Seven people from Kenya have won a case at the Family Court in London to prove they were fathered by British men working at an army base in their country.
Commercially available DNA databases were used to identify otherwise unknown fathers. Six had served at the British Army Training Unit in Kenya (Batuk) and one worked as a contractor.
It’s the first time paternity has been proved in this way in a UK court.
The decision opens the door for the offspring to apply for British citizenship.
They were represented by British lawyer James Netto, who – together with leading geneticist Denise Syndercombe Court – had taken part in a project to collect DNA samples and testimonies from people in the Nanyuki region of Kenya.
They encountered many people there who believed their fathers had served at nearby Batuk, the biggest British army base in Africa.
Publicly available DNA databases were then used to try to locate any family members in the UK.
One of the claimants, Peter Wambugu, told the BBC that he grew up knowing that his father was a British soldier, but said they had never met. The 33-year-old chef said he was bullied throughout his childhood for being mixed-race.
Peter said his mother told him that his father “was a good man”. He added: “She told me he said he will be back one day, but he never came.”
He has since been reunited with his father, who claimed he had no idea he had a son. After their first meeting, Peter told the BBC: “So all the pain that I’ve been carrying all these 30 years, all the discrimination I get from people, that pain has come out as joy.”
Another claimant who cannot be identified for legal reasons, said she met her father once at the age of four and then never again. She said that growing up without him was tough and that she “felt extremely abandoned”.
Reacting to the ruling, James Netto said: “For many families, today’s hearing marks the end of an incredibly difficult journey that for so long felt impossible. Children and young people who previously only had questions, now have answers.”
He said there were many more people near Batuk in a similar situation, and the next step was to tackle more difficult cases – those who had little or no information about their fathers or family members.
Andrew Macleod – a lawyer and campaigner involved in the DNA project – said he hoped that today’s case would encourage the Ministry of Defence to take on more responsibility for paternity claims made against Batuk servicemen.
The Ministry of Defence told the BBC that “while paternity claims against UK Service Personnel are a private life issue, the government cooperates with local child support authorities where there are claims relating to paternity”.
The BBC has been following this story over the last year as part of an upcoming five-part World of Secrets podcast.
