Lovers in blood-switch case

CONSPIRACY ALLEGATIONS: Lawyer Willem Opperman, left, talks to his clients Ester Fanoe and Raymond Kumm. Picture: MASI LOSI

Former boyfriend wanted to avoid paying for his son, court told

By THANDUXOLO JIKA

Court Reporter

A LOCAL woman yesterday told an East London court that her ex-lover and his new girlfriend switched blood samples taken for a paternity test so that the man could avoid paying her maintenance for their child.

The woman was testifying in the Regional Court fraud trial of her ex-lover Raymond Kumm and his lover Ester Fanoe, who allegedly swapped Kumm’s blood sample with hers in 2001 before handing it in at a pathology laboratory in the city.

“He ... refused to pay maintenance saying he was not the father of the child. (But) I knew he was the father of my child,” she told the court.

She said a previous paternity test – five months earlier – had shown that Kumm was the child’s father

She told the court that during a second paternity test, where she was present, Fanoe told doctors that she had been given a court order to courier the blood samples.

“They (Fanoe and Kumm) were dating each other at the time. I thought that there was something wrong,” she said.

When she phoned the doctors for the result of the second test, they told her it was negative.

“The doctors told me that it was highly unlikely that paternity results (could be returned as) negative while they had been positive five months earlier.”

She said between 1993 and 1999 Kumm paid maintenance but stopped in 2000 after claiming the child was not his.

The state alleges that Fanoe “unlawfully, falsely and with intent to defraud” gave out and pretended that her blood sample was Kumm’s.

The mother said she laid fraud charges against the two accused after the result of the second paternity test came back negative.

“The accused (Kumm) was the father of (the child) and was by virtue thereof legally obliged to provide maintenance. The blood submitted for analysis to Dr Du Buisson and partners was not drawn from accused two (Kumm), but was actually donated by accused number one (Fanoe),” alleged the state in papers before court.

The state further claimed the two accused’s intentions were to conceal the true paternity of the child, creating an opportunity for Kumm to waiver his maintenance obligations.

In court yesterday the two accused frowned and shook their heads, disagreeing with the mother’s testimony.

The trial continues today.