Aly Verbaan
MORNé and Celeste Nurse have employed attorney Heidi van der Meulen as their family spokeswoman to help them cope with the amount of information they are being asked for and the media attention.
Van der Meulen said Zephany was under “enormous pressure”, but that she was meeting with her biological family regularly, and was due to spend the entire day with them today.
“She is still in the care of three social workers and it is far too soon to say whether she will move in with her biological family.”
The story of teenager Zephany Nurse made international headlines after it was discovered through DNA testing that she was abducted at birth and is in fact the first-born child of Morné and Celeste. But the hype has alarmed social welfare officials, who are concerned about Zephany’s psychological well-being.
A world-renowned child justice expert arrived in Cape Town yesterday to assist Zephany amid fears for her well-being. Pretoria-based Ann Skelton, former head of the UN Child Justice Project, confirmed she would meet Zephany this week.
The woman accused of abducting Zephany returns to court on Friday.
Zephany would like to get to know her biological family, but remains close to the woman she has called “mom” all her life. She is friends with her biological sister, who attends the same school, but is in shock to find that they are sisters.
Provincial
Justice Department head Hishaam Mohamed has been in contact with Morné and Celeste, but said in the interests of Zephany “it would not be fair to speculate on what she would ultimately like to do”.
l A typing error resulted in Monday’s story stating that Zephany was born in 1977. She was in fact born in 1997.