I owe my fantastic A-level results to being kidnapped when I was just two days old

She was kidnapped from hospital by a bogus social worker when she was just two days old.

Alex was eventually returned to her mother Dawn three weeks later after police traced her and the abductor to a cottage in the Cotswolds.

Thrilled: Alex Griffiths, who was kidnapped when she was just two days old, with her mother Dawn

She was paid £110,000 for her story by a national newspaper. Instead of squandering the cash, she put it in a trust fund to pay for her daughter's education.

She sent Alex to £19,710-a-year boarding school, Polam Hall, in Darlington, and yesterday her investment paid off when Alex achieved an A in maths and Bs in further maths and drama.

She also gained Bs in business and general studies AS-levels.

Alex said: 'It’s strange to think that I probably wouldn’t have done as well as I did if I hadn’t been kidnapped when I was a baby.

'The school has been excellent. The teachers have worked really hard and have given me lots of extra lessons and helped me with my revision.

'If I had gone to a normal, mainstream school, I probably would have done alright but I wouldn’t have got such good results.'

Alex, who has a 13-year-old brother, Charlie, now plans to study maths at Manchester University. Her trust fund paid for her education up until she was 16.

After that, her fees were paid by the Old Scholas' Association - a fund set up by former pupils who have gone on to make their fortunes.

Ordeal: Dawn with baby Alex just after her kidnap

Miss Griffiths had moved to London when she was 20 to work as a nanny. She became pregnant with her boyfriend, Jeff Harris, a 23-year-old painter and decorator.

She gave birth in St Thomas' Hospital, London, but just two days later Janet Griffiths - no relation to Dawn - managed to get on to the ward.

Janet Griffiths snatched Alex, after telling her mother she needed to weigh her.

Griffiths, a nurse, wanted to pretend she'd had a baby to persuade her lover to leave his wife.

The 33-year-old was sent to a psychiatric hospital and released after seven months.

She died of cancer four years later.