Agnes Wanjiru went missing 14 years ago. Two months later, her body was pulled from a septic tank. Now, Robert James Purkiss could become the first British soldier in history to face trial abroad for the killing of a civilian. Agnes’s niece, Esther Njoki, says the case goes far beyond one unresolved murder, spotlighting an arrangement that has ensured British military presence in Kenya since independence and shielded British soldiers from the reach of Kenyan law.
Growing up in Nanyuki, a garrison town in Kenya’s central highlands, Esther Njoki knew the British soldiers the way everyone did — by their nickname.
They were called Johnnies.
Esther doesn’t know exactly where the name came from — only that it refers specifically to them, not the other white faces passing through. “Just them,” confirms the 21-year-old, sitting on a couch in her small family home.
“They come with money, and people here worship them for it,” she says. “If you are seen with one — dating one — you are seen as elevated. Lucky, even.”
In this vibrant market town in Laikipia County, northwest of Mount Kenya and straddling the equator, the presence of British soldiers is not unusual — it is part of the landscape. The town itself was shaped by colonial power, when British settlers seized Maasai land in the early 1900s and imposed a racially segregated order — a legacy that still echoes in the vast white-owned ranches and wildlife reserves dominating the area today.
After Kenya gained independence in 1963, the UK formalised its continued military presence through the British Army Training Unit Kenya (BATUK), anchoring a relationship now spanning more than six decades. Rooted in a 1964 defence agreement signed just months after independence, the BATUK arrangement established a British training team in Kenya to assist in training and developing Kenya’s armed forces. BATUK kept Kenya politically and militarily aligned with its former colonial ruler while embedding a transnational military operation at the heart of Nanyuki.
Against this backdrop, the sight of uniformed European troops — like the tourists passing through nearby wildlife reserves — feels almost routine, an extension of Nanyuki’s long history of white power tied to land and wealth.
But that sense of normalcy does not always hold. At times, it fractures — exposing the violence beneath it. For Esther, the rupture came when she was eight years old.
Esther Njoki holds her favourite photograph of her aunt Agnes Wanjiru outside her family’s home in Nanyuki. Photo by Jaclynn Ashly.
Her beloved aunt, Agnes Wanjiru, had gone out with British soldiers in 2012 and never returned. She was 21 and the mother of a five-month-old baby. Two months later, her body was pulled from a septic tank at a local hotel. A Kenyan inquest later found she had been killed by one or more British soldiers.
Years passed with no charges—extending a long pattern of impunity for British soldiers, reinforced by the UK’s invocation of “sovereign immunity” and jurisdictional loopholes that placed them solely under British military law.
“Now I understand the harsh truth about these men: that they commit crimes, and their bosses help them get away,” Esther says, sharply. “And our Kenyan government is very comfortable with that, as long as the UK continues to give them money.”
For Esther, Agnes’s death came to define her life — a grief bound up in this enduring military presence. Already as a teenager, she had taken on the fight for justice, refusing to let the case disappear.
“Agnes opened a door that couldn’t be closed,” she explains. “Once her case came to light, other cases started coming forward — other women, other families, all with similar stories of violence and abuse, and all of them facing the same silence.”
Now, fourteen years since her aunt’s murder, the first cracks in the impunity shielding British soldiers in Kenya have begun to appear. Last year, a Kenyan High Court ruled that Robert James Purkiss, the former British soldier accused of killing Agnes, could be tried for murder on Kenyan soil — and weeks later he was arrested in the UK. He is now contesting extradition in a London court.
If sent to Kenya, he would become the first British soldier in history to face trial abroad for the killing of a civilian. The case has since grown far beyond one unresolved murder, challenging a system that has long placed foreign soldiers beyond the reach of Kenyan law.
A body found, a case buried
Rose Wanyua Wanjiku, Esther’s mother and Agnes’s eldest sister, breaks down as soon as the case is mentioned. Agnes was not just her younger sister; she was, in many ways, her daughter. After their mother died when Agnes was nine, Wanyua took her in and raised her.
“She was a very joyful person and we were very close,” the 53-year-old says, sniffling beside Esther.
Esther Njoki, niece of Agnes Wanjiru, speaks as her mother Rose Wanyua Wanjiku closes her eyes beside her. Photo by Jaclynn Ashly
In March 2012, Agnes — a part-time hairdresser — went out with a group of British soldiers from the Duke of Lancaster’s Regiment, an infantry unit from northwest England, while Wanyua looked after her baby. They gathered at the Lion’s Court Hotel, once a popular social hub for BATUK personnel. Agnes did not return home.
