We first published this report in May 2018, but with the story of Pablo Escobar topical thanks to the success of Netflix TV series Narcos, we thought you might like to read it again

LITTLE did pupils at Lucton School in the Seventies know that the son of a notorious Colombian drugs baron was among them.

But then neither did the son, Phillip Witcomb, who did not find out who his real dad was until 1989.

It was in Madrid when Phillip was sat down by his adopted dad and told that his birth father was Pablo Escobar, the wealthiest criminal in history.

Phillip, who is now in his 50s, is currently working on a book which will predominantly focus on how he was taken from his Colombian birth mother and put with an English family and the reasons behind why that happened.

He said this will be a prequel to what happened in the popular Netflix series, Narcos.

He was born in Colombia's capital Bogota in the early 60s.

Phillip said that although there is no birth certificate, a perfectly normal occurrence in Colombia back then, there is, however, a notarised adoption certificate detailing all of the facts.

Phillip said: "My birth mother was called Maria Luisa Sendoya.

"She was very young when she had me - about 14.

"This also was quite a normal occurrence in Colombia back then.

"My genetic father was a young Escobar (aged 16) and the encounter was brief and non-consensual.

"As the name suggests, he was a member of the infamous family later to become prominent in the Medellin Drugs Cartel.

"As is well documented, he later went on to marry and have other children.

"My birth was kept very quiet, and as soon as I was born I was placed with a priest in a Bogota orphanage and a few weeks later I went to live with my adopted English parents who were, at the time, living in the Intercontinental Hotel Tequendama in Bogota.

"The official paperwork of my adoption took some time to come through, and later on December 7, 1967 I was made a British citizen."

Phillip lived in Colombia until he was about nine-years-old and was then brought to England, where he first went to St Hugh's Prep School in Oxfordshire before he started at Lucton School in Herefordshire when he was 14.

He said: "No-one in Lucton at the time would have known who my real father was.

"I was quite lucky to have ended up on the right side of it."

He added:"The central part of all of this is where I came from and how I got to become an English person.

"I was eventually sent to boarding school and that's why I ended up in Lucton in Herefordshire which was nicely tucked away in the middle of nowhere, which is what they wanted."

It was while Phillip was at Lucton that he was abused by his housemaster, David Panter.

In 2016 Panter was finally jailed for offences he admitted committing against seven boys at Lucton, but still denied any offences committed against Phillip.

Phillip spoke out about his experience on ITV's Boarding Schools: The Secret Shame – Exposure.

He left Lucton in the summer of 1980. He said he, of course, had bad memories from his time there but added: "I made a lot of friends. A lot of us are still in touch."

Phillip can remember visiting his genetic family at Medellin but this stopped in 1975.

Phillip,who is an artist, has had to live most of his adult life with bodyguards.

He said: "I have tried to change my image. I shaved my moustache off.

"In the 80s I looked so much like him I was getting a bit of aggravation from it."

But he is keen to point out that he has nothing to do with his birth family adding: "I am not involved in the drug business. It is not my thing.

"I don't want to be mistaken for one of them.

"I am not proud of where I come from. It is just a fact of life."