Shannon Matthews’ kidnapper Michael Donovan dies from cancer (Picture: West Yorkshire Police / PA)
The kidnapper who conspired to snatch schoolgirl Shannon Matthews as part of a fake abduction plot has died of cancer.
Mick Donovan, 54, held Matthews captive in his flat for 24 days after hatching a bogus ransom plot with her mother back in 2008.
The pair cooked up the kidnapping hoax in an attempt to claim a £50,000 reward for her return, and even tried to extort money from the Find Madeline Mcann Fund.
They were eventually rumbled after Matthews, then nine, was found tied-up and heavily drugged in a drawer underneath Donovan’s bed in a grotty council flat just a few miles away from where she first disappeared from.
Back in February he was diagnosed with Stage 3 throat cancer and given just months to live, the Sun reports.
He was pronounced dead after collapsing in the courtyard at Three Valleys Hospital in Keighley, where he had resided for the past six years following his release from prison in 2012, according to the publication.
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