The second series of The Secret She Keeps starts on BBC1 on Saturday night, two years after the first one had millions of viewers on the edges of their seats. But, rather than being a fictional drama, the tense thriller is actually inspired by real life events.
The Secret She Keeps made its debut on the BBC in the summer of 2020 and is based on the Michael Robotham’s 2017 best-selling novel of the same name.
The very dark and disturbing plot involves a woman named Agatha stealing another woman's baby from the maternity ward of a hospital, disguising herself as a member of staff to carry out the kidnap.
READ MORE: What happened in The Secrets She Keeps series one?
The action in The Secret She Keeps is based in Australia, but the plot is inspired by harrowing events a lot closer to home. In the 1990s, Michael Robotham worked as a journalist for The Mail on Sunday and it was in 1994 that the disappearance of baby Abbie Humphries shocked the country.
She was taken as a newborn from Nottingham’s Queen’s Medical Centre, with her parents Karen and Roger facing a harrowing 17 day wait for her to be found in Nottingham suburb Wollaton.
Abbie's disappearance was covered by TV channels and newspapers all over the UK and her kidnapper was revealed to be Julie Kelley, a former dental nurse who had been faking her own pregnancy.
Kelley, who had been suffering from a personality disorder, was put on probation for three months and ordered to spent the time in a psychiatric unit.
A teaser for the return of The Secret She Keeps, reads: "Two years after Agatha kidnapped Meghan’s baby Ben, it is time for Agatha to be tried in court. Meghan, Jack and their entire family have attempted to move on as best they could, but their lives have remained deeply affected by the trauma.
"A young investigative journalist, hungry to report on Agatha’s side of the story, hounds Meghan for information."
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