Simon Hunter
MORE details have emerged of the nightmarish experience that the parents of a newborn boy went through in the Spanish city of Bilbao this week, after a woman passing herself off as a nurse abducted the child.
Baby Aimar was taken from his hospital room after the suspect, so far just identified by the initial M., claimed she was taking him away for medical tests.
The 24-year-old woman had been pretending to be pregnant, keeping her friends updated with news of the phantom baby and even having purchased items such as a carry cot.
According to press reports, the woman was seen on security camera footage trying to enter several rooms on Wednesday night, suggesting that she wanted to take any baby rather than having specifically targeted the child she eventually abducted.
The woman is reported to have taken the baby out of the hospital inside a bag. She then proceeded to spend the night taking pictures of herself with little Aimar and uploading them to her social media accounts.
According to Spanish daily El Mundo, she may have realised the magnitude of what she had done by the morning, prompting her to abandon the child on the doorsteps of an apartment. The inhabitants were alerted when the suspect rang their doorbell. Finding the baby on their doormat, they quickly alerted the police.
According to El Correo, Aimar was returned to his parents in just a towel and without a nappy.
Police managed to track down the suspect and arrested her in a square in the Basque city “in an agitated state”.
Her social media accounts were closed by the authorities upon her arrest.
According to Spanish news agency EFE, the father of the child has denied claims that he or any other of the new parents in the hospital were informed about a protocol that instructed them not to let the baby out of their sight or that tests should be carried out at the foot of the hospital bed.
He also explained that the nightmare began an hour after the suspect took Aimar away. The parents asked staff after his whereabouts, only to be told that tests were not carried out on babies at night, and prompting the nurses to start to look for him.
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