There were emotional scenes at court when a man accused of kidnapping and assaulting his unborn child’s mother abandoned his bail application yesterday.
It’s alleged that Godwin Capes got two friends to assault Kayla Visser, 20, so that she could lose their child.
“Thank you, Lord!” shouted Helen Kariem, Kayla’s grootmaakma before bursting into tears as Capes was led back to the cells at Worcester Magistrates’ Court.
Capes, 24, faces charges of attempted murder and kidnapping in connection with the attack on August 25, when Kayla, who is four months pregnant with his child, was kidnapped, beaten and left for dead.
The unborn baby survived the assault.
According to Kayla’s granny Yvonne Joseph, 59, the young woman left home at about 9.30pm last Thursday.
Hours later her mom Christeline Fielies, 42, who had been frantically searching for Kayla, received a call to say her daughter was at Worcester Hospital.
Christeline says her daughter later told her how she and Capes, who is engaged to another woman, argued because he wanted her to have an abortion and she refused.
He allegedly drove off with her to a deserted spot in Worcester where two men, wearing balaclavas, dragged her out of the car.
“They choked her till she was unconscious. When she woke up she was in the boot with her hands tied and a cloth in her mouth, they were busy driving,” says Christeline.
They stopped near Robertson where Kayla was dragged into bushes where her attackers continued beating her.
“She says she told them she knew Godwin was involved,” says Christeline.
Kayla pretended to be dead so her attackers would stop beating her.
“When she woke up, she crawled towards a light in the distance. The farmer who helped her said if his horse hadn’t given birth, nobody would have been there,” says a shaken Christeline.
ACCUSED: Godwin Capes, 24
Capes later smashed his car into a vibracrete wall in Worcester and allegedly told people on the scene he had been hijacked.
Police allegedly found Kayla’s earring and a pole in the car.
More than 600 people have signed a petition to ask that Capes’ bail application be denied.
But he opted not to apply for bail and will remain behind bars until his next appearance at the end of September.
The other two suspects are still at large.