Information about British soldiers who are believed to have fathered and abandoned their children while stationed in Kenya will be given to the children involved.
The High Court has issued an unprecedented ruling, demanding the release of the names and addresses of 11 soldiers to children in Kenya they’re suspected of fathering.
There are fears that here could be hundreds more children fathered by British soldiers who were posted in Kenya.
The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) and HM Revenue & Customs will be required to disclose the last known contact details of the men.
An investigation from The Times first uncovered women in Kenya who said they had been in relationships with the soldiers, who left when they were restationed to the UK.
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The children from the relationship were abandoned, with the women forced to raise them on their own. Many of the soldiers involved reportedly got married and had other children, denying any efforts from the mothers of their children to get in contact.
Some of the children in the lawsuit are hoping to have the soldiers named as their legal parents, which could mean they are entitled to British citizenship.
Rob George KC, who represented the children, said DNA evidence showed the fathers were not Kenyan, in an area where the only non-black people were those on the army base.
James Netto, one of the children’s solicitors, added: ‘For too long, men in the British Army have acted with outrageous, brazen impunity — buoyed by the huge power imbalance in their favour, and their misbelief that their actions abroad have no consequences for them when they return home.
‘They have been fathering children and simply abandoning them — leaving the children, and their families, in extraordinarily challenging circumstances in an impoverished part of rural Kenya.
‘As the Ministry of Defence knows all too well, this has been happening for generations.’
In a high-profile ongoing case, the chief suspect in the murder of a Kenyan woman in 2012 is believed to be a British soldier.
The body of Agnes Wanjiru, 21, was found at the Lions Court Hotel in Nanyuki two months after she disappeared in March 2012, which is close to the Batuk (British Army Training Unit Kenya) camp.
According to the Sunday Times, a soldier allegedly confessed to the killing, and another soldier reported it to senior officers at the time, but no action was taken.
Witnesses told the newspaper Ms Wanjiru, a sex worker, was last seen leaving the hotel’s bar with a British soldier.
A post-mortem examination found she died as a result of stab wounds to her chest and abdomen.
An investigation into Ms Wanjiru’s death stalled when a request by Kenyan police in June 2012 to the British Royal Military Police (RMP) that nine soldiers be questioned apparently went missing.
Detectives are said to have asked the RMP to put 13 questions to the soldiers, including whether any of them had sex with Ms Wanjiru on the night she disappeared.
A photo of the victim was included in the request, as well as a request for DNA samples to be taken from the nine men.
The Sunday Times reported the man who allegedly admitted to the killing was not among the nine men.
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