Evil mother Karen Matthews’ ‘only friend in the world’ is her pet budgie Bobby

The UK’s ‘worst mother’ Karen Matthews is so isolated after staging the kidnapping of her daughter her pet bird is now her only friend, it is claimed. 

Matthews, 44, is said to have no one in her life other than her budgie Bobby, who is now ‘her only friend in the world’, according to a source.

The source, said to be close to Matthews, told the Daily Star: ‘She asks him for advice on a daily basis. She has no-one else now.’

One source told the paper: ‘She treats him like a child and calls him her ‘baby boy’.’

Matthews reportedly used to own another bird named Archie, who died last year. 

Last year she had complained of her loneliness, saying she was getting a pet. 

Matthews was jailed over faking the kidnap of her daughter Shannon to cash in on the £50,000 reward put up after the child, who was nine years old, disappeared in Dewsbury, West Yorkshire in 2008.

She and her accomplice Michael Donovan were convicted of kidnap, false imprisonment and perverting the course of justice after Shannon was found in Donovan’s flat 24 days after she went missing.

The mother-of-seven, who served four years of her eight-year jail term, has insisted she is not Britain’s worst mother because she ‘didn’t kill anybody’, and has claimed to have suffered more abuse than Baby P’s mother Tracey Connelly and Maxine Carr, who covered up for Soham killer Ian Huntley.

Matthews, 44, was jailed over faking the kidnap of her daughter Shannon to cash in on the £50,000 reward (pictured: Matthews making an appeal for her missing daughter)

Matthews was jailed for eight years in 2008 after kidnapping her daughter Shannon (pictured)

Last year Matthews, who now reportedly lives in a one-bedroom flat with Bobby, said she was scared she will die alone but was not looking for a man because she ‘doesn’t trust them.’

Matthews has said she never knew where her daughter was when she went missing in 2008. 

She and her boyfriend at the time Craig Meehan made several public appeals for help finding the schoolgirl – who was found on March 14 at the flat of Michael Donovan. 

The child had been drugged and kept in a small compartment under the bed.