Kidnapping nanny jailed
A NANNY who faked a pregnancy before kidnapping a newborn she was caring for has been jailed for three years in New Zealand.
Nadene Manukau-Togiavalu had been working as a nanny for a family in the upmarket Auckland suburb of Epsom for three days when the family’s 11-day-old girl was taken from their home in August last year.
Yesterday, she was handed a prison sentence in the Auckland District Court after admitting to kidnapping, burglary and other related offences. The court was told that in the months before the snatching, the 21-year-old had told family and friends she was pregnant, even holding a baby shower wearing a fake belly.
After taking a job as a nanny, she convinced her 18year-old cousin, Sydnee Shaunna Toulapapa, that she had given her baby up for adoption and was now trying to get it back. Footage showed Toulapapa entering the home and leaving with the newborn.
The child was found safe later in the day after a search by about 80 police officers.
IT goes without saying that things rarely run smoothly on the Gold Coast, a city that fosters entrepreneurial spirit and also encourages people to speak their mind.
Such has been the history of the Oceanway, an ambitious project that is on course to becoming one of the great pedestrian and cycle paths of the world.
The popularity of the Oceanway, which stretches for much of the distance along the Gold Coast’s beaches, is beyond dispute. The evidence is there to see all day, every day, as locals and visitors in their thousands step out along their favourite stretch of paradise.
But as we say, the path to this wonderful asset has been a bumpy one.
Take Burleigh, where plans to build the Oceanway along the foreshore back in 2002 stirred local elements who staged a fiery public meeting.
And take Tugun, Bilinga and Currumbin, where protests and counter-protests led to physical altercations that did no one any credit. But thankfully common sense has prevailed.
The Tugun-Bilinga Oceanway is going ahead, as the council promised, with $2 million in the city budget to be matched by $2 million from the State Government to fund what has been referred to as a 1.7km “missing link’’.
Back in 2002, amid the controversy at Burleigh, the local councillor at the time – Peter Drake – was spot on when he said: “Six months after this is finished, people won’t be able to remember what it used to be like.
“It’s going to be great for the area and for the community.’’
Indeed it has been.
The same applies at Kirra and Coolangatta, and from Miami to Broadbeach, and from Surfers Paradise north.
The Oceanway is a brilliant asset and with this next stage funded, Division 14 councillor Gail O’Neill – who campaigned to have it built – and the council are to be congratulated.