Britain faces £20m payout ‘if Kenya rape claims are proved’

THE British Government is facing a £20 million compensation bill if the alleged rape of hundreds of Kenyan women at the hands of British soldiers is found to be true, it was claimed yesterday.

Some 650 women claim they were raped by soldiers on exercise in Kenya between 1965 and November 2002.

Yesterday they were granted legal aid to sue the Ministry of Defence in the High Court, alleging the Government did nothing to prevent the systemic attacks.

It is claimed the British authorities knew of the rape allegations as early as 1977, but failed to do anything about it.

The case is being brought by solicitor Martyn Day, who expects to get between £20,000 and £30,000 for each alleged victim. He said the number of reported rapes stood at 650, but could rise to as high as 1,000.

“In virtually every instance, we are talking about two, three, four soldiers lying in wait, seeing the women, running after them and group raping them,” he said.

Mr Day, who gave his briefing at the Amnesty International headquarters in central London, told of one reported incident as recently as 1999.

He said a group of Gurkhas went on exercise in central Kenya near a place known as Dol Dol.

The lawyer alleged that a group of 18 men went down to the river where they knew the women took their animals, and group raped six of them.

Amnesty International, who are supporting the mass case, claimed in their report that approximately 40 women gave birth to mixed race children after alleged attacks. Other women said they were attacked when pregnant and claim they lost their babies.

Mr Day said he hoped to settle the case out of court and expected to have gathered and corroborated his final evidence within a year.

He conceded that many of the 650 women had come forward after news of a possible court case became public, and acknowledged that some of them may be motivated by a desire for money.

But he said that the stigma of admitting to being a rape victim was so great in Kenya that the women had a lot to lose by joining the action

“There is no interest in them coming forward and saying they have been raped unless they genuinely have.”

Mr Day said the alleged rapes continued until his solicitors firm, Leigh, Day and Co, contacted the MoD last November. In the eight months since that approach, not one rape has been reported, he said.

“It is the first time in 30 years there have been no rapes,” he said. “Not a single rape in that time, why on earth did that not happen in 1977?”

The lawyer said there was a “systemic failure to exercise that duty or care that we say they owed the community.

“I am absolutely confident we are going to win this case,” he said.