Woman who raised child as her own pleads not guilty to kidnap

A South African woman has pleaded not guilty to charges that she kidnapped a baby from a hospital in 1997 and raised the child as her own.

The woman faces 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.

She said she was not aware the child was kidnapped, and that the person who facilitated the adoption told her a young woman had given the child up.

The Nurse family, the child’s biological parents, found their kidnapped daughter last year after their second daughter befriended a girl at school who looked remarkably like her.

After a police investigation and DNA tests, the new friend turned out to be their missing child. The alleged kidnapper was arrested and released on bail last March.

The girl (18) is known publicly by her birth name Zephany. The name was given to her by her alleged kidnapper. A judge ordered that neither the woman nor the girl may be identified.

State prosecutors say the woman (50) allegedly snatched a three-day-old baby from her sleeping mother’s hospital bedside in 1997. The prosecution also says the woman allegedly defrauded authorities when she registered the child as her own daughter in 2003, changing her birth date.

Celeste Nurse, Zephany’s biological mother, broke down in court as she recalled the day in 1997 that her daughter went missing.

Semi-conscious after a morphine drip, she thought a nurse had picked up her crying baby. When she woke up her baby was gone.

PA