18 years ago a woman walked out of Groote Schuur Hospital with a baby that wasn’t hers. Last year February, after noting an uncanny resemblance, the family reported the girl to authorities and Zephany Nurse was reunited with her biological parents when DNA tests came back positive.

Testifying at the trial which is currently taking place at the Western Cape High Court, the man who believed he was Zephany’s father for almost 20 years has revealed that he is a broken man:

I’m devastated, I’m broken, I’m shocked.

He insisted that the accused never told him about her miscarriage or the kidnapping and believed that the child looked like them – sharing his wife’s large forehead and his lighter complexion. He first found out the child wasn’t his last year February when the accused was arrested. Discussing the lead up to the birth he said:

I could see her body was changing. Her stomach changed. We bought stuff for the child.

He would never have known the truth if Zephany’s younger sister didn’t recognise her at school.

The accused testified that she had spoken to a woman named Sylvia and arranged to meet her at the Wynberg train station on 30 April 1997 to get fertility pills, but Sylvia failed to show up and instead a stranger arrived with a newborn baby. She was then told to go to Retreat hospital and call Sylvia from there. She did not tell her family about the adoption.

[source: iol]