DETECTIVES investigating the disappearance of nine-year-old Shannon Matthews are examining the mobile telephone records of her family amid suspicions that the abduction may have been designed as a stunt to gain money from the media.

Sources close to the West Yorkshire police inquiry say they expect more developments in the increasingly bizarre case.

The mother and sister of Shannon’s stepfather have been released this weekend on police bail after being questioned about the Dewsbury schoolgirl’s 24-day abduction. Alice Meehan, 49, and Amanda Hyett, 25, were arrested on Friday.

Hyett was arrested on suspicion of assisting an offender while her mother was held on suspicion of attempting to pervert the course of justice.

The two women were arrested after they were due to meet police to discuss the case of Shannon’s stepfather Craig Meehan.

He was charged last week with possessing 130 indecent images of children. The images were found on a computer seized from the home Meehan shared with Shannon and her mother Karen Matthews, 32.

Michael Donovan, 39, a computer programmer, who is the uncle of Hyett and Craig Meehan, has been charged with Shannon’s kidnap and false imprisonment.

When he was arrested Alice Meehan told reporters: “I can’t believe he had Shannon - my own brother. It feels like he has brought shame on our family.”

Shannon went missing while walking home from a school swimming lesson. She was discovered three weeks later in the base of a divan bed at a flat one mile from her home.

Police had mounted an investigation involving hundreds of officers and a team of 60 detectives in an attempt to find her.

Detectives are examining phone and e-mail records this weekend to see whether they support claims by Donovan that some family members colluded with him in Shannon’s kidnap.

He has reportedly told police that Karen and Meehan, 22, may have both been involved in the girl’s disappearance.

Police have officially said that although Karen has been questioned she is not being treated as a suspect.

A senior officer said: “Donovan has been claiming that other members of the family were involved. These may just be lies, but we would not be doing our job properly if we did not investigate these claims thoroughly.”

A key line of inquiry is to establish the degree of contact members of Shannon’s close family had with Donovan while he was alleged to be holding Shannon in his flat.

Sources said there is evidence of mobile phone contact during this period, but it is unclear whether these alleged calls and text messages point to evidence of collusion.

There is also growing concern about the impact further disclosures may have on residents of the estate where Shannon lived. Many spent long days and nights taking part in the search for her.

One official said: “The suggestion is that [the family] may have been in collusion as part of a plan to get money from the media. If it does turn out that this apparent kidnap was a stunt, a lot of people on the estate are going to get very upset.”

Karen was reported yesterday to have received death threats and has gone into hiding.

She is now believed to have ended the relationship with Meehan, father of one of her seven children.

The estate has been described privately by criminal justice officials as one of the most deprived and dysfunctional in Britain.

Tensions were high during the period of Shannon’s kidnap. In a bizarre incident, a 43-year-old man who lives near Shannon’s family was said to have been abducted, then crucified by being nailed to two pieces of wood and then nailed to a tree.

Although police have ruled out any connection with the Shannon case, detectives fear such cases betray an undercurrent of violence that could be further disturbed if more unsettling developments emerge in the inquiry. Additional reporting: Anna Mikhailova

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