British mother who believes her newborn was stolen in Spanish baby-trafficking scandal is still looking for her daughter – 32 years after doctors ‘lied to her’ about dying at birth

A British woman who believes her newborn was stolen by Spain’s cruel baby-snatchers is still looking for her daughter Rebecca – 32 years after doctors said she died at birth. 

Ruth Appleby, 61, is relentless in her pursuit for the truth, with the Yorkshire native all but certain Rebecca was among the 300,000 babies born in Spain that were stolen and sold by a network of doctors, nurses, and priests under General Franco’s reign. 

Sharing her story in a new ITV series hosted by Davina McCall, Ruth hopes the publicity will spark renewed national and international interest in the Spanish baby scandal that changed her life forever.

‘The important thing is the truth, and just knowing what really did happen to my daughter,’ Ruth exclusively told FEMAIL. 

‘If she did die, they should be able to prove it, and then I can start to find closure. 

‘And if not well, then what did happen?’ 

It is a question Ruth will have asked herself every day for three decades, replaying the day she gave birth to Rebecca while agonising over all the sinister signs that something was terribly wrong.

Ruth and her former husband Howard, a fellow Briton who worked in publishing, were living in the northern city of La Coruna when she fell pregnant. 

‘The pregnancy was absolutely idyllic,’ she recalled fondly. ‘I had no complications. It was a dream pregnancy.’  

Two weeks after her due date, however, when she had not yet given birth, Ruth was  admitted to Hospital Materno Infantil Teresa Herrera where, almost immediately, a number of odd and suspicious situations arose.

Unusually, it was not until two days later, on December 2, 1992, that she was induced.

The previous day, she had an unsettling experience; Ruth overheard one of the nurses telling a patient with a difficult pregnancy to ‘be careful because otherwise your baby will die’. 

‘Then she looked at me and said “Like this lady’s baby is going to die”,’ Ruth continued. ‘It was odd, but I put it down to the fact she was a grumpy old lady, and it was a Friday, and she wanted to finish work.’  

At 8pm, two nurses gave her an injection, which they explained was morphine, a drug that can be harmful to an unborn child.

The baby was eventually born with Ruth under general anaesthetic at 1.20am. Howard went to see the infant in the creche.

‘She looked fine; perfect. He was elated,’ Ruth recalled in a 2013 interview with the Daily Mail. 

Ruth, pictured with Davina McCall, contact producers of the ITV programme Long Lost Family to try and find out more

At 4.30am Howard received a call telling him to return to the hospital. When he arrived, he was informed his daughter had died from heart problems, and was told it was not possible for him to see her because the post-mortem had already been carried out.

When Ruth came round at 7.30am, she says she was told baby was doing well. However, Howard arrived at her bedside and broke the news that Rebecca was dead. 

Ruth never even had the chance to hold her baby. 

‘My whole world just crashed down around me,’ she said. ‘It was really, really hard when I look back on it because it was so unexpected. 

‘There had been no complications whatsoever, and there just didn’t seem to be a reason for it.

‘And it was devastating.’ 

After Ruth was discharged from the hospital, they were informed that Rebecca had been buried in a local cemetery overlooking the Atlantic Ocean.

Ruth suffered from depression for many months and did not feel ready to try for another baby for a long time. Eventually, in 1995, she gave birth to Rosie, followed by Benjy, in 2001. Howard and Ruth split up, although they remain on good terms, and Ruth and the children moved back to Britain in 2006.

After what happened, Ruth fell into depression for many months, and did not want to try for another baby for some time 

In 2010, she decided to have Rebecca’s remains cremated and brought back to Britain. It was this decision, and its botched execution, that first led her to re-evaluate the circumstances surrounding Rebecca’s birth and death.

She flew out to La Coruna and, with a Spanish lawyer, witnessed the baby’s coffin being exhumed. 

A crematorium had provided a box in which to put the coffin, but it proved too large to fit. The cemetery workers took a crowbar and opened the coffin to transfer the remains into the box. Ruth tried not to look, but could not avoid seeing the contents.

There was no way the remains inside the coffin could belong to a newborn baby. 

‘It was also much bigger than I was expecting – more like the skeleton of a toddler,’ she told the Daily Mail. ‘I was so traumatised by the sight that I went ahead with the cremation. 

‘Now, I regret it deeply.’

Then, after five decades of suppression, the Spanish baby scandal surfaced in 2011 – when it was revealed that up to 300,000 Spanish babies were stolen from their parents and sold for adoption.

Like Ruth, several mothers were told their first-born children had died during or soon after they gave birth.

In reality, the babies were sold to childless couples whose devout beliefs and financial security meant that they were seen as more appropriate parents. 

Ruth is the only British woman who became involved in the scandal, and 14 years since she became suspicious of the circumstances surrounding Rebecca’s ‘death’ in 1992. 

Last year, she decided to contact producers of the ITV programme Long Lost Family after a co-worker told her about the British show fronted by Davina – that reunites family members who have never met through the help of DNA testing.  

Ruth had what she was told was the body of her baby cremated, a decision she says she now regrets

‘The majority of the cases that I know about in Spain where families have been reunited are all down to DNA,’ she said.  

‘There’s one or two where it’s been information given through a third party, but the vast, vast majority are DNA. And so I thought, it’s the ideal opportunity and I’ll give it a go.’

The latest episode of Long Lost Family will trace Ruth’s dogged pursuit for the truth – culminating in her decision to undertake a DNA test in the hope of being reunited with Rebecca. 

Despite the chances of getting any real justice being described as ‘virtually non-existent’, Ruth refuses to give up

The chance of getting any real justice, however, is ‘virtually non-existent’. 

If she is alive, Rebecca would now be 32 – having grown up without her real parents. 

Despite the unlikelihood that Ruth will be reunited with her firstborn, she refuses to give up hope. 

‘You never know, there could even be someone who sort of says, “Hang on, doesn’t she look like you?”‘

Long Lost Family Special: The Spanish Baby Scandal is on ITV1 at 9pm on Tuesday, January 21.