KENYA:The sole heir to the fifth Lord Delamere and one of the leading figures in white Kenyan society was spending his final hours in an overcrowded prison cell last night after prosecutors dropped a murder charge against him.
Tom Cholmondeley (36) was arrested last month after an undercover game warden was shot dead on his ranch, deep in the Great Rift Valley.
Kenya has been gripped by the story, which pitches one of the country's most famous settler families against the local Masai community.
Friends and family maintained throughout that Mr Cholmondeley fired only in self-defence, believing that the undercover officers were in fact armed robbers.
He appeared at Nakuru High Court yesterday to hear that Kenya's attorney general Amos Wakohad decided there was no case to answer.
A brief smile flickered across his lips as the news sank in. Later his wife, Sally, blinked back tears outside the courthouse. "I think I am just relieved," she said.
Mr Cholmondeley's father, Hugh Delamere (75) said the family had been through an emotional time. "My son was in jail and we felt he had nothing but defend our people, which obviously the attorney general agreed with," he said.
Samson Ole Sisina was shot dead on Mr Cholmondeley's Soysambu farm on the edge of Lake Elementeita.
The Masai officer was part of a three-man undercover team investigating allegations that wild animals were being shot for meat.
His death inflamed the local Masai community which has a long-standing grudge against the white settlers they believe stole their ancestral lands.
However it appears that the attorney general accepted that Mr Cholmondeley was acting in self-defence.
Appearing in court yesterday morning, director of public prosecutions Phillip Merger confirmed there had been an exchange of gunfire before Mr Seisina died.
"In short, the attorney general considers there is insufficient evidence to support and sustain a murder charge at this point," he said.
A small band of Masai protesters appeared outside the court. "We are very angry and bitter," said Kitaei Ole Nkoiboni, a councillor. "A man was killed doing his duty but we are not seeing justice."
Mr Cholmondeley, father of two young sons, farms land deep within the rift valley, about 60 miles north of Nairobi. He owns one of the biggest ranches in Kenya. It produces livestock for both meat and milk and is a leading Kenyan exporter of baby corn. The Delamere family remains one of Kenya's largest landowners with more than 100,000 acres based around the estate formed by the third baron, who encouraged other European settlers to join him.
The exploits of the Happy Valley clique that formed around the third baron were immortalised in the book White Mischief, which recounted the 1941 murder of Lord Erroll, a member of the exclusive expat circle.