Chester Makana

Chester Makana

The day of reckoning is drawing close for the woman accused of stealing a child at Tshilidzini Hospital last month.

Thabelo Portiah Mulaudzi last week appeared in the Thohoyandou magistrate's court after she allegedly kidnapped a newborn baby from the maternity ward in the hospital.

Mulaudzi, 18, was not asked to plead and the case was postponed to November 2, for her to arrange with the Legal Aid Board to represent her. She is out on R1500 bail.

Attorney Jeff Tshiredo, who represented her at her first appearance, has since left legal aid.

State prosecutor Zwodangani Mabodi told Mulaudzi to negotiate for another lawyer.

Sources close to Mulaudzi said she was pregnant.

"It's very funny. I don't know how she would have successfully escaped from the hospital with the baby, and how she was going to handle it.

"At first, we thought she was pretending to be pregnant when she told her relative of her pregnancy. Now it is visible," said the source.