The Hanoi People’s Court has sentenced 30-year-old Nguyen Thi Le, a native of Bac Giang Province, to 4 years in jail for abducting a two-old-day baby boy from his mother at an obstetrics hospital in Hanoi last November.

Baby boy Pham Van Truong was rescued and returned to his parents on November 8, 2011 , Photo: Tuoi Tre

Since the boy’s parents, who are from Hung Yen Province, did not claim damages for expenses related to the search for the boy, the court only forced Le to compensate them with VND24.9 million (US$1,200) for mental anguish.

According to the indictment from the prosecutor’s office, Le came to the Central Obstetrics Hospital on November 3, 2011, stole a nurse’s uniform from a clothesline, and put it on. She than entered the obstetrics ward where she found 35-year-old Tran Thi Thom holding her baby.

Pretending to be a nurse, Le told Thom that the baby needed a blood test. Thom gave her son, Pham Van Truong, to the “nurse” without thinking. But more than an hour later she began to worry since the woman had not returned.

After searching for the baby four hours in vain, the hospital reported the case to the Hoan Kiem District police.

Nguyen Thi Le, who was arrested on November 8, five days after she kidnapped the baby (Photo: Tuoi Tre)

Meanwhile, Le left the hospital with the baby and took a taxi to a house in Hanoi’s Dong Anh District where her husband’s family lived. She lied to the family, saying that the baby was hers.

On November 8, following a tip-off from Nguyen Xuan Viet, a taxi driver of Tuan Linh Company who had driven Le to Dong Anh, the police seized her and recovered the boy.

The baby was returned to Thom and her husband, Pham Xuan Chieu, the same day.

Explaining her motive for the crime, Le told the police that after several years of marriage and much effort at getting herself pregnant, her first baby was stillborn. Devastated, she then planned to steal a newborn from another couple.

Source: Tuoi Tre