Kenyan family battles for redress after young mother allegedly killed by British soldier

The high-profile extradition of a British soldier implicated in the 2012 killing of a Kenyan woman is finally under way as Robert James Purkiss was arrested and appeared in court on 7 November.

For 13 years, one family has fought to get answers and justice for the murder of Agnes Wanjiru. The case also puts a spotlight on the toxic culture of exploitative relationships, misconduct, abuse and rape that has stained the British Army in Kenya. 

Since 2012, the Wanjiru family pushed the Kenyan and British governments to act and bring the accused to court. 

Purkiss (38), a former army medic, was confirmed to have undergone army training in Nanyuki, 200km north of Nairobi, at the time of Wanjiru’s murder. He was arrested by members of the National Crime Agency’s national extradition unit on 6 November in Wiltshire, southwest England.

Purkiss told the court he intends to contest his extradition to Kenya. 

Wanjiru’s niece, Esther Njoki, who has been the force behind the fight for justice for her aunt, says the news of Purkiss’ arrest came as a surprise, but the family is overjoyed to see movement on the matter.

“We are happy because we didn’t think that this would happen in this short time. Purkiss is the first soldier to face the law in Kenya – it’s something, it’s big,” she told Daily Maverick.

This case unfolds at the same time as legal challenges advance to restore the rights of Kenyans who were fathered by British
soldiers, but abandoned when the men finished their training in Kenya. 

These people have grown up with scant or no de­­tails about their absent fathers, and no support from them. 

They are often stigmatised and bullied for being biracial and “fatherless”, and are also denied the rights of children of
British citizens.

In October, seven people from Kenya won a case at the family court in London proving that they are the children of British men. Six were soldiers based at the British Army Training Unit Kenya (Batuk); the seventh was a contractor.

The landmark case opens a pathway for these people to be eligible for British citizenship, along with suspected countless others.

Since 1963, the former colonial power has had agreements with the Kenyan government to conduct training exercises in the East African country. Batuk was officially set up in 2008.   

Wanjiru was a 21-year-old single mother to a five-month-old daughter when she was killed. The cover-up of the crime meant her body was only discovered more than two months after she was murdered. She was dumped in a hotel septic tank.

On the night of her murder, 31 March 2012, Wanjiru was seen in the company of a British soldier in Nanyuki, the small town where Batuk is based. 

She had been out with two friends on that night. The young women were accepting drinks and partying at a watering hole patronised by the soldiers. The Batuk servicemen were known to spend lavishly on food, drinks and sex with local women.  

Njoki tells Daily Maverick that the friends parted ways in the early hours of the next morning. Wanjiru was last seen alive in the company of an army combat medic as they headed to a local hotel. 

“1 April was no April Fools’ Day for our family when Agnes’s friends came to our house looking for her because she had not returned home with them,” says Njoki, who was eight years old at the time. Her mother, Rose, is the eldest and Agnes was the youngest in the family. 

“Agnes was a fun person. She was like a sister to me because she was still young. I used to hang out with her all the time because my mother was cleaning houses in those days and Agnes was at hairdressing college. So when I came home from school it was Agnes that I would find at home.

“Agnes loved when I danced for her,” Njoki says of her aunt. 

She remembers, too, her mother’s anguish and the despair that overcame the family in the weeks after her aunt went missing. Rose had taken care of Agnes since she was nine, when their mother died, Njoki says. 

Worse news was to come with the discovery of Wanjiru’s body on 5 June that year, then finding out that she had been murdered – stabbed in the chest and abdomen – and her body dumped in a septic tank at the Lion’s Court Hotel.  

No one was brought to justice for her killing. But the heartbroken family, along with civil society groups, kept up the pressure on the Kenyan government to take action. Eventually, in 2018, an inquest into Wanjiru’s death was opened. The following year, the Kenyan authorities concluded that Wanjiru had been killed by one, possibly two, British soldiers.

“Not one of the authorities here in Kenya has ever met with us and come to our house to say sorry or say their condolences,” says Njoki. “I should not be the one fighting for my aunt. The Kenyan government should be helping its citizens – but it is weak.” 

In 2021, the British Sunday Times reported that the soldier implicated in her murder had allegedly confessed to colleagues about the murder and allegedly made jokes about the murder and posted about it on Facebook. It was also reported that senior officers at Batuk were aware of the killing.

