Shannon Matthews' stepfather Craig Meehan has been remanded in custody until April 11 after appearing in court charged with child porn offences.

Meehan, 22, was arrested after officers examined a number of computers during the search for the nine-year-old, who went missing for nearly four weeks.

He is charged with ten offences of possessing indecent images of children.

The fishmonger has lived with mother-of-seven Karen Matthews, 32, for around five years at Shannon's home in Moorside Road, Dewsbury Moor.

Detectives searched the couple's red-brick home on Wednesday and removed evidence in binbags and boxes.Shannon disappeared on February 19 and was found 24 days later at the house of Meehan's uncle Michael Donovan, 39, in Batley Carr, a mile from her home.

Donovan, of Lidgate Gardens, Dewsbury, has been charged with Shannon's kidnapping and false imprisonment.

His trial has been provisionally set for November 11 at Leeds Crown Court.

Shannon has been in the care of social services since she was discovered at Donovan's flat.

The nine-year-old is reported to be so confused that she has not been able to tell police what happened to her while she was missing.

It has been revealed that on Wednesday Shannon's mother was reunited with her daughter for the first time since her disappearance.

Julie Bushby, a friend and neighbour of Mrs Matthews, 32, said: "She spent three-and-a-half hours with her, I don't know where."

She added: "Obviously like any mother she was absolutely over the moon that she actually got the contact. They could have cancelled the contact over what came out yesterday but they didn't, which was absolutely brilliant."

Ms Bushby said Mrs Matthews was "not really bearing up at all".

She said: "Yesterday was very hard for Karen because she was dealing with happiness and was obviously peeved off."

She continued: "There's more tears than laughter. At the moment she's laughing with me when she's talking about Shannon but when she sees it come up on the news there's tears."

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