By morning, Wanyua and Agnes’s friends had begun searching — asking at the hotel, reporting her missing to police, visiting mortuaries. There was no trace. As days turned into weeks, a dark certainty began to settle in.
“Agnes loved her child and would never have left her alone for that long unless she was no longer on this earth,” says Wanyua, who took in Agnes’s infant daughter, Stacey, and has raised her ever since.
What the family did not know was that a parallel and frantic process was already unfolding within BATUK — one that would only come to light nearly a decade later. In 2021, a Sunday Times investigation, drawing on hundreds of leaked police documents and veteran testimonies from the Duke of Lancaster’s Regiment, pointed to a coordinated cover-up at senior levels.
According to the investigation, on the night of Agnes’s disappearance, a soldier identified as Soldier Y said Purkiss approached him at the hotel bar in a panic and asked him outside. He allegedly led him to the septic tank, lifted the lid, and revealed Agnes’s body, describing it as “sex that went wrong”.
Within 72 hours, Soldier Y and at least one other soldier reported the alleged confession and the body’s location to senior BATUK officers as the regiment prepared to return to the UK. They were told to “shut up and get out”, warned that pushing further would mean being left behind while the rest flew home. They stayed silent and returned to the UK days later.
Two months after Agnes’s disappearance, on June 5, 2012, a maintenance worker — drawn by a foul smell — opened the septic tank and found her remains. A Kenyan police autopsy revealed she had been stabbed in the lower abdomen, suffered a collapsed lung, and may have still been alive when thrown in. By then her body was badly decomposed, critically limiting forensic evidence.
The investigation quickly stalled. Kenyan authorities formally requested DNA samples and interviews from nine soldiers present that night. The British Ministry of Defence later claimed it never received the request. The Royal Military Police conducted initial inquiries but closed their file, arguing the crime fell under Kenyan jurisdiction.
The result was a jurisdictional vacuum: the UK treated it as Kenya’s responsibility, while Kenyan investigators were effectively shut out from suspects who had already returned home.
“We were abandoned by the authorities and didn’t know what was happening,” Wanyua says, her leg shaking as she fights back sobs. “No one was updating us or giving us any information. We felt like no one cared about Agnes’s life.”
Rose Wanyua Wanjiku holding a picture of her younger sister Agnes Wanjiru, who was killed in 2012 after a night out with British soldiers in Nanyuki. Photo by Jaclynn Ashly
It was in this vacuum that Esther grew up — through childhood, adolescence, and into adulthood — watching her mother search for answers that never came. “It was very painful seeing my mother cry every day and no one listening to her.”
A ‘David versus Goliath’ legal battle
Supported by human rights groups and a legal team, the family petitioned the Director of Public Prosecutions, arguing the original police investigation had been negligent. In 2019, a Kenyan inquest ruled Agnes had been “unlawfully killed by one or more British soldiers.”
Still, little followed. The case might have stayed buried were it not for the 2021 Sunday Times investigation, which also exposed private messages — including screenshots of soldiers mocking Agnes’s death.
The revelations transformed the case from a local cold file into an international scandal, reaching the House of Commons, where the Minister for Defence was asked why he had not launched an inquiry into “serious allegations that the killing was an open secret in the regiment and that senior officers suppressed the information”. Dozens of journalists descended on Nanyuki simultaneously.
For Wanyua, who does not speak English, the attention was overwhelming. Phones rang constantly — calls from London and beyond. She began instinctively handing them to Esther, who was then 17. It marked the beginning of Esther’s emergence as the family’s fierce spokesperson.
“Growing up, I’ve seen what my family has had to go through,” Esther says. “Seeking justice for many years, they were exhausted. I just naturally ended up taking over. I’m still young. I have the energy. My mom — she can’t carry all this anymore.”
Esther Njoki, niece of Agnes Wanjiru, at her family’s home in Nanyuki. Photo by Jaclynn Ashly.
“I feel like I’m the only person who can do this for Agnes now,” she adds. “I can feel her blood pushing through me each time I feel like giving up.”
She threw herself into the role — contacting MPs in Kenya and the UK, writing to King Charles III as Commander-in-Chief of the British Armed Forces, but receiving no response. In 2023, the family’s legal team launched a High Court challenge, arguing that the Defence Cooperation Agreement (DCA) — the bilateral framework governing BATUK’s presence and conduct — could not be used to shield soldiers from Kenyan courts, even in cases involving murder.
