Kelly Smith, mother of missing girl Joslin Smith, takes notes during the trial on Tuesday.
The Western Cape high court heard on Wednesday that Kelly Smith, the mother of missing child Joslin Smith, told her grade one teacher that the girl had been kidnapped by Nigerians.
According to Tahirih Edna Maart, a teacher at Diazville Primary School in Saldanha, Smith made the allegation on 23 February 2024 at a petrol station, where Maart was filling up her vehicle, when she and two colleagues and passengers were on their way to join a search for the child.
Joslin has been missing since 19 February of that year.
Led by state prosecutor advocate Zelda Swanepoel, Maart testified that while the car was being filled, Smith suddenly opened the back passenger door and climbed in. “I was quite shocked,” said Maart, who had not noticed Smith at the filling station.
Speaking in Afrikaans, Maart said: “What she told me was: ‘Teacher, I want to tell you something confidential.’ I said I was listening. She was talking very softly.
“She said she had received a call from a Nigerian man, who said that she had to ‘play quickly’.
“I asked her how she knew it was a Nigerian man. She didn’t answer. She then said that according to the information she received from the Nigerian man, Joslin was on a boat in a container and that they were on their way to West Africa.
“I asked if she had told the police and she said: ‘Teacher, I am scared because [the community] wants to hurt me.’
“Just before she got out, she said in a very soft voice: ‘Remember, Boeta is not guilty.’ That is where it ended. She got out of the car and vanished.”
“Boeta” is the nickname of accused number one Jacquen Appollis, who is also Smith’s partner. Accused number two is Steveno van Rhyn. All three pleaded not guilty to charges of kidnapping and human trafficking when the trial started last Monday.
Last year, charges were withdrawn against the fourth accused, Lourentia Lombaard — referred to as Rens or Rensie throughout proceedings — who has turned state witness.
The state alleges in its indictment that Smith “communicated during August 2023 her plan to have her children be taken away or sold”.
“The plan was for this to happen in January or February 2024.”
The matter is being heard at the multi-purpose centre in Saldanha Bay.
Maart told the court that she only had Joslin in her class for about a month and had not known her prior to this.
Joslin was “very neat”, she said, and also “very quiet”.
Joslin had not attended school on the day she disappeared, and according to testimony from other witnesses, this was because her school clothes were unwashed and/or she was feeling slightly unwell.
Maart said she did not get a message from Smith about why Joslin was not at school on 19 February 2024 and she did not try to contact Smith.
Smith reported Joslin missing that night, after not seeing her since the morning.
Said Maart: “At about 4.30am on Tuesday 20 February 2024, I got a WhatsApp message on my phone, it came from one of the parents of one of my school pupils.
“It said: ‘Teacher, we are searching for Joslin.’ I didn’t immediately react — I first waited. Then, at about 6am, I contacted that parent, to ask if she was talking about Joslin Smith, and the woman said “yes”.
“At about 6.50am, I called Kelly Smith to tell her I had heard from the parent of a fellow pupil that her daughter was missing. Kelly was crying a lot and she said, ‘Yes Teacher, it is my daughter.’
“I asked her where Joslin was the previous day. She immediately stopped crying and I asked her again: ‘Did you hear me? Where was Joslin yesterday?’ The call went dead and that was the end of the story.”
Asked to clarify how the call had ended, Maart said she did not know if it was cut intentionally or cut out because of a weak signal.
Maart managed to get hold of Smith via phone later that day, she said, and the woman was still “incredibly upset, weeping”.
“And all she could say was she had been to the police station, the matter had been reported and that Joslin was still missing. I didn’t want to bother her with more questions.”
Prior to Maart taking the stand, Smith’s attorney, Rinesh Sivnarain, had cross-examined social worker Siliziwe Mbambo.
On Tuesday, Mbambo at first testified from the case file on the Smith family, compiled by other social workers. Mbambo herself only came into contact with the family six days after Joslin went missing and had worked with them since then.
She told the court on Tuesday that, according to the file, when Smith was pregnant with Joslin in 2016, she had threatened to stab her young son, swore at him and had also threatened to assault her grandmother.
The son was living with Smith’s grandmother and the grandmother had told the social worker at the time that she would be seeking a protection order against Smith.
But she never did. Instead, she moved to the Northern Cape for three months, with Smith’s son, where they stayed with Smith’s biological mother.
Smith’s tik use was also detailed in the file, and how she had sought intervention from the state with this, but relapsed.
“My client says that most of the information in the file that you testified about yesterday is incorrect. Do you have any comments about that?” Sivnarain asked.
“I disagree,” responded Mbambo. “The records were done by previous case managers. If the accused says they are not true, the validation was done by the previous managers.”
“So, you agree that if something was incorrectly recorded, you would not be able to say?” Sivnarain asked. Mbambo agreed.
Sivnarain said Smith also denied that her son was “being abused” and had said he was staying with her grandmother because she was homeless at the time.
The court heard on Tuesday that Smith’s grandmother had thrown her out of the house because of her drug use.
Smith was living at a shelter in 2018, on the advice of two other social workers, because “Joslin’s [biological] father constantly assaulted [Smith] and this continued for a period of six years”, Sivnarain said.
The alleged abuse Smith suffered at the hands of Joslin’s father, Jose Emke, has been mentioned in the trial previously, with another witness this week, Natasha Andrews, saying she had seen bruises on Smith but never enquired about them.
According to the case file, although Smith attended Alcoholics Anonymous meetings at the community hall in her area, she refused to take part in a relapse programme.