North Yorkshire mum calls on Spanish authorities for answers about her missing baby 

A Teesside MEP is joining a North Yorkshire woman's fight for answers about her missing daughter.

Ruth Appleby was told her new-born died in a Spanish hospital in 1992,

However, she believes she was actually stolen, one of a potential 200 000 infants stolen in Spain between the 1970's and 90's.

It’s a scandal well documented in Spain, but Ruth, who lives in Catterick Garrison, only discovered it 6 years ago, since then, she’s been compiling documents and trying to find out what really happened to her daughter.

Now Ruth, along with North East MEP Jude Kirton- Darling, are visiting Madrid, to ask the authorities for answers.

Ruth tells us what it was like hearing the news her baby might still be alive somewhere;

“It was like – this is so evil, but it could be a miracle, because for nineteen years my baby had been dead,

“You don’t look for a dead baby.

“All of a sudden my whole world had completely changed – it was almost like my life was a jigsaw that had been picked up and dropped, and the pieces just didn’t fit.

“You feel very robbed, because my daughter should have been with me, with her sister and her brother and her father.

“Not with another family.”

MEP Jude Kirton-Darling tells us why she is working with Ruth to find the answers;

“What we’re hoping for is that we’ll get a step-change by raising the profile, by giving international pressure, we’ll get a step change in the disclosure of documents, and hopefully in that disclosure – Ruth will also find some answers.

“We’re calling on the Spanish authorities, not just the public authorities, who have made in the last few years, quite a lot of effort to open up their archives at a regional and local level.

“But the people who haven’t opened up their archives and have the majority of the information is the Catholic Church.”

For more information about Ruth's campaign you can visit her Facebook page; https://www.facebook.com/300kbabies/?pnref=story