Cape Town – Western Cape High Court Judge President John Hlophe said: “She lied, I listened to her lies for days” as he heard final arguments in the case against a woman accused of kidnapping baby Zephany Nurse almost two decades ago.
The Lavender Hill 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.
Read the plea explanation here
Also read: #ZephanyNurse accused tells her story
But Judge Hlophe has clearly not been convinced by her claims that she was given the newborn baby at the Wynberg train station on April 30, 1997, saying: “She bought the baby for R3 000, that story makes absolutely no sense.”
He said there was no evidence that Celeste and Morne Nurse authorised anyone to take their child.
“Who on earth would buy a baby for R3 000 from an unknown person?”
He further said that the accused lied about the “adoption”. “She is not the biological mother. The evidence is clear, the child was not legally adopted.”
Defence lawyer Reaz Khan told the court it could not rely on the identification made by State witness Shireen Piet at an ID parade in February last year.
Piet had been in the maternity ward at Groote Shuur hospital in April 1997 where she, too, had given birth to a baby girl.
Also read: #ZephanyNurse accused says sorry
She earlier testified that the accused visited her on several occasions on April 29 and April 30 and had tried to snatch her child, but Piet had seen her and stopped this from happening.
At the time, she helped police draw up an identikit of the woman who had tried to snatch her baby.
Fast forward almost eighteen years, and in an incredible twist of fate, Zephany Nurse’s biological sister started high school at the same school as her.
When classmates remarked on their resemblance, the younger sister told her parents and father Morne Nurse began his own investigations.
Taking a photograph off Facebook, he sent a picture of the accused to Piet who positively identified her as the woman who tried to abduct her baby.
Read: #ZephanyNurse: Media rips skin off my face
Also read: A heart-to-heart with Zephany’s dad
Nurse then contacted the Directorate for Priority Crime Investigation (Hawks), and Piet was called to an ID parade where she again identified the accused.
But Khan argued that Piet was an unreliable witness and in video footage of the ID parade was unsure and took a long time in the identification.
He said she had been shown a photograph of the accused by both Nurse and the investigating officer.
But Judge Hlophe shot down his arguments: “The court doesn’t analyse evidence on a piecemeal basis. She told the police that the girl was her biological child. Why didn’t she tell the police she had adopted the child? The evidence is overwhelming. It points in one direction, at the accused.”
Khan had also argued that Piet’s evidence that the accused had appeared very pregnant during her visits was also inaccurate, but Hlophe said: “If her own husband believed she was pregnant, what would stop any reasonable person from believing the same thing.”
Khan argued that there was only circumstantial evidence and no direct evidence against the accused on the count of fraud.
The fraud charge relates to an application for the child’s birth certificate in 2003, in time to enroll her in primary school.
State prosecutor Evadne Kortje argued that Piet had been a material witness in the case and that her identification of the accused was reliable. “She had two days to observe her. Mrs Piet gave descriptions of her prominent features. She was careful in her identification. A person who sees someone face to face after seventeen years has to be sure.”
Kortje further argued that the accused did not disclose the “adoption” to police, but rather “distorted the truth as is her nature”.
“The fact that she didn’t come clean in seventeen years is indicative of the fact that she is the taker, the kidnapper.”
The accused, earlier in the trial, admitted to deceiving her husband and family into believing she was still pregnant after her December 1996 miscarriage.
Kortje argued that she kidnapped the baby in April 1997 as it had to coincide with that deception. “Why the haste in finding a baby – in April 1997. It had to coincide with the deception of her partner and the family.”
Judge Hlophe said he found it “astonishing” that a woman who miscarried four-and-a-half months ago could keep on growing as was her husband’s evidence.
The prosecutor said in this case “science was her downfall”, as DNA tests confirmed the child was not her own.
The accused had testified during the trial that she had met a woman called Sylvia at the Tygerberg hospital where she was receiving treatment for a miscarriage in December 1996.
Sylvia offered to help her with fertility treatment or an adoption process at a cost of R3 000. She paid an R800 deposit, and was given fertility tablets but when that didn’t work, she opted for adoption.
She claimed that she arranged to meet Sylvia at the Wynberg train station on April 30, 1997, but was instead met by a stranger who handed her the newborn Zephany Nurse and told her to go to Retreat hospital and phone Sylvia from there.
Hlophe is expected to deliver judgement at 10am on Thursday.
African News Agency