Durban - A woman accused of abandoning her newborn baby boy in a minibus taxi in Durban earlier this month has been released from custody on a warning.
Phindile Mpheshwa, 37, made her second appearance in the
Pinetown Magistrate’s court on Wednesday.
Her matter was adjourned until early next year, for further investigations, spokeswoman for the National Prosecuting Authority Natasha Kara said on Wednesday.
Mpheshwa first appeared in court last Wednesday, after she was arrested the night before.
She faces charges of child abuse.
Mpheshwa allegedly abandoned her infant son in a minibus taxi in early December.
The driver of the taxi found the baby - dehydrated and crying - beneath one of the taxi’s seats while he was parked at the taxi rank next to The Pavilion shopping centre.
A nursing auxiliary from the nearby Life Westville Hospital helped tend to the baby before police arrived.
Police described the case as a hard one to crack because there were no witnesses.
The baby’s mother had left a note with him - apologising for what she had done and asking whoever found the baby to bring him up - but it did not reveal much about her identity.
The docket was opened at Westville police station initially but it was later handed over to the Pinetown Family Violence, Child
Protection and Sexual Offences Unit and detectives discovered that some medication that was left with the child was issued at St Mary’s Hospital in Mariannhill.
Further investigations uncovered a phone number for relatives in Kokstad but the mother could not be traced.
After several weeks, Mpheshwa was tracked down to Embo, near Hillcrest. She was initially arrested on charges of child abandonment but these were later changed to child abuse.
The Mercury understands that the baby is in a place of safety.
Last week, Netcare 911 paramedics attended the scene of another newborn who was abandoned in Chakide Road, in KwaMashu. He still had the placenta attached.
He was rushed to a nearby clinic, where staff cut the cord and placed him on oxygen. The police said he was recovering well.
Police spokeswoman Colonel Thembeka Mbhele said on Wednesday that no arrests had been made for that case.