THE Bona Terra Café in Hillcrest have distanced themselves from claims of an attempted kidnapping occurring on their premises. This comes after a parent took to a Facebook group about how her son was allegedly almost kidnapped in the café.

In the post, the parent claims that she was with her family on Saturday afternoon when a woman approached her two-year-old son who was standing a few metres away from their table. “An unknown woman approached him from behind, put her hands over his eyes and picked him up. She did not make eye contact with him as she was behind him. Fortunately for my son, this was all happening in front of us. I jumped up and grabbed him from her clutches. She resisted at first but then let go of him. I yelled at her, and all she could say was sorry,” read the post. 

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She further claimed that she approached the woman on her way to look for the manager. “I stopped and asked her what her motive was – again she just said sorry and cried. One of the patrons that was at the table started screaming at me and called for the waiter to remove me from the cafe.”

The parent said the café refused to call the police and pretended like the incident didn’t happen and told her she was confused. 

Bona Terra management team responded in a statement saying the allegations are completely false and have been distorted beyond recognition. “The person who placed their hand over the child’s eyes was a childminder who works for a celebrity and was part of a group that had been playing with the children [of the group] for some time before this incident occurred. Our staff were aware of this and knew that the childminder was with the celebrity group.

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“Unfortunately, the customer who made these false allegations immediately started screaming and making a scene without listening to the facts. It was only after someone from her table noticed that the supposed kidnapper was sitting with other customers that the misunderstanding was cleared up. The other customers even apologised to the complainant three times for the misunderstanding,” they stated. 

They further urged the complainant to issue a complete apology to all parties on all platforms to resolve this matter amicably, by the close of business (COB) on Wednesday, March,29. 

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