Pretoria - The high court in Pretoria on Wednesday sentenced a woman to 10 years imprisonment after she snatched a three-month-old baby from her mother’s back and later hid drugs inside the infant’s nappy.
Jabulile Masombuka, 23, showed little emotion as the judge said she should have realised that she had caused the family of the baby a lot of heartache, especially the mother.
Masombuka pleaded guilty to kidnapping and the possession of drugs and she vowed to testify against her co-accused, her Nigerian drug dealer boyfriend Kingsley Nnadi and Thapelo Mthapo, who allegedly assisted in the kidnapping. Her advocate said the fact that she pleaded guilty should be a mitigating factor, warranting a lesser sentence.
But the court found that the evidence was overwhelming against her and she had little choice but to plead guilty. It was also found that if the police did not by coincidence raid the house in Brakpan she shared with her boyfriend, they would probably never have found the baby.
The police raided the house a month after Masombuka, with the help of her boyfriend, snatched the baby. It was also by pure luck that some of the drugs she had hidden in the child’s nappy, fell out and that the police saw this.
The mother was on her way to church with her baby on her back in November 2013 when she was overpowered on a street corner in Brakpan in broad daylight.
Masombuka and the people assisting her, sped off with the infant, leaving the mother in the road.
She explained that her boyfriend, who was in custody at that stage on drug-related charges, phoned her a month later to say he heard the police were going to raid their house for drugs.
He warned her to hide the drugs.
She stuffed the packets with drugs in the baby’s nappy, but while she was doing this, the police walked in.
Pretoria News