ONE of the police officers who found Shannon Matthews told her mother's trial today that the little girl was frightened and crying when she emerged from the bed where she was hidden.

Dc Paul Kettlewell told a jury at Leeds Crown Court that they were searching Michael Donovan's flat in Batley Carr, West Yorkshire, when they heard a child's voice.

He said the voice said: "Stop it, you're frightening me."

The officer went on: "Then I went into the bedroom. My colleague turned towards me and, as I was beginning to think perhaps the voice came from inside the bed, there was a noise inside the bed as a small girl started to emerge."

He described how other officers passed the nine-year-old to him.

He told the court: "She was frightened and she was crying."

Donovan, 40, and Shannon's mother Karen Matthews, 33, both deny kidnap, false imprisonment and perverting the course of justice.

Dc Kettlewell described how officers forced their way into the flat after no-one answered the door but neighbours assured them Donovan was inside.

He said he entered the flat with four officers after forcing entry through two doors.

After making a brief search of the property he initially thought the flat was empty until he heard a child's voice coming from the bedroom, he said.

"I didn't go into the room until I heard a child's voice from in the room," he told the court.

Dc Kettlewell said he went into the bedroom, where two of his colleagues were standing by what he described as a "perfectly normal double bed".

He said he thought the room was empty until he saw a young girl begin to "extricate herself" from the bed base.

Dc Kettlewell said the two other officers in the room helped the girl out of the bed and handed her to him.

He told the jury he then carried her down the stairs and out of the flat to a police car.

Julian Goose QC, prosecuting, asked Dc Kettlewell: "Did you ask the little girl, we now know as Shannon, where Mike was? Did she say 'Mike's where I was, he's under the bed'?"

Dc Kettlewell answered: "That's correct."

He said he then phoned his colleagues to tell them what Shannon had told him.

Another officer, Pc Ian Mosley, told the jury it was "quite surreal" when Shannon emerged from the bed.

He said he was lifting the bed when the little girl "began to pull herself out of the other side of the bed".

The policeman said he handed her over to his colleague and then went to investigate a thud he heard from above him.

Pc Mosley said he looked into the loft and "there was a beam and it had some kind of rope on it".

The officer told the court he then had to return to the bedroom when he heard his colleague saying: "Stop resisting, stop fighting."

Pc Mosley described the moment they found the girl.

He said: "It was quite surreal, sir. We were not expecting to find Shannon."

In cross-examination, Pc Mosley denied that police had treated Donovan in a rough manner when they found him in the bedroom.

Alan Conrad QC, for Donovan, said to Pc Mosley: "A number of you banged his head against the floor, another officer kneeled on his thigh, all the time shouting at him 'Now we've got you'.

"On the way out, his head was banged against the wall, wasn't it?"

Pc Mosley replied: "No, sir."

Mr Conrad suggested that the officers involved let their emotions get the better of them and were hostile towards Donovan.

He said to Pc Mosley: "I suggest he became the focus of hostility by police at that time. The man who was responsible for kidnapping and keeping Shannon in that flat, that's how you perceived it?"

Pc Mosley denied the suggestions.

The trial continues.