A South African court has jailed a woman for 10 years for kidnapping a baby from her hospital bed 19 years ago and raising her as her own, BBC reports.
The 51-year-old woman was arrested in 2015 after people noticed an uncanny resemblance between the girl, Zephany Nurse, and another girl at school.
DNA tests carried out by police then proved that the two girls were sisters.
Judge John Hlophe, while pronouncing the judgement on Monday, August 15, 2016, told the defendant she had “betrayed” Zephany by her actions.
The convicted woman’s name is not being released to protect the identity of the victim, who has asked for her privacy to be respected.
The judge told the woman she had had “all the time in the world” to return the child but had chosen not to.
Annual local media coverage of the parents’ birthday celebrations for their missing baby daughter meant that there was no way the defendant could not have known they were still looking for her, he said.
He also said her decision to plead not guilty and portray herself as a victim in the affair counted against her.
Local media have previously reported that Zephany does not wish to have a relationship with her birth parents and considers the woman who kidnapped her as her mother.
Outside the court, Zephany’s biological grandmother Marilyn said she was not happy with the length of the sentence, but hoped that the family would now have a chance to bond and form a relationship with Zephany.