Esther travelled to London to press for accountability, meeting with high-level officials of the Ministry of Defence. When promises gave way to silence, she issued an ultimatum: move forward on extradition within two months, or she would return and escalate the campaign. When no action came, she booked her flight.
“It’s only when we push them that they act,” she says, with the firmness of someone who has learned this lesson over and over.
While in the UK in September 2025, she received the news: Kenyan authorities had issued a domestic arrest warrant for Purkiss. In November, he was arrested by the UK’s National Crime Agency. He “vehemently denies” the murder and says he does not believe he ever met Agnes. He has been denied bail. A full extradition hearing is scheduled for later this year.
Despite publicly expressing concern and support for justice, the UK government has also enabled Purkiss’s defence — providing him with a King’s Counsel, a senior barrister recognised for exceptional expertise, while the Ministry of Defence funds his legal costs to resist extradition. (The MoD states individuals are able to apply for MoD funding legal support in some circumstances.)
According to Kelvin Kubai, a Kenyan lawyer specialising in BATUK-related cases, this backing gives Purkiss access to extensive legal resources that could prolong proceedings for years, leaving the family — after more than a decade of fighting — facing what he describes as a “David versus Goliath” battle.
“Of course, everyone is entitled to representation by counsel,” Kubai says. “But it shows how much the criminal justice system is letting this family down. After all these years of fighting, the system has again given Purkiss the upper hand.”
Offered a right of reply, a Ministry of Defence spokesperson said “our thoughts remain with the family of Agnes Wanjiru” and stated that the UK government remains committed to supporting their “fight for justice.” The spokesperson added that, because legal proceedings are ongoing, the MoD could not comment further, but stated that Kenya holds jurisdiction over the case under the 2015 UK-Kenya Defence Cooperation Agreement and that British authorities had supported the Kenyan investigation when requested and will continue to do so.
Still, seeing Purkiss arrested on the news gave Agnes’s family something they had never imagined they would experience: the sense that justice, long distant and uncertain, might finally be within reach.
“I never thought I’d see that actually happen,” Esther says, shaking her head. “We felt very happy — that after all this time, there’s a real chance we can get justice for Agnes. But I wish it didn’t need to take all this time and effort to just get people to do what is right.”
Culture of impunity
Agnes Wanjiru’s murder was no anomaly. Her case has come to stand for far more than a single killing, unfolding into a broader reckoning with British military conduct in Kenya.
Alongside the landmark 2022 Lolldaiga Hills case — in which a Kenyan civil court ruled that BATUK could not claim sovereign immunity from prosecution for harm caused on Kenyan soil — Agnes’s family’s legal battle helped bring to light cases of murder, rape, and other harm carried out by BATUK personnel with impunity over decades.
In November last year, a groundbreaking Kenyan parliamentary inquiry into BATUK’s activities painted a devastating picture of systemic abuse and described its presence as akin to an “occupying presence.” The report linked current misconduct to colonial-era patterns, finding the British army operates with a sense of impunity that treats Kenyan land as a lawless training ground and its people as collateral.
BATUK refused to cooperate with the inquiry, with the committee describing the unit’s reliance on diplomatic immunity as an “evasive posture” and a display of “institutional contempt.”
Among the killings the report records is the 2012 shooting of Tilam Leresh, a herder shot in the back by a BATUK sergeant at a training field. Despite an inquest ruling that the soldier should be arrested and charged with murder, no action was taken.
The inquiry also exposes entrenched sexual exploitation: hundreds of historical rape allegations — including the 1997 gang rape of 30 women in the Samburu region — and the ongoing crisis of children fathered by British soldiers who returned to the UK, leaving mothers without support or recourse.
Environmental damage runs alongside this. The 2021 Lolldaiga fire destroyed over 10,000 acres (an area larger than the city of Cambridge), and unexploded munitions continue to kill and maim civilians. Among the victims is Lisoka Lesasuyan, who as a child lost both arms and an eye after picking up an unexploded ordnance near a training range. In 2018, a Kenyan court awarded him about 10 million Kenyan Shillings (£67,000). Last year’s inquiry report states BATUK “claimed only 50% responsibility”. The “no liability” payout went towards medical expenses including prosthetics.
“Agnes’s case represents a clear pattern where the British have been able to commit the most horrific crimes and continuously get away with them,” notes Kubai, who led the 2022 Lolldaiga case that successfully challenged BATUK.
