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Karen Matthews calls Kate McCann a ‘dreadful mother’ for leaving Madeleine alone

Karen Matthews was found guilty of kidnapping her own daughter (Picture: REX Features)
Karen Matthews was found guilty of kidnapping her own daughter (Picture: REX Features)

The mother of Shannon Matthews has reportedly hit out at Kate McCann – slamming her as ‘a dreadful mother.’

Julie Bushby, who is a close friend of Karen Matthews, claims that she launched a vicious verbal attack on the McCanns.

Matthews, who faked the abduction of 9-year-old daughter Shannon in 2008, reportedly said: ‘I’ve been judged and I’m paying for it but Maddie’s mother was bad too. At least my daughter was never left alone!’

According to MailOnline, Matthews then went on to brand McCann a ‘dreadful mother.’

‘Don’t get me onto the McCanns, we’ve all got something to say about them’, she reportedly raged.

Kate and Jerry McCann (Rex)
Kate and Jerry McCann have campaigned for the safe return of their daughter since she went missing in 2007 (Rex)

‘We’re too lower class for them but we can still have an opinion. There seems to be one rule for them and another for us but she was a dreadful mum.

‘She left one, two, three babies alone while she was out eating and drinking with her mates. My Shannon was kept away from her family but she was never left alone.’

Matthews, who is now believed to be called Kate, was sentenced to eight years in jail in 2008 – but was released in 2012 after serving half her sentence.

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Shannon’s disappearance from her mother’s home in Dewsbury in February 2008 sparked a nationwide hunt before she was eventually discovered two miles away a fortnight later.

She had been drugged and bound in a bed at the home of Michael Donovan – the uncle of Karen Matthews’ then boyfriend Craig Meehan.

Describing Matthews’ furious rant, Bushby added : ‘Karen talked about Maddie and her family, the difference and unfairness of their social situations.

‘She’s never understood why British and Portuguese police haven’t taken it any further and asks in her simple almost child-like state if it’s because “they’re rich and posh and she’s poor and common.”