London- The mother of a British girl who went missing for 24 days appeared in court Wednesday on charges in connection with the alleged abduction of her daughter.

Karen Matthews, 32, has been charged with perverting the course of justice and child neglect over the disappearance of her daughter, Shannon.

The nine-year-old was found hidden under a divan bed at her uncle's home in Dewsbury, in the northern county of Yorkshire, on March 14.

Her disappearance, in what police believed was the first major child abduction in Britain after the much-publicized case of Madeleine McCann, missing in Portugal, prompted an unprecedented police operation to find her.

In a further bizarre twist, it has been revealed that people connected with Karen Matthews approached the fund set up to find Madeleine for financial help in the search for Shannon.

The mother, who made a number of tearful televised appeals for Shannon's return, is now believed to have known where the girl was all along, and even suspected of having engineered her disappearance.

She is reported to have wanted to leave her current partner for the man at whose house Shannon was found, just a few kilometres from her home.

Shannon has been in the care of social services ever since she was found. Her mother, who has seven children by five different fathers, was Wednesday remanded in custody until April 16.