Ten-year-old Shannon's mother, Karen, is accused of kidnapping, false imprisonment and perverting the course of justice by pretending to West Yorkshire police she had no idea where her daughter was.
Alongside her in the dock will be 40-year-old Michael Donovan, who faces the same charges. Donovan is the uncle of her partner. Both defendants will plead not guilty in a trial that is expected to last four weeks.
The nine-year-old schoolgirl was drugged and tethered to a roof beam as part of a kidnapping plot staged by her mother to claim up to £50,000 ($75,000) in reward money.
Donovan abducted Shannon as she was on her way home from school in Dewsbury, West Yorkshire, by telling her he was taking her to a fair. He gave her Temazepam -- a type of sleeping tablet -- and travel sickness pills and kept her tethered to an elasticated strap attached to a roof beam through a loft hatch when he went out.
The strap was discovered by officers searching the first-floor flat following Shannon's discovery
It had a large loop at the end which, at full stretch, would reach around most of the flat but not permit anyone who was restrained by it from leaving through the front door. Donovan would have used it to restrain Shannon when he left the flat
"The prosecution say that it is a reasonable inference that Donovan, who had used other methods of subduing Shannon Matthews, had employed the strap to restrain Shannon when Donovan left the flat to go shopping."
Meanwhile Karen Matthews kept up a "wicked and dishonest lie" as her daughter became the subject of a massive police search operation and a reward fund offered by a local newspaper grew to $50,000, jurors were told. Apparently Donovan planned to release Shannon and then "discover" her.
The trial continues tomorrow.
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