Cape Town – A Lavender Hill woman, accused of kidnapping three-day-old Zephany Nurse almost two decades ago, broke down on the stand in the Western Cape High Court on Monday.
The woman, who cannot be named to protect the new identity of the teenager, has pleaded not guilty to charges of kidnapping, fraud and contravening the Children’s Act.
The soft-spoken woman told the court she was arrested on February 26 last year at the Hawks offices in Bellville.
The day before, on February 25, the Hawks had arrived at her house armed with a search warrant.
The accused said police fetched her from her workplace and she arrived home to find her lounge full of people, including social workers.
She said she was told the child in question, then in matric, would be collected from school for DNA tests.
Objecting that they had not obtained her permission, a social worker told her children could give their own permission from the age of 12.
Social workers told her the teenager would not be coming home that night.
The accused told the court: “I said I do everything for her, make the bed, wash the dishes.”
She then broke down in tears and said “that was the last time I (saw) her”.
The woman earlier told the court that she was not at Groote Schuur hospital on April 30, 1997, the day Zephany Nurse was abducted.
She also insisted she had not been at the hospital the day before on the April 29, 1997.
Last week, State witness Shireen Piet told the court that the accused had been at the hospital on April 29 and April 30, and had tried to abduct her baby.
Piet testified that she had been making a call when she saw the accused leave her ward with her baby, but that she had stopped her.
She said the accused had told her that her baby had been crying, but when she took her child she did not appear distressed.
The accused emphatically denied being at Groote Schuur hospital and told the court that she had been given the three-day-old baby by a woman at the Wynberg train station on April 30, 1997.
She said she fell pregnant in September 1996, but miscarried in December. She visited Tygerberg hospital where she met a woman called Sylvia who offered to help her with fertility treatment or adoption for an amount of R3 000.
She testified that she kept the miscarriage a secret from her husband as she was “devastated” and believed that with Sylvia’s help she would fall pregnant again.
The accused said she paid Sylvia an R800 deposit, and met her several times in the following month.
On April 30, 1997, she said she was due to meet Sylvia at the Wynberg train station, but was instead met by another woman who handed her the baby.
The woman told her to go to Retreat hospital and call her from there.
“She told me the mother didn’t want the baby and that she would be in touch with me soon.”
At Retreat hospital she undressed the baby and saw that the umbilical cord was still attached: “I told myself something is wrong. There are no adoption papers.”
She testified that she took the baby home, and never told her husband that the child was not theirs.
Afraid of damaging his close bond with the girl, she told the court she kept quiet.
She further testified that someone had come to her house several weeks after she had been given the baby, and she had signed papers which she believed were adoption papers.
She also denied travelling to the Home Affairs department in Malmesbury to obtain a birth certificate for the child in 2003, when the certificate was issued.
She kept the secret for almost 18 years. The true identity of the teenager was discovered only last year, when her younger biological sister started high school at the same school as her.
Classmates noticed their striking resemblance, and the sister told her parents. The girl’s biological father, Morne Nurse, met her for himself, began his own investigation and then reported his suspicions to the Hawks.
DNA tests revealed that she was indeed the long lost Zephany Nurse the family had been searching for.
Morne Nurse listened intently to the accused’s testimony, at times placing his head on his arms.
His now former wife, Celeste Nurse, was not at court, but the public gallery was packed with family members.
Judge President John Hlophe asked the accused if she had tried to contact Sylvia after her arrest.
She replied that she had lost Sylvia’s number “years back”.
State prosecutor Evadne Kortje was not available to cross examine the accused, and the case was postponed to next week Monday.
The accused was warned not to have any contact with her lawyer as she has not yet been cross examined.
She remains out on bail of R5 000.
African News Agency