A Spanish doctor has escaped punishment – despite being found responsible for stealing a newborn baby from her parents and falsely certifying her as someone else’s daughter.

85-year-old gynaecologist Eduardo Vela is the first person to stand trial over Spain’s infamous “stolen babies” scandal.

According to some estimates, as many as 300,000 newborn babies were stolen from their parents in Spain between 1940 and 1990.

The practice began under the rule of fascist dictator General Franco – with babies taken from mothers deemed “unsuitable” due to their political views or social class and given to pro-regime families.

Over the years, it is believed the system morphed into an illicit business that continued long after Franco’s fall.

Some of the stolen children are believed to have been placed with families as far off as the US and Latin America.

A decade ago, a Spanish judge recorded the cases of about 30,000 Spanish children taken at birth during Franco's rule.

Child abduction

In what is expected to function as a test case for the thousands of families affected by the scandal, a court in Madrid this afternoon found Dr Eduardo Vela responsible for the abduction of a child, faking a birth and falsifying official documents.

However, he was acquitted because the statute of limitations on the crimes had expired.

The case was brought by 49-year-old Ines Madrigal, who was told by her mother at age 18 that she was adopted.

She accused Vela of taking her away from her biological mother after she was born in 1969 and forging her birth certificate to make it appear that her adoptive mother – who raised her and has since died – was her biological parent.

Vela, who was the director at the San Ramón clinic in Madrid, denied the charges.

During the trial, he failed to respond to the vast majority of the prosecutor’s questions, insisting he could not remember anything.

Ines Madrigal arrives at the court in Madrid, 08-10-2018. Image: Manu Fernandez/AP/Press Association Images

Statute of limitations

The court found him guilty of all charges but acquitted him as the crimes were committed more than a decade before Ms Madrigal brought forward the charges.

The most serious allegation against him – unlawful detention – expired when Ms Madrigal reached the age of 18 in 1987, meaning she would have had to bring forward the charges in 1997.

She lodged her complaint in 2012 – and argued that she could not have done so earlier as she only learned about the scheme in 2010, when her adoptive mother told her what happened.

DNA tests have confirmed that the birth cert was falsified, however Ms Madrigal’s biological parents were never found.

Speaking outside court this afternoon, she vowed to appeal the decision.