That no timely action was taken and the case was swept under the carpet as the British Army closed ranks has continued to enrage Wanjiru’s family. The new details from the newspaper investigation intensified the public outcry over the British government’s lack of accountability and how the  Kenyan government had dragged its feet and bowed to the British by not acting.

According to the BBC, it was only in 2024 that the army announced it would conduct an internal review of the conduct of British soldiers in Kenya. The army homed in on 35 cases involving soldiers engaged in “sexual exploitation and abuse, including transactional sex, with local women – nine of these being after the army officially banned such conduct in 2022”.

In his statement in August this year on the findings of a service inquiry, General Sir Roly Walker, chief of the general staff, said: “There is absolutely no place for sexual exploitation and abuse by people in the British Army… It preys on the vulnerable and benefits those who seek to profit from abuse and exploitation.  The findings of the service inquiry I commissioned conclude that transactional sex is still happening in Kenya at a low to moderate level. 

“It should not be happening at all.”

It was only in September that the High Court in Nairobi named Purkiss as the suspect and ordered a warrant for his arrest. 

The extradition of Purkiss, if successful, will be the first time a British citizen is extradited to Kenya to stand trial. 

At 21 years old, Njoki is the same age her aunt was when she was murdered. 

She has taken the fight to the highest British authorities and taken advantage of the Labour Party being in government since June 2024. 

In 2021, Njoki was able to connect with John Healey, who is now secretary of state for defence, and MP Jess Phillips to push them to act. 

Phillips is still the Labour MP for Birmingham Yardley and now also undersecretary of state for safeguarding and violence against women and girls. When she first met Njoki, she helped to raise £7,213 (about R148,000 at the time) through crowdfunding for the family. 

The money allowed Njoki to travel to the UK in October. She met with Phillips and Healey again and had several press engagements too. She says she wants the British people “to know what their soldiers are doing in Kenya”. 

Njoki says she’s fighting to change a system that failed her aunt and others. She is raising the alarm about the unchecked conduct of British soldiers in Kenya and the culture of impunity that allows them to commit crimes that continue to plague the town she grew up in. 

“Even now those soldiers are soliciting sex – it hasn’t stopped, because they feel entitled. And when they commit crimes no action is taken by our Kenyan government either,” says Njoki, a communications student who now lives in Nairobi. 

“Women are harassed and exploited and they cannot identify these men because they do not carry their identification cards. A soldier’s role is to protect people, but these British soldiers are taking advantage of the vulnerable.”  

For Njoki, the fight is especially important for her mother, who feels that she failed her baby sister and 14-year-old niece, Wanjiru’s daughter, whose life swirls with traumatic unanswered questions. The family want rightful punishment for the murderer. They also want compensation so that the child’s future can be secured.

“My cousin doesn’t ask too much about her mother. She was only five months old. But mentally she is going through a lot. 

“She is at an age now when she can read and watch and understand these things. I want her to understand that this thing happened with her mom – there’s nothing that we can do about that. 

“But she must see that we have tried our best as a family for justice to be served and we will fight to keep her mom’s memory alive,” Njoki says. 

Both a criminal case and a constitutional case are in process, and the Kenyan court
is now insisting on a monthly update on
the matter. 

“Usually they don’t tell you what is happening, so at least we are happy that the judge has asked for a monthly mention. When we go there to court, they must be ashamed if [prosecutors] have come without anything,” she says. 

A British government spokesperson responded to Daily Maverick’s questions through the British High Commission in Kenya, saying on the matter of Purkiss’ extradition that it is “subject to ongoing legal proceedings, and we will not comment further at this stage”.

The spokesperson did say that British authorities are in regular contact with the Wanjiru family and that they remain
“absolutely committed to helping them [the family] secure justice”.

On the actions taken against soldiers who break the law, the spokesperson says: “All those who are found to have committed an offence … are dealt with through the disciplinary process. 

“If soldiers are found to have had sexual relations with prostitutes, the Kenya police have jurisdiction to deal with
the offence and the army will pursue disciplinary and administrative action against them.”

But Njoki says words must translate into action and laws that stay in effect beyond the whims of whichever party is in government. 

She adds: “It has to be about laws that serve justice to the victims, not about whether it is Conservatives or Labour being in
power. 

“Only then will we be able to start changing the system. Only then can we start correcting all these mistakes that were done before.” DM