A girl who was kidnapped for three weeks as a baby collected her A-level results today after finishing a boarding school education that was paid for by selling her incredible story.

Alex Griffiths, 18, went missing for three weeks after a bogus social worker took her from hospital two days after her birth.

Three weeks later she was tracked down and returned to her mother, Dawn, who earned £110,000 from telling her ordeal to a newspaper and set up a trust fund to pay for Alex’s education.

Mrs Griffiths remained living on a council estate while her daughter was taught at Polam Hall in Darlington.

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Alex achieved an A and two Bs in her A levels, plus B grades in two A/S levels. She already has 12 GCSEs and is considering joining the police.

She said: “I’m delighted. I’m planning a big party with my friends tonight. I owe so much to my mum and the school. This means everything to me.”

The teenager now plans to study maths at the University of the Manchester.

She said: “I love maths. I just enjoy working with numbers, where I know there is a definite answer. The school has been excellent. The teachers have worked really hard and 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 all right but I wouldn’t have got such good results. 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 kidnapping made headlines around the world. Alex was taken by a woman called Janet Griffiths, a nurse who is no relation. She walked onto the hospital ward, pretending to be a social worker, and told Alex’s mother that she needed to take the baby to be weighed.

Police tracked Janet Griffiths and Alex to a cottage in the Cotswolds. She was pretending that she had given birth in an attempt to persuade her lover to leave his wife.

She was sent to a psychiatric hospital, was released after seven months and died four years later of cancer.

Dawn Griffiths suffered a nervous breakdown after her baby was returned and her relationship with Alex’s father, a painter and decorator, broke down.

The Sun paid £110,000 for her story and she spent the money on Alex’s education, while staying in her council estate house in Middlesbrough.

Mrs Griffiths said that she hoped the qualifications would ensure her daughter enjoyed a better quality of life than she did.

She said: “I hardly even went to school and I left with very few qualifications. I felt guilty about making so much money out of what had happened. Alex has worked very hard. She spent most nights on the computer doing her homework. She is a very determined person. She knows what she wants and she will go to any lengths to get it. I'm really proud of her."

Polam Hall charges up to £6,500 a term for boarders.

Marie Green, the headmistress, said: “Alex has been a delight for us to have in our school community. We are really pleased for her.”

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