Karen Matthews' disgusted family issue a warning: 'If she comes back she'll be killed'

Few people on the bleak Yorkshire council estate that was once home to Karen Matthews failed to spot the irony that it was Mother’s Day when they learned that ‘Britain’s worst mum’ was to be released from jail — possibly as early as this week.

Among the labyrinthine streets with their rows of semi-detached, 1930s houses perched on a windswept hill in the west of Dewsbury, the whisper was that their former neighbour, who drugged and kidnapped her own daughter, would not survive the beating if she ever again dared to set foot in their midst.

Despite the passage of four years — Matthews has served only half her sentence — the inhabitants of Dewsbury Moor estate are still struggling to come to terms with just how comprehensively they were hoodwinked by the single mother who, on a cold February afternoon, claimed that someone had snatched her nine-year-old daughter, Shannon.

But given the callous nature of this calculating woman, their lingering fury will probably mean little to her.

The mother of seven children by five different men is more interested in preparing for life on the outside, possibly with a new identity and inevitably in a new location.

It remains to be seen just how much contact she will have with her offspring, many of whom have now settled into lives without her.

Given what has gone before, it is hard not to conclude that they are better off without her. Read More