PUBLISHED: 13:21, 28 February 2017 | UPDATED: 16:15, 28 February 2017
Karen Matthews, 41, faked the abduction of her nine-year-old daughter Shannon
She branded missing Madeleine McCann's mother Kate 'dreadful' while in prison
Maddie vanished from the family's apartment as the family holidayed in Portugal
Matthews said to friend Julie Bushby: 'At least my daughter was never left alone'
Maddie mystery inspired Matthews' lie about her own daughter's disappearance
Hateful: Karen Matthews, above, who faked her daughter's kidnap
in a plot to claim the reward money, attacked Kate and Gerry McCann,
parents of Madeleine, while she was in prison
Rant: 'I've been judged and I'm paying for it but Maddie's mother
was bad too,' Matthews, above, told friend Julie Bushby while
serving an eight year sentence for kidnapping Shannon
Criticism: Matthews accused Kate and Gerry McCann of
leaving their 'babies alone while she was out eating and drinking'
in the Portuguese resort town of Praia de Luz. Pictured: Madeleine McCann,
who vanished from her parents' holiday apartment in Portugal aged three in 2007
'We're too lower class for them but we can still have an opinion. There seems to be one rule for them and another for us but she was a dreadful mum.
'She left one, two, three babies alone while she was out eating and drinking with her mates. My Shannon was kept away from her family but she was never left alone.'
Ironically, Matthews, 41 – now freed from jail – has ditched her first name and is known as Kate. The moniker is thought to have been inspired by one of her Hollywood idols and not by Maddie's mother.
Matthews' attack on Kate and husband Gerry is revealed for the first time as the couple have been criticised twice in three days on social media and national radio.
And her onslaught on the McCanns comes ahead of tonight's Channel 5 documentary which looks at whether the investigation into the plot to kidnap Shannon should be re-opened.
Julie claims friend Matthews is 'too stupid' to have invented the Shannon kidnap alone without colluding with others.
Cold case: Matthews' scathing attack on the McCann's has emerged
ahead ahead of tonight's Channel 5 documentary exploring
whether the Shannon Matthews kidnap plot should be re-opened.
Pictured: Karen Matthews enjoys a meal at Toby Carvery as
she seeks to reinvent herself in the south of England
In her bizarre and hate-filled prison rant, Matthews said:
'My Shannon was kept away from her family but she was never
left alone.' Pictured: Kate and Gerry McCann who have raised
millions of pounds in a bid to find their missing daughter
Wealthy parents, former GP Kate and heart doctor Gerry, both 48, of Rothley, Leicestershire, had already won the nation's hearts and public funding when three-year-old Maddie was snatched from a Portuguese holiday apartment in May 2007.
At the time they had left her and younger toddler twins siblings Sean and Amelie alone while dining in a nearby tapas bar with friends.
Schoolgirl Shannon vanished from her mother's home in Dewsbury, Yorks in February 2008.
She was discovered 24 days later following a £3.2million police search two miles away at the home of Michael
Donovan, uncle of Matthews' boyfriend Craig Meehan having been drugged, tethered and hidden inside a divan bed.
Matthews, who had seven children with five fathers, and Donovan were sentenced to eight years over the kidnap plot.
The pair had allegedly been inspired by Maddie's disappearance and invented the kidnap plot to claim a reward for 'finding' her.
Matthews' best friend and former neighbour Julie, who has kept diaries of her prison visits, told MailOnline: 'Karen talked about Maddie and her family, the difference and unfairness of their social situations.
'She's never understood why British and Portuguese police haven't taken it any further and asks in her simple almost child-like state if it's because 'they're rich and posh and she's poor and common'. '
Mother-of-three Julie, who led the painstaking search for Shannon and still supports her friend said: 'I want to sit her down and ask 'Why?' She's not got the highest IQ and I wonder if she was coerced into doing something she didn't want to do.
Best friend: Matthew's former neighbour Julie Bushby, pictured,
who kept diaries of her prison visits, told MailOnline how
Matthews would moan about 'the difference
and unfairness of their social situations'
who kept diaries of her prison visits, told MailOnline how
Matthews would moan about 'the difference
and unfairness of their social situations'
'If someone said to her, 'Look, I'm skint, I need some money, help me', I think she was that daft she would have done anything.
'Karen was guilty and put her hands up but she wasn't the brains behind the plot to kidnap her daughter.
'I'm not excusing her in any way but I and the rest of the neighbourhood want to know the real reason for what happened. We want answers.
'I've kept a diary and have a record of all the times I visited her in jail but that one question remains unanswered.'
Matthews was thrown into the public glare earlier this month after controversial BBC1's The Moorside re-enacted the staged snatch. Campaigning shop assistant Julie was played by star Sheridan Smith.
But the hugely popular show came under attack, including from the Maddie's parents. And Matthews, now living at a secret location in the south of England, claims she has been bombarded with death threats.
She served just four years of her sentence, walking free in April 2012.
The McCanns, who are facing the agonising 10th anniversary of Maddie's disappearance in May, have been bombarded with social media and national radio rants in the past week.
Host Katie Hopkins claimed on her Sunday show on LBC Radio that their daughter would never be discovered. She said: 'Maddie was lost because she was left to be found.'
Just three days earlier on Friday glamour model Jodie Marsh posted in a Twitter rant that Maddie's parents should be searching for their daughter 'on their hands and knees digging up the bare earth' rather than be side-tracked and busying themselves suing people.'
Matthews criticised the McCanns, who were having tapas with friends close to their holiday apartment in Praia da Luz on the night Maddie disappeared. She and twins Sean and Amelie had been left asleep at 8.30pm in the ground-floor apartment, while Kate and Gerry dined in a restaurant 180ft away. The parents checked on the children throughout the evening, until Madeleine's mother discovered she was missing at 10pm.
A source close to the couple said: 'If it wasn't such a serious matter of a missing child it would almost be laughable. Two very minor celebrities and a person jailed for a crime against her own daughter dare to comment about a case they know nothing about.
'Kate and Gerry won't be saying anything to fuel this whirlwind of nonsense. They don't want to give these peoples' egos even more exposure.'
Today Britain's top police officer Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe will stand down having failed to fulfil his pledge to find Maddie to 'end her parents' torture'.
As the Scotland Yard chief steps down his force is still no closer to knowing what happened her despite vowing he was 'confident of resolving' the world's biggest missing child mystery.
Operation Grange, the inquiry launched in May 2011 to the spiralling £13million cost to the taxpayer, has failed to unearth any significant new clues.
A Met Police spokesperson said: 'We are cracking on.' But she refused to divulge if a final 'last throw of the dice' lead which Sir Bernard said would be investigated last summer has produced a shred of evidence.
The high-profile case is now being wound down. The Home Office has not allocated any extra cash after next month. A spokesperson said: 'Funding will continue until the end of this financial year. The resources required will be reviewed again at this point.'
