SPANISH BABY SCANDAL: LONG LOST FAMILY SPECIAL ANNOUNCED FOR ITV

The Long Lost Family team takes on searches on behalf of people who believe they or their family may have been taken in Spain.

Thousands of people come to Long Lost Family looking for missing family every year, but something unusual happened last year.

First, Ruth Appleby got in touch - she had given birth to her first child, a daughter, in Spain in 1992. She said: ‘I believed for 19 years that my daughter had died. And then, suspicions came to light that my daughter may not have died and was stolen at birth...’ Another searcher then got in touch telling a similar story.

Maria Elena, a Spanish woman living in London, approached Long Lost Family on behalf of her 93-year-old mother Ana - she said that she and Ana believe that Ana’s twin babies, a boy and a girl born in Madrid in 1958, may have been stolen at birth.

Ruth, Maria Elena and Ana believe their cases are part of a scandal in Spain where a huge number of women have come forward since 2011 who believe that their babies were taken from them at birth and given – or sold – to other families.

Transmission details will be announced in due course.