Disgraced Dr Nandipha Magudumana has been dealt another blow after the High Court in Bloemfontein dismissed her application to appeal her bail ruling by Magistrate Estelle de Lange last month. Magudumana and 10 others are accused of aiding convicted murderer and rapist Thabo Bester in escaping from Mangaung Correctional Centre last year.

In September, Magudumana was denied bail by the Bloemfontein Magistrates Court saying she was a flight risk. Handing down her judgment, Magistrate De Lange said the married doctor who aided her rapist lover to escape from prison was a definite flight risk." No bail condition will guarantee that the accused will stand trial as she was previously able to leave South Africa and cross three borders without a passport. She will easily intimidate her co-accused in the matter as they have a strong relationship." De Lange said then. The court said she was the main role player in Bester's escape, therefore releasing her could be giving her means to plan other ways to free her notorious lover.

In one of her other attempts at freedom, Magudumana filed an application to declare her arrest and deportation from Tanzania wrongful and unlawful. However, in June Magudumana once again failed to be released from prison after the Bloemfontein High Court dismissed her application. Magudumana is facing multiple charges of fraud, violating a body, corruption, arson, assisting an inmate to escape, harbouring and concealing an escaped prisoner and defeating the ends of justice. The Thabo Bester prison escape matter has been transferred to the Bloemfontein High Court for a pre-trial conference in February next year.