The twisted man who plotted the fake kidnap of Shannon Matthews after a shameful deal with her mum has died of brain cancer.
Mick Donovan, 56, snatched the nine-year-old schoolgirl from the street in 2008 and hid her for 24 days as police launched a £3.2 million massive hunt. He was found dead on Tuesday lying near his bed in the sheltered Three Valleys mental health facility in Keighley, West Yorkshire.
The Mirror can reveal how Donovan told a close relative earlier this year he had terminal cancer with three to nine months to live. But they didn’t believe him because he’d lied so much.
After hearing the news of his death, Julie Bushby, 54, from Dewsbury Moor, who led the community search for missing Shannon, described it as “karma”. And Julie, who helped solve the case by getting Karen Matthews to confess, said: “At least Shannon can get some peace now!’”
Wicked Karen Matthews was eventually caught out in her lies (PA)
Donovan's death will be mourned by few (PA)Donovan, was born Paul Drake but had recently changed his name again to Aiden Johnson. Late last year he appeared in Bradford crown court and was placed under a sexual harm prevention order.
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He has been under investigation by West Yorkshire Police for possessing indecent images of children. Donovan and Karen Matthews were both jailed for eight years in 2009 for kidnap, perverting the course of justice and false imprisonment.
After his release in 2012, he was rearrested after a disturbance in Leeds city centre and finally released for good in 2016. But his increasingly erratic behaviour led to him being housed in a mental health unit in recent years.
A relative of Donovan said he’d told him he had cancer but simply hadn’t believed him because of all the lies he told. The family member told The Mirror: “He died in the morning of April 16th. He had told me in the past that he had cancer, but I didn’t believe him at first because he would make things up. I was told he had lung cancer which spread to his brain.
Shannon was found alive in Dononvan's house in Batley 24 days after she was reported missing (PA)“I had planned to go and visit him at the Three Valleys this coming Saturday. I’d not been to see him for a while because I was not well myself and I didn’t want him catching anything off me with him having chemo. I rang the Three Valleys and they told me he had died. I’m glad that his suffering is finally over. I feel sorry for Mick, he was a fool to himself.”
Court worker Julie Bushby said: “At least now the taxpayer will save some money. And Shannon can get some peace and some closure. Every time a picture of him is shown it must hurt her. Every time there's a picture of Donovan or her mother, it's alongside her picture. That's got to be hard to live with."
Reacting to news he was under investigation for child abuse images, Julie said: "I would not put anything past him. I always thought he was more sinister than he made out. He was weird even in court at their trial. He behaved bizarrely, making out he was older and frailer than what he was. I just didn't believe it at all.
Julie is glad Donovan is dead - and said she hopes Shannon can now finally get some closure (Daily Mirror)"There couldn't be much wrong with him to think out his hiding place and climb under a divan bed, because I'd struggle. I never met him and we never saw him” but she said he would visit a relative on the estate most days before Shannon went missing.
“If we’d known that we would have alerted the police and then they would have picked up how he had already kidnapped his own child 15 months before Shannon went missing. I still find that so frustrating. It would have been over in a breath if we’d been told that but instead it turned into one of the biggest police hunts ever.”
Julie told of her horror after hearing he’d been made the subject of a sexual harm prevention order, saying: “It’s clear he was still a danger to children - so it’s good he’s dead.”
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