One of the police officers who found missing Shannon Matthews told a court yesterday the girl was frightened and crying when she emerged from the bed base where she was hidden.

Michael Donovan, 40, and Shannon's mother Karen Matthews, 33, are accused of kidnapping and falsely imprisoning Shannon who went missing from her home in Dewsbury, West Yorkshire, for 24 days in February and March this year when she was nine.

Detective constable Paul Kettlewell told a jury at Leeds Crown Court that the girl was found during a search of Mr Donovan's flat about a mile away in Batley Carr.

Mr Kettlewell and four other officers had forced their way into the flat after neighbours assured them Mr Donovan was inside but no one answered the door. They thought the flat was empty until he heard a child's voice coming from the bedroom.

"Stop it, you're frightening me," the voice had said according to the detective.

The officer added: "Then I went into the bedroom. My colleague turned towards me and, as I was beginning to think perhaps the voice came from inside the bed, there was a noise inside the bed as a small girl started to emerge.

"She was frightened and she was crying."

Two other officers in the room helped the girl out of the bed base and handed her to him. He then carried her downstairs and out of the flat to a police car.

"Did you ask the little girl, we now know as Shannon, where Mike was? Did she say 'Mike's where I was, he's under the bed'?", asked prosecutor Julian Goose.

"That's correct," Mr Kettlewell replied.

Another officer, Police constable Matthew Troake said he found Mr Donovan in the bed after Shannon had been removed.

"I looked down into the hole where she'd come from and I saw a man, who I now know to be Michael Donovan, looking back at me," he said.

He arrested Mr Donovan and when he failed to move or respond, he lifted the bed and pulled him out.

"I do remember he was screaming at the time," Constable Troake said.

The officer told the jury that later in the police van Mr Donovan had said: "Get Karen down here, we've got a plan. We're sharing the money - £50,000 pounds."

The court has been told that Shannon was drugged and probably kept captive on a leash in a kidnap plot hatched by her mother and Donovan to claim a newspaper reward for her recovery.

Her mother had reported Shannon missing on February 19, sparking a massive police hunt that cost some £3 million.

Earlier, the court heard that Donovan had suffered a broken jaw during an attack in jail last week which brought the trial to a halt on Monday while he received treatment.