These cases outlined in the report are likely only the “tip of the iceberg,” Kubai says, as many victims choose not to report crimes due to the absence of effective bilateral mechanisms capable of delivering accountability.
“The investigations cannot go beyond recording cases without the UK’s participation,” he explains. “Most victims know that even if they report an incident against a British officer, nothing will happen. So they stop reporting.”
The inquiry recommended the full suspension of the Defence Cooperation Agreement until it is revised to place British soldiers under Kenyan criminal jurisdiction for all non-service-related offences. Notably, post-2021 versions of the agreement have repeatedly failed to secure parliamentary ratification — raising serious constitutional questions about the legality of BATUK’s current operations.
For many, the UK government’s treatment of civilians and its disregard for Kenya’s sovereignty is seen as a continuation of its colonial legacy — one in which the Kenyan government itself is complicit.
According to analysts, the Kenyan government’s prolonged silence on Agnes’s case — taking more than a decade to act, and only after an exhausting family fight — is as telling as the UK’s conduct, reflecting a shared interest in preserving a deeply unequal arrangement.
Agnes’s case “encapsulates everything wrong with the [DCA], drawn up in the early 1960s when Kenya had an unequal relationship with the UK,” says Njoki Wamai, an assistant professor of international relations at the United States International University-Africa (USIU-Africa) in Nairobi. But, she adds, “Kenyan elites [also] need the defence partnership to keep their army happy by providing training opportunities, while the army provides elites with security and regime survival.”
Wamai argues this reflects something more calculated than diplomatic inertia. The BATUK presence keeps the Kenyan military satisfied through elite training and equipment — political currency that reduces the risk of coups and mutinies seen elsewhere in the region — while Western military backing and counterterrorism support reinforce the ruling class itself. It is, in her telling, a bargain struck between elites on both sides, with communities like those in Nanyuki bearing the cost.
This, she notes, is why Agnes’s case has been so prolonged — and why many others have never been acknowledged at all — because military and political elites in both Kenya and the UK treat Agnes and victims like her as “a pawn in their power games,” tied to the UK maintaining its military presence and Kenyan elites securing their own political survival.
We contacted the Kenyan government for comment on the allegations raised in this report, but we did not receive a response.
According to Wamai, beneath these power arrangements lies a deeper and more uncomfortable truth about whose suffering is allowed to persist without consequence.
“Women’s lives, especially black women’s lives, aren’t valued in the world. Military violence against black women is ‘tolerated’ by even peacekeepers compared to violence against white women.”
‘The British are not our colonial masters’
Esther had not fully grasped the breadth of BATUK’s abuses until recently. With each new testimony, the scale of what her family is up against has come into sharper focus — a confrontation with a system that had failed many others who were never heard.
“If Agnes or other victims were British, how different would this situation be?” she says. “This is not just about fighting for Agnes. It’s about equalising the dignity of people — if that’s not the case, then what? Should we all wear British army uniforms to feel entitled to do whatever we want?”
“There have to be consequences for your actions, regardless of what colour skin you have or what passport you carry. The British are not our colonial masters. We are independent — but independence should mean something. It should mean our laws matter, our people matter, and justice is not negotiable.”
While the family holds onto hope that Purkiss will be extradited, others — including Kubai — remain cautious about the optimism surrounding the case.
“Even now with the arrest, the chances of Agnes getting justice are extremely slim,” Kubai explains. “The system failed her from the beginning. What this case ultimately shows is not justice, but the failure of justice — and the continued absence of any real mechanism to hold the British accountable for their crimes.”
Yet regardless of the hurdles that remain, Esther and her family say they have no choice but to keep going. “Innocent blood cries out loudly from the ground,” Esther proclaims. Wanyua silently follows her daughter’s words, brushing tears from her cheeks.
Esther Njoki, 21, stands with her mother Rose Wanyua Wanjiku outside their home in Nanyuki, Kenya. Photo by Jaclynn Ashly.
“I have always believed that Agnes fought for her life that day — and now her fighting spirit continues through us.”
Stacey, Agnes’s daughter, is now 13. For years, the family tried to shield her from the truth of what happened to her mother. But as she has grown older, she has come to learn it through the very media coverage that brought the case into public view.
“One day, Stacey is going to ask us what we did for her mother,” Esther says. “Whether Purkiss is extradited or not, we cannot give up. We have to keep fighting — so that when that day comes, we have an answer, and so that the next generation inherits something better.”
