Almost 100 Doctor Who episodes believed to be in private ownership
It is believed 97 Doctor Who episodes are missing, and the BBC's first archive collector, Sue Malden, wants them to be returned.
Lost episodes of Doctor Who may be owned by private collectors.
It is thought that 97 episodes of the hit BBC One Sci-Fi drama series featuring the first Time Lords, William Hartnell - who had the role on-and-off from 1963 to 1966, before returning between 1972 and1973 - and Patrick Troughton, who played the Doctor from 1966 until 1969, before he reprised the role three times between 1972 and 1985, are missing from the corporation's archives.
Sue Malden, the BBC's first archive collector, thinks die-hard Doctor Who fans own the lost episodes, and she wants them to be returned to the broadcaster - just like how some copies have been handed back since the early 1980s.
She said at the Recovered festival in Leicester, hosted by the film collectors group Film is Fabulous!: "As far as Doctor Who goes, we do not have a statement or anything to make at the moment.
"We do know fairly certainly that there are episodes missing in private collections.
"Some members of the Film is Fabulous! team are in a considerably significant position to help on that.
"So, when the time is right, we really do hope that it will be Film is Fabulous! that manages to return at least one or two, I don't know, of the missing episodes of Doctor Who to the BBC."
A source added to the Daily Mirror newspaper: "There's a lot of grounds for optimism that some episodes could be returned before too long.
"The films will be donated to De Montfort University in Leicester, and carefully restored."
The publication claims that The Tenth Planet, episode four (aired on October 29, 1966), The Daleks' Master Plan, episode four (broadcast on December 4, 1965), Marco Polo (aired from February 22 to March 4, 1964), The Web of Fear, episode three (broadcast on February 17, 1968), and The Macra Terror (aired from March 11 to April 1, 1967) are likely to return.
Missing episodes have previously been given back by collectors Francis Watson, Terry Burnett and Bruce Grenville.
In 2013, nine episodes of Doctor Who, which starred Troughton, were recovered after they were discovered in Nigeria, West Africa.
