Photo: Getty Images
Accused: A seamstress, 50, today told a court in Cape Town how she bought a baby from a woman called 'Sylvia' for £50 - and was handed the baby at a train station
''I bought her for £50 from woman at train station"
Seamstress tells South African court she did not abduct 3-day-old, 18 years ago from her hospital cot
Any one buying this fantasy tale, from this child abductor seamstress, in the least?
... Continue, to read the unfolding drama
'Baby Zephany Nurse, snatched from maternity ward in 1997 ''I bought her for £50 from woman at train station"
Seamstress tells South African court she did not abduct 3-day-old, 18 years ago from her hospital cot
Any one buying this fantasy tale, from this child abductor seamstress, in the least?
... Continue, to read the unfolding drama
...Seamstress, 50, arrested last year after enrolling child, in a school
Celeste and Morne Nurse, the parents of a similar-looking girl at the school,became suspicious, and alerted police
accused of abduction and raising girl as own daughter'
A seamstress accused of snatching a baby from a maternity ward in South Africa nearly 18 years ago told a court today she bought her for £50 from a mystery woman at a train station.
The 50-year-old is accused of abducting three-day-old Zephany Nurse, known as South Africa’s Madeleine McCann, from her hospital cot.
She told the court in Cape Town she hid a miscarriage from her husband and turned to a mystery woman called 'Sylvia' who promised to provide her with fertility pills or help her adopt.
She told Western Cape High Court: 'The woman told me about a young girl who was interested in putting her baby for adoption. I said we could talk about it.'
She said she arranged to meet the woman at the station in a suburb of Cape Town a few days later but another woman arrived and gave her a baby.
She went on: 'Suddenly this lady approached me with a baby in her hands. She asked me if I was waiting for Sylvia, I said "yes".
'She said "Sylvia told me to give you this baby and go to Retreat Hospital and phone her from there". So I put the baby in my arms and went to the hospital.'
Photo: AFP
Celeste Nurse. Mother of snatched baby, arriving in court
She said she phoned Sylvia, who told her the baby had been put up for adoption by a mother who didn't want her. Sylvia said she would send the adoption papers, she told the court.
'Something felt so wrong. I didn't have any adoption papers or anything,' the woman said.
Justice: Earlier the baby's real mother Celeste Nurse broke down as she described the day her daughter was taken by a woman 'dressed as a nurse' as she recovered from a C-section
Found: Zephany's biological father Morne (pictured with his new partner) was in court to hear his daughter's alleged kidnapper give her account of how she came to raise his child
But despite her reservations, she phoned her family who took her home.
'I didn't tell anyone about the miscarriage, I was so devastated,' she went on.
'I felt confident that I would fall pregnant again because Sylvia was going to help me with the fertility pills. I didn't know where the baby was born, or who the baby's mother was.
'I was looking at the baby and I thought, "the mother doesn't want this baby, I am going to take the baby until the adoption papers are through". I didn't know the baby was kidnapped.'
Asked why never told Zephany or her husband the truth, she replied: 'The three of us became so close to each other, and I was so close to telling her.
'I was planning to tell her when she finished school.'
The woman cannot be named as it would identify Zephany.
She admitted the first few years were difficult for the family and that she had not 'easily' bonded with her new daughter.
'I initially struggled to be close to her. I remember Zephany questioning my love for her... It took me years to accept her as my own daughter.
'Although I was not her biological mother I raised her as my own child.
'I had felt uneasy due to the lack of paperwork, however as no one wanted her returned, and because the parents did not want to keep her, I accepted her as my daughter.'
Baby Zephany was three days old when she was snatched from her cot in the maternity ward of Groote Schuur Hospital by a ‘woman dressed as a nurse’.
Earlier her real mother Celeste Nurse, 37, broke down as she told the court how the baby was taken as she recovered from a C-section.
Horror: Zephany was just three days old when a woman walked into the room at Groote Schuur Hospital and took her from her maternity cot - not to be seen again by her family for many years
Appeals: The family has worked hard to make sure people don't forget about their missing daughter over the years, including a big appeal in 2010 in the local newspaper the Cape Argus, but no one ever come forward
Celeste and her estranged husband Morne Nurse did not see their daughter again for 18 years after she was taken even though she was living just a mile away.
At an earlier hearing Mr Nurse described the extraordinary coincidence last year which had led the couple to realize that the girl, who was by then 18, was their abducted daughter.
By chance she ended up at the same school as their younger daughter, Cassidy, and the girls became friends.
He told the court how he noted how the girl resembled him and his other children and was approximately the same age as his missing daughter - and launched his own investigation into her true identity.
He arranged to meet her in McDonald's and, through his own detective work, learned the truth.
Denial: The woman broke down as she told how detectives searched her home in February last year. She was later arrested and had to give a DNA sample
Baby: Zephany Nurse was snatched from her hospital cot in the maternity ward in Cape Town in 1997 and spent the next 18 years being brought up by another family
The defendant told the court how the family had lived happily with their daughter for almost 20 years.
That happiness was brought to an abrupt halt in February last year when detectives searched their home, took DNA samples and she was arrested.
She told the court: 'I was calm until they said that she couldn't stay with me in the house any more.
'I just burst into tears. I asked them, "can I just see her again, and they just said no". That was the last time I saw her.'
When asked why she hadn't made greater efforts to track down adoption papers, the defendant said she had lost Sylvia's number.
'I wanted the biological mother's details to tell the child who her mother was one day,' she said.
'I tried. I didn't go out to look for her because I didn't know where the child was born or where the mother was from.'
Precious: The family only have a few photos of Zephany taken before she was snatched. Here she is with her uncle Abraham Nurse in Hospital on April 29, 1997
Reunited: The couple, who have since separated, were reunited with their daughter after almost two decades. The girl who was snatched was given a new name and neither she nor the defendant can be identified
No comments:
Post a Comment