Craig Meehan/Shanon Matthews

The man who was in a position of trust in Shanon Matthews life is to appear in court today charged with 135 counts of possessing indecent images of children on his home computer.

(I refuse to call this man Shanon's step father, he was not married to her mother and in my book you earn this title to be called a dad of any kind, it is not a God given right and this man is in no way fit to be near children let alone be called a "step father".

Whatever happened to Shannon? Is she back at her old school? I rember her best friend, begging her abductor to let her go, because she was her only friend. It would be so sad if Shannon had to go to a new school, leaving her only friend behind.

I think Shanon is still with a foster family where she is being cared for, as are her siblings bless them all, poor little mites. From the sound of it Shanon did not want to return home anyway, makes your heart goes out to these children suffering the way they have.

Breaking News11:44am UK, Tuesday September 16, 2008

The former partner of Shannon Matthews' mother has been found guilty of possessing child pornography.

Craig Meehan convicted over child porn


Craig Meehan, 22, was convicted at Dewsbury Magistrates' Court of 11 counts relating to 49 images on a computer.

His computer was seized from the home he shared with Karen Matthews, on Moorside Road, Dewsbury Moor, West Yorkshire, by police searching for nine-year-old Shannon earlier this year.

Meehan, a supermarket fishmonger, was cleared of one count of possessing an image on a mobile phone.

Sky News reporter Frazer Maude said it was unlikely that Meehan would return to prison after being sentenced later.

"He has already served more time on remand than he can be sentenced to for these crimes," he said from outside the court.

Indecent images of children aged between four and 16 were found on one of two computers at the home where Meehan lived with Matthews, 32, for around five years.

The images were graded on a scale where one is the least serious and five the most.

Meehan was found guilty of possessing 31 images at level one, 10 at level two, two at level three and six at level four.

Police experts told the court the computer contained 653 references to "Lolita" - a term commonly used by people interested in searching for child porn.

Officers searching for Shannon seized the second-hand computer the day after she went missing in February.

Meehan was subsequently charged with child pornography offences in April.

He denied all the charges and told the court he had never searched for, or viewed, child porn.

The trial heard that Meehan blamed other people who had used his password-protected computer.

But the court was told it was "extremely unlikely" that anyone other than Meehan was responsible, as all the images were downloaded when he was not at work.

I am just waiting to hear how long his sentence is. I bet it won't be as long as it would have been had he robbed a bank instead.
I call it British justice gone mad.

It was twenty weeks. Since he has already been in remand for twenty four, he's now out. Call that justice?