Missing East London boy found

2011-01-25 21:36

Johannesburg - A five-year-old East London child who was reported missing by his father on Monday was in his mother's custody and had not been abducted, Eastern Cape police said.

"[We] received information from Idutywa police that the people who took the child from the pre-school were police from their side," Lieutenant-Colonel Mtati Tana said in a statement on Tuesday.

Tana said the boy's father, Masamba Godwini, did not actually have legal custody of the child as he had earlier stated.

"They were acting on instructions from the mother of the child as the child was stolen from her by Mr Godwini," he said.

Godwini opened the case on Monday after he apparently received a message from the head of the Caring Hands Educare Pre-School in Belgravia Crescent that his child had been abducted.

He had pointed out the child's mother as a possible suspect, saying he was the legal custodian of the boy, Tana said.

The boy was returned to his mother on Monday.

- SAPA