The Moorside

[NancyDonahue]

BBC dramatisation based on the kidnapping of Shannon Matthews. Starts Tuesday 7th February 9pm, starring Sheridan Smith.

Obviously a horrendous crime against a young child so I wasn't sure I'd want to watch, but it looks like it focuses on friends of the mother who headed up the search and barely features the child herself.

I love Sheridan Smith too so will give it a go.

If Shannon is a competent adult she can't be made subject to an order for her own protection. She may well want to take the opportunity to sell her story at some point. We have no idea how vulnerable she may be, for all we know she's a lively, intelligent young woman with ideas of her own.

Or she is a young womanin care who has multiple issues we just don't know i was just trying to clarify why shannon might be protected still, Unless anybody on this thread knows shannons and how she is it is all just discussion really

It would be good to know that she has had the help she needed and is happy and doing well in her own life - but I accept we may never know this.

I don't believe that Shannon could be barred from talking about her own story until she's 21. Why 21? 18 is the age of majority. I think there's all sorts of nonsense around this case.

www.thesun.co.uk/news/2851075/shannon-matthews-kidnap-offered-book-deal/

Could it be that Shannon perhaps has a learning disability/mental disorder that means she doesn't have to capacity to make informed consent about these sort of things, therefore would be on some sort of order under the mental health care and treatment act?

If Shannon is a competent adult she can't be made subject to an order for her own protection. She may well want to take the opportunity to sell her story at some point. We have no idea how vulnerable she may be, for all we know she's a lively, intelligent young woman with ideas of her own

She might not be able to talk until the younger children are 18 as this would impact on them. They may all be living at the same address and so Shannon going public would not be good for the younger ones.

One of my friends is a Family Support liaison worker, she visits families who are struggling to cope for various reasons. She isn't a social worker but works with as.
He goes to visit families in their homes to observe how they interact with their children, what kind of circumstances they are living in, whether they have beds, bedding, level of cleanliness, hot water, food. She's not looking for wall to wall toys or gourmet meals or piles of pristine and freshly ironed clothing.
But if there are no beds or bedding or inadequate clothing or just a bag of spuds in the fridge she delves further and sends her finding to as.
She also supports parents with practical help, she'll roll her sleeves up to help with washing up etc, she's even given cookery lessons.

I thought the drama was really interesting, watched both today.

Can't understand how Karen kept her phone clear from texts between her and Michael/accomplice. Don't understand what the end game was either - how long did the want to keep Shannon locked up for?? I suppose at some point it's easier to keep her hidden than change it all when you think you're getting away with it.

So many questions.

I watched the drama & found it really compelling probably because the incident itself was so compelling. I thought the actress playing Karen did really well, maybe a little exaggerated but she was the image of her. I didn't buy the whole friendship between Karen & Julie though, the opening scene seemed to suggest they had just met. I didn't find it believable that some relative stranger would be given that kind of access to a family whos child had been kidnapped. The way Julie would walk past the media & the police would wave her in. I found Julies character very unlikeable & absolutely cringe with all this "we take care of our own" . She barely knew her! That scene where they were all holding hands singing "coom baya"! Cringe.

I would have liked to know more about Craigs involvement. I cant believe he knew nothing. The scene where Karen goes to identify Shannon & just asks to go home, wow. I found the scene where she was upset about her children being taken hard to believe when she clearly didn't give a crap about Shannon. Overall I think it all left me with more questions than anything.

I just can't buy the theory that "someone else was behind the plan because they couldn't have worked it out on their own..." It was a ridiculous and unworkable plan that only someone with half a brain could have thought might work.

Much better and more subtle acting in part 2. Still think it's too soon though.

