The North Gauteng High Court in Pretoria has granted Zephany Nurse, who was kidnapped from a Cape Town hospital when she was a newborn in 1997, the right to reveal her identity.
Zephany was just three days old when she was snatched from her mother's hospital bedside on April 30, 1997. The infant had been born via caesarean section to Morne and Celeste Nurse on April 28.
The Nurse's 17 year search for their missing daughter finally ended in 2015 when their younger biological daughter started high school at the same school as Zephany. Classmates remarked on the sisters' striking resemblance and when the younger sister told her father, he contacted the Directorate for Priority Crime Investigation (Hawks). DNA tests revealed that Zephany, who was in matric at the time, was indeed the missing child.
The Lavender Hill woman who raised her was arrested and in 2016 was sentenced to an effective ten years behind bars. The woman's identity could not be revealed to protect the identity that she had given Zephany.
Her story caused a media frenzy when she was reunited with her biological parents but as she was still under 18 at the time, the court ordered that the identity given to her by her abductor, be protected.
But, In an affidavit filed at the Pretoria High Court on Tuesday she said that her position had changed and was "fundamentally different" to what it had been when the original order had been made.
She was successul in her bid to have the ban lifted and intends publishing a book detailing her life story. The book is due to be published soon.
In an affidavit, Zephany said she agreed to have her story published after careful consideration.
- African News Agency (ANA)
