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NICKY CAMPBELL on a Long Lost Family special highlighting a heartbreaking controversy in Spain

In 2011, a devastating news story broke in Spain alleging that, over several decades, potentially thousands of newborn babies may have been taken from their parents and illegally placed with other families.

Now, in a special edition of ITVi’s Long Lost Family, presenters Davina McCall and Nicky Campbell meet mothers and children who believe they were part of the so-called ‘Stolen Babies Scandal’.

The distressing practice began in the late 1930s under the regime of right-wing dictator General Francisco Franco, and is thought to have carried on into the 1990s. Babies were apparently removed by medics and the Church for financial gain, or because the parents - including single mothers, and those opposed to General Franco were deemed ‘unsuitable’.

The children were then adopted or sold, and, in some cases, their birth relatives were falsely told they had died.

‘It’s good to shine a light on this, but to see how organised it was is shocking,’ says Nicky, 63, as TV Times catches up with him for an exclusive interview.

‘I came away heartbroken and angry. This went on for years and became something beyond its original wicked purposes, and was part of the institutional furniture in Spain. It’s unbelievable and terrible.’

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