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Sheridan Smith stars in a brand new BBC drama about the disappearance of a young girl from The Moorside Estate in West Yorkshire, but just how accurate is the story this two-episode tale tells?
The show’s attracted a fair bit of controversy before it even hits screens, after it emerged that the family of Shannon, who was nine years old at the time she went missing – had no idea the series was being made, and even attempted legal action to prevent it from being shown.

The Moorside retells the incident in 2008 in which Shannon went missing from the Moorside estate in Dewsbury – where she lived with her mum Karen – sparking a massive police and community manhunt before she was found three weeks later at the house of her stepfather’s uncle Michael Donovan, less than a mile away. Her mum was later arrested after it transpired she had been an accomplice in her daughter’s kidnapping – with her and Michael Donovan later sentenced to eight years in prison for kidnap, false imprisonment and perverting the course of justice.
However rather than focusing so much on the family, The Moorside tells events from the point of view of Karen’s neighbour Julie Bushby (played by Sheridan Smith) and her efforts in bringing the community together to search for the missing girl.
Bushby, who was the chairperson of the Moorside residents and tenants association at the time, rallied locals into conducting marches and door-to-door enquiries in a bid to establish what had become of Shannon. The show will also focus on the aftermath, as the community came to terms with what had really happened and the fact they had been lied to.