Shannon Matthews's mother jailed for eight years

The mother of Shannon Matthews was jailed for eight years yesterday for plotting to kidnap her daughter to claim a large newspaper reward for the girl's recovery.

Karen Matthews, 33, who was branded "pure evil" by police, was convicted at Leeds Crown Court in December of kidnap, false imprisonment and perverting the course of justice.

Prosecutors had said the West Yorkshire schoolgirl was drugged and probably kept captive on a leash during her incarceration as Ms Matthews and Michael Donovan, the uncle of her then boyfriend, plotted to collect a £50,000 reward.

Mr Donovan, 40, was also jailed for eight years, the Press Association reported.

"The offences that you committed were truly despicable," said the judge, Justice McCombe.

"It is impossible to conceive how you could have found it in you to put this young girl through the ordeal that you inflicted upon her.

"It is incomprehensible that you could have permitted your friends, neighbours and in your case, Ms Matthews, even your children to sacrifice time and energy in extensive searches for the supposedly missing child."

Shannon was nine when she disappeared on February 19 as she walked home from school in freezing weather.

Ms Matthews made a series of tearful TV appeals for help in finding her daughter as West Yorkshire Police launched one of the force's largest ever searches, at a cost of £3.2 million. The girl was eventually found by detectives in Mr Donovan's flat, around a mile from her home in Dewsbury, 24 days after she disappeared.

Ms Matthews's lawyer Frances Oldham told the court that although her client had committed "serious offences", the media was guilty of hysteria following her conviction.