A South African woman has been found
guilty of stealing a newborn baby from her mother as she slept in hospital
nearly 19 years ago before raising the child as her own.
- Disappearance
Three-day-old Zephany Nurse was
snatched from her mother's hospital bedside in April 1997.
The child's mother told authorities
she saw a woman dressed in a nurse's uniform holding her baby before the child
disappeared.
A nationwide search failed to find
the infant.
Prosecutors said the woman also
defrauded authorities when she registered the child as her own daughter in
2003, also changing her date of birth.
- Reunited
It was a remarkable coincidence that
brought the Nurse family together again.
Zephany's younger sister started at
the same school and classmates noticed a striking resemblance between the two
girls, who had become friends.
A police investigation and a DNA
test revealed that the two friends were actually sisters.
Zephany’s biological parents,
Celeste and Morne Nurse, were reunited with their daughter for the first time
since the abduction last year.
- Court Case
The woman - who is now 50 and can't
be named for legal reasons - faced charges of kidnapping, fraud and breaking
South Africa's child protection laws.
The woman told the court she had
adopted the baby after struggling with infertility and was not aware the child
was kidnapped, but was unable to produce any official paperwork.
But prosecutors said that the woman
snatched the baby and tricked her husband into thinking Zephany was his
biological daughter after suffering a miscarriage.
Judge John Hlophe said:
"You lied to him for almost two
decades, made him believe he was the biological father.
You didn’t tell the father of the
child that you had had a miscarriage. You made him believe you were still
pregnant."
But in finding her guilty, judge
John Hlophe dismissed the woman's defence as a "fairy tale", adding
that "one doesn't have to be a rocket scientist to know you don't buy
babies".
- Family 'over the moon' at the return of their daughter
After giving evidence to the Cape
Town court, Mr Nurse expressed how happy he was to have his daughter back.
"We're over the moon. My
daughter is back and we just have to work our way, feel our way and just be
happy," he said.
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