share and actually insightful to hear from someone who's been in that situation at home.
I think lots of us are empathetic - but it's easy to be empathetic with actually being able to fully empathise iyswim?

Thank you. I'll be watching the second half tonight, actually. What I've learnt since (I grew up on an estate in Stoke which was very similar to the one shown on the programme) is that people probably would have been aware of what the everyday lives of the children were like, but would probably have been scared to interfere. I know this sounds silly, but if I can give a different perspective on anything else, I'll try my best.

People are asking how Shannon Matthews will be feeling now. As I said before, each case is individual, but, going by experience, I feel she will definitely be feeling unsettled- it will probably have taken the biggedt part of the last ten years to have started to feel "normal" again. When you are born into a disfunctional family like, according to the reports, hers was (allegedly and all the other legal jargon, just so I don't get sued!), then moved into (for want of a better word) normality, your first instinct is to fight against it. Then eventually (hopefully) you settle down and try to integrate yourself into that world as much as possible. To hide in it, almost.

For there then to arise a situation such as the documentary, which will once agsin throw her into the limelight, will probably reopen old scars, and will be, if she's anything like me, exactlywhat she doesn't want. Not just because it's about her past, but because it has been taken out of her hands. She has no control over it being dragged up again, just as she had no control over what happened to her in the first place!

Fuck me running, that was a proper essay.. sorry. Hope it makes sense.

And PLEASE ignore my typos...dumbass phone!

I agree that it's too soon.
There was an ITV drama on last year (The Secret). Based on a horrid true story (from the 1980s I think). A couple having an affair murdered their spouses and tried to make it look like a suicide pact.
I read that the children of the murdered wife, were upset at how their mother was portrayed in the drama. It must have been dreadful for them, to see their mothers death turned in to a tv drama - and then to make it worse the portrayal of her is incorrect.
I find many of these "true life" tv dramas to be in very poor taste.

Pickled I struggle with them too- mainly because a lot of how it's portrayed doesn't ring true to me. When you know how someone probably SHOULD feel, you can tell it's crap acting.

Lass, it really is totally artificial to differentiate between primary and secondary victims. There isn't a league table of who is or is not entitled to be hurt by programmes about a time in their lives when something unimaginably awful happened to them

We shall have to disagree.I think it is totally artificial to deny that Shannon as the person who actually experienced being drugged and locked up did not suffer more harm than the McCann siblings.

itsmine - her assessed IQ would have been included in any pre-sentencing reports but it wasn't presented as her being co-erced or manipulated because there wasn't any evidence to suggest she was.

Donovan had a lower IQ than her and always said it was Karens idea and there was a list of 'rules' written by her for how Shannon should behave when at Donovans which the Police found. And 'phone records of her talking to him after Shannon was 'missing'.

She has a low IQ and it seems from all the evidence that was why she thought her plan would work. That she'd engineer a missing child, wait till the monetary award was big enough then just have Shannon 'found' by the man she'd been left with (Donovan) and he'd collect the reward money and share it with her. And no-one would question that and Shannon wouldn't say where she'd been.

It was a ridiculous plan that only someone of low intelligence would come up with but that doesn't mean in law that her low intelligence would preclude her from being criminally prosecuted because it's not a case of someone literally not understanding what they were doing, not knowing it was wrong etc. It's a case of someone knowing it was wrong, knowing it was illegal and not caring about the effect on the child. She's got a low IQ but has the capacity to understand all that.

Orange thank you so much for sharing your experience, I'm really sorry that you've gone through this yourself.

I remember the night that Shannon went missing really vividly- I'm not from that part of the country but was visiting nearby and driving home late. It was freezing and foggy, everything was covered in ice and I couldn't imagine any child surviving being out on their own in that weather overnight.

I've been so torn over whether or not to watch the program and I've just started part one tonight. I didn't realise that the actress playing Karen is from Game of Thrones, she's very good.

I cried through most of that.

The story did focus IMO on the community reaction to KM. it was such an insightful episode.
The police woman really did get involved and really cared. I think it hinted that people had sympathy for KM whilst hating her for what she did.

I think you using the word dysfunctional orange is spot on. The whole dynamic was such.

I wish for Shannon's sake KM would just tell the truth. As you rightly pointed out in the middle of this is 4 kids who were removed from everything they new and another 3 who know this woman is their mother. Who really deserve the truth.

orange thankyou again for sharing.

I watched the second part. Any lasting doubts I had that Shannon would be grateful that the whole community came together has just dissappeared. It was a horrible programme!

Sorry. Not only for my anger, but for those of you who know me from the crochet threads etc, who know that I'm usually bubbly and a serial piss-taker.

Did anyone who watched it actually feel that the second episode undid any "good" that the first pisode may have done? The female copper was thebsame actress who played Rita in Rita, Sue and Bob too" and she fit right in, because it almost seemed like a spoof!

Apologies about the rant.

Absolutely agree about the siblings being as much a victim as Shannon was/is. Banging on about me AGAIN but it's the way I relate to the case...when we got separated from The Egg Doner we lost touch with each other too. The devastation caused by the siblings being separated will rise to the surface for that poor lass tonight, as well as any of her siblings who happen to be watching it. Shannon will have a sibling who is, what, two years younger than her? So in his teens and old enough to understand. And, if his foster family have tried to shield him from the truth, etc, and he's watched that, there will be questions spinning around in his head which no one can answer.

Pickled Susannah Corbett was so upset with the inaccurate way that her father Harry H Corbett was portrayed (in a BBC drama about his time playing Harold Steptoe in Steptoe and Son) that she wrote a book about him to show the truth.

Orange it's so sad to hear of you losing touch with your siblings, I naively assumed that contact would be facilitated and encouraged even if siblings weren't together and hadn't considered how hard that must be be.

If anything, it did show that Julie Bushbys children were neglected in favour of 'finding Shannon'. I'm not sure whether she was involved because she wanted to actually find a missing child from her community, or the importance and status it gave her on the estate.