But it worked to some extent, they evaded police for nearly a month and then another month before police were able to charge Karen (ish, I dot have exact dates)

Wondering if KM's learning difficulty was known about prior to her arrest or was it diagnosed after. Why wasn't there more robust monitoring of the family if known? Why weren't her own family more involved knowing she was so vulnerable and therefore her kids more so? I have a DS with a similar IQ to her and I cannot imagine not being heavily involved in his life until I'm dead and fighting for all the support he will continuously need. The thought of him being the sole carer for several children when he can hardly look after himself horrifies me and would not be allowed to happen. Instead of selling their story to the papers, her family ought to have taken a long, hard look at themselves. Not excusing her at all.

Thinkingblonde What does your friend do if the LANDLORD/HA isnt providing hot water/heating by not doing repairs.

Ladyhelen, km was found not to have learning difficulties just a low iq. So she was unintelligent but no learning disabilities.

She was bright enough to deceive one of the uks biggest ever police hunts for 2 months

Helanadove. Good question, my friend would report her findings to the social workers involved in the case. One family was moved due to the dangerous condition the house they were living in.
In one case the ss clubbed together to buy beds for one family who were real homed due to dv.

She regularly buys toys from charity shops for the children under her care.

She didnt have learning disabillities too much emphasis is being put on her 1Q she wasent very intelligent but they are not learning disabillities, i have two sons ds1 struggles at school his IQ was tested and it was borderline i encourage and help him with his homework i,m not expecting him too go to university but i have no doubt he will be able to work, have a relationship drive a car etc, ds2 has severe learning disabillities he goes to a special a school and i doubt he will ever live independently so KM although not clever she had capacity too make her decisions

Being educationally not very bright does not mean learning disabilty I wish people would stop saying she had a learning difficulty it is not true and insulting.

I found it a really interesting documentary. Only criticism is no mention of Shannon at the end. Not even a 'Shannon and her siblings are living with other families.' Or anything. It's like that didn't matter.

I always thought the motive was money - and I believed that. But the suggestion that she was trying to get away from Craig and that the plan went wrong made me think very differently. Although I obviously cannot ever imagine doing something like that - I can completely see how it got out of hand so quickly, particularly for someone who doesn't necessarily have the intellectual capacity to realise that prolonging the situation will only make it worse. And perhaps someone who has never had attention before suddenly getting it and perhaps quite liking it. If this is what really happened (escaping Craig rather than wanting the reward money) I don't actually think she is 'pure evil' but rather hideously misguided and intellectually/emotionally challenged which I would expect is a product of her own upbringing as much as anything.

I can see why the residents of Dewsbury Moor are angry but I also hope that they (Julie especially) take comfort in the fact that their actions quite possibly did contribute to her coming home. The fact that she was put in that situation by the person who was supposed to protect her the most is neither here nor there. She returned, alive, which is all anyone wanted. Had the community not kept looking and kept the profile raised then she may not have been found when she was and who knows what could have happened had the situation continued.

I should have said 'lead to her being found' rather than 'coming home'. Very poor choice of phrase for which I apologise.

I hope she does now have somewhere to call home and is thriving. I would be interested to know but equally I hope we never do as she and her siblings deserve privacy. She could, for all we know, be a mother herself.

I personally don't believe in "pure evil" or that someone is born evil. I think there is just a massive spectrum of behaviour and doing it for the money is just further away on that spectrum from "good" than doing it to get her kids away from Craig would be.

But I think it was for the money. I think her new sex interest saw an opportunity and she probably took little encouragement. I think she was probably going to abandon her kids and go live with him once the had the money. Well, I think that's what she thought was the plan. He probably had different ideas.

The learning disability thing is mentioned here in the Yorkshire Post.

"Two psychological assessments of Matthews, in 1997 and 2004, found that she had a borderline learning disability." This was when the family was under investigation by Social Services.

So the learning disability claim is not a new one. And happened long before Shannon disappeared.

Ok fair enough borderline learning disability however that is no reason to excuse what she did.

Following her arrest she was reassessed for learning difficulties and there were none. Can a borderline learning disabled person con thr police for a month? I don't think so. She was clever enough when it suited her although what Julie said in the programme about her being thick was true. She could certainly act, oscar winning she had everyone convinced.