ANNA COX
WANT to steal your employer’s clothes and get away with it?
Then it’s probably not a good idea to post selfies and other pictures of yourself wearing her clothes on your Facebook account which is on public settings.
This is exactly what one of Joburg’s dumbest thieves – Fatuma Phiri – did.
Her Sandton employer got the shock of her life when she was casually scrolling through the “People You May Know” section on Facebook.
She saw a face which looked very familiar, but did not recognise the name. She then became curious and decided check the profile out.
To her horror, she discovered it was her part-time domestic helper posing brazenly in a number of her clothes, including her wedding dress.
Some of the photos were selfies taken in her bedroom, while others were taken outside the helper’s home in Tembisa.
“I feel so violated. I cannot even look at my wedding dress anymore. Some of the buttons are now broken as she tried to force the dress on. This is the dress in which I took sacred vows before God,” she said.
The woman says her family did so much for her.
“She was initially employed by us three times a week, then I had a baby and she decided that she was not comfortable looking after a new-born child as she had no experience.
“But we still kept her on to work on a Saturday even though we did not need her. We felt that at least she would have a day’s work.
“She was about to start a full-time job yesterday with my sister. We always helped her to buy school books, clothes and groceries for her children.
“We even paid for her to do CPR and other courses to improve her skills so she could eventually become a child nanny. She was a part of the family,” said the employer.
Sometimes clothes went missing, but every time she asked where a certain garment was, it would reappear the following day.
“She would say she found it and that I had not looked properly,” she said.
“I think I probably could have overlooked the clothes, but I draw the line at seeing her posing in my wedding dress, which I designed and had especially made.”
After seeing her on Facebook, the employer went to look for the clothes and found many items she was posing in missing.
The employer said she belongs to a group for new moms, which also advertises nanny jobs, and that was probably why they were linked on Facebook.
She laid a charge of theft at the Sandton police station and the domestic worker was arrested on Saturday morning when she arrived for work.
“At first she said she had just tried the clothes on, but then under pressure from the police, who were about to take her to Tembisa to recover the clothes, she confessed to the detectives that she, in fact, had stolen the clothes.
“She showed absolutely no sign of remorse, which angered the police, who then threw her in jail for the weekend,” she said.
The woman praised the Sandton police station for their prompt and efficient way in which they handled the case.
In particular, she said, Sergeant Octavia Mgonyama talked her through and advised her every step of the way.
“People always complain about police ineffiency, but they were very professional and continued making follow-up calls the whole weekend,” she said.
Phiri appeared in court yesterday, but the case was dismissed after the employer withdrew the charges and terminated her contract.