Accused-turned-State witness Lorentia Lombaard set to explain alleged plan to sell Joshlin Smith

13 Mar 2025

Before she turned State witness, Lorentia Lombaard was charged with the kidnapping and human trafficking of Joshlin Smith. Her evidence is crucial to the prosecution’s case and on Friday, she’s expected to explain the alleged plan to sell the girl.

Drugs brought Lorentia Lombaard and Racquel Smith together, also known as Kelly, and her boyfriend Jacquen “Boeta” Appollis. Steveno van Rhyn had worked at Lombaard’s boyfriend’s carwash. The four were all accused of Joshlin Smith’s disappearance, but Lombaard has decided to spill the beans.

In the Western Cape High Court, sitting in the Saldanha Bay Multipurpose Centre, on Thursday, 12 March, Lombaard was about to start telling the court what was allegedly planned on 18 February 2024, a day before Joshlin’s disappearance, when court proceedings adjourned until Friday.

This came after Judge Nathan Erasmus was unhappy with the flow of questions the State put to Lombaard. He requested that more structured questions were prepared to make them easier for the State witness to answer.

Lombaard has already made a confession, which will be revealed once she steps back into the witness box and details how they allegedly conspired and planned to sell Joshlin, including the amount that was allegedly paid to them from the person(s) who allegedly bought the child. Lombaard has said she was part of the alleged plot and her testimony will be crucial to the State’s case.

Her confession came after she abandoned her bail application in the Vredenburg Magistrates’ Court in March 2024.

Smith, Appollis and Van Rhyn have been warned by the presiding judge that they face life imprisonment if they are convicted of trafficking in persons for the purpose of exploitation.

The trio has pleaded not guilty. The State contends that the accused “sold, delivered or exchanged” Joshlin.

Joshlin went missing from the Middelpos informal settlement on 19 February 2024. She was six years old at the time.

Smith has claimed she went to work that day and left Joshlin with Appollis, and that Joshlin was missing when she returned.

Before Lombaard began her testimony as a section 204 witness, Erasmus informed Lombaard that the court’s decision to award her indemnity from prosecution would be based on the honesty of her evidence.

Who is Lorentia Lombaard?

On Thursday, the court heard that Lombaard is from Wolseley in the Western Cape and has four children. Two live with her while the other two are with their father in the Eastern Cape.

“Due to circumstances, I relocated to my brother’s home in the Marikana informal community in Saldanha in 2017. I also met my boyfriend, Ayanda, and moved in with him at the Tsitsiratsitsi informal settlement in Middelpos. We have two children, aged two and three years old,” she said when her testimony began on Thursday.

Read more: Community hurls insults at Joshlin Smith’s mother in court visit to family shack

Drugs brought them together

The prosecution requested that Lombaard explain in detail how and where she met the accused. It became apparent from her testimony that drugs were the glue that bound them.

Lombard said she had known Appollis, also known as Boeta, and Smith for a year, and Van Rhyn for about eight months.

“I came to know Steveno because he helped my boyfriend, Ayanda, at his carwash. He only worked a day or two with Ayanda or whenever he needed money,” she told the court.

When Lombaard described her acquaintance with Boeta, the drug factor became apparent.

“Ayanda was a drug dealer and we were selling drugs. I was the one who helped Ayanda sell drugs. Boeta came to buy drugs from us and that is how I learnt to know him. Boeta and I even went together to Gums, another drug dealer, to go and buy drugs together and smoked together.”

Her friendship with Smith is alleged to have grown in the same way.

“Kelly and I also went together to buy drugs at Gums and smoked together; that’s how I came to know her. That is how I became friends with Boeta and Kelly. I did not really sit in the company of Steveno,” she told the court.

Asked to elaborate on their friendship and how they interacted, Lombaard said: “If I would buy myself tik [crystal methamphetamine] and did not have a lollie, then I went to Kelly’s house. After she asked if she can borrow me a lollie to smoke. After she gave it to me, I smoked with her and sometimes also gave it to Boeta. That is how we became friends with them and learnt to know them.”

Read more: Family history of abuse, addiction and neglect laid bare in Joshlin Smith trial

Asked by the prosecution if this was something that happened regularly, that Lombaard would go to Smith’s house and smoke there, she replied in the affirmative.

This is also obvious in the trio’s plea reasons, which reveal that on the day Joshlin went missing, they admitted to using drugs.

The prosecution asked Lombaard if they would also go to her house. She replied “yes”, adding that Ayanda was quite strict and would not allow them to smoke in their home.

“But when I got my own tik and lollie,” she said, “I smoked inside our house, and Ayanda didn’t mind because he knew I would smoke inside our house.”

According to Lombaard, her boyfriend stopped selling drugs in late 2023. From then on, she purchased her drugs from Gums.

On the events of Sunday, 18 February 2024, the day before Joshlin went missing, she said: “Sunday morning, I got up, cleaned the house and made food… Ayanda was at his carwash. I took the food to him and came back home.

“There was no food for my kids, only for Ayanda. I then went over to Kelly’s home, taking the children with me. I also noticed that a detective bakkie was standing on the other side of the canal. I walked past the back of Ayanda’s house and passed the ‘rock’ [tik] to Kelly’s house,” she told the court.

Lombaard will continue her testimony on Friday, 14 March 2025. DM

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Who is Lorentia Lombaard?

Drugs brought them together