Julie Bushby claims Karen Matthews wasn’t ‘intelligent enough’ to mastermind Shannon’s kidnapping and claims ‘others know the truth’

She explained: "I think there are at least three other people who know far more than they let on. This is a horrible conspiracy of silence and it’s time for those people to speak out and tell the truth.

"Karen was not intelligent enough to think it up on her own. I’m not saying at all what she did was right, or that she was totally innocent, but she’s not evil.

"This was never about the reward money, something else was going on. We need the truth now.”

Julie, who lived on the same estate as the family in Dewsbury, West Yorkshire, said her suspicions over Matthews' involvement grew when Shannon was found alive.

She has previously said she believes her pal was simply trying to escape from her then boyfriend Craig Meehan.

Matthews had moved her daughter out of the home she shared with Meehan in secret, but pressure from neighbours on the Moorside estate led her to report the child as missing, Julie claimed.

But after raising the alarm, she was then tied to the lie.

Hundreds of neighbours joined the search for little Shannon after Matthews claimed she had vanished on her way home from a swimming lesson.

The hunt cost West Yorkshire Police £3.2million and lasted 24 days.

But Shannon was eventually found tethered and drugged inside the base of a double bed at the grotty home of Meehan's uncle Michael Donovan almost a month after she disappeared.

Matthews and Donovan were said to have devised the elaborate plot in a bid to claim the £50,000 reward money for finding Shannon.

They had planned to release the schoolgirl, ‘discover her’ then take her to a police station and claim the reward before splitting.