Murder trial begins of Briton accused of flushing away girlfriend's medication

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/feb/19/murder-trial-begins-of-briton-girlfriends-medication

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A man from Cumbria will appear before a Nairobi court on Thursday charged with murdering his girlfriend by flushing her life-saving medication down the toilet.

Carl Singleton, 42, a van driver, flew 4,000 miles to Kenya to live with university student Peris Ashley Agumbi, 22, after they met on Facebook two years ago.

Prosecutors say Singleton caused the death of Agumbi, who died of diabetic hypertension and respiratory failure on 19 November.

Singleton had described the Kenyan woman as the love of his life and spoke of his plans to settle down with her after moving to east Africa.

But in the third week of November, her lifeless body was found in the house they shared in a leafy suburb of Nairobi. Singleton was arrested shortly afterwards and accused of murder.

Police say that days before her death, Agumbi had reported to officers that her boyfriend had assaulted her and confiscated her medication.

The detective in charge of the investigation had initially told a magistrate that the police did not have sufficient evidence to sustain a prosecution for murder.

But the office of the director of public prosecutions, which oversees all investigations into serious crimes in Kenya, directed on 5 February that Singleton should be re-arrested and charged with her murder.

The DPP, Keriako Tobiko, told the Guardian investigators had statements from friends of the deceased and that there was evidence to justify the charges.

Singleton faces months in detention in Kenya’s overstretched penal system, notorious for its crowded jails and glacial court proceedings. People facing murder charges can be granted bail under the country’s new constitution but the prosecution often resists, and murder cases can last up to eight years.

Singleton told reporters after his arrest that he felt he had found love when he met Agumbi. “I was so happy when I saw her at the airport. As soon as I saw her I knew she loved me. She was a very kind and caring young lady.”

Prosecutors will seek to present a very different picture of the arrested Briton, that of an abusive and controlling lover who ended Agumbi’s life by denying her medication.

The case has stirred considerable interest in the local media with the leading newspaper, the Daily Nation, running a front-page feature on what they described as a growing trend where young female Kenyans were turning to the internet in search of lovers from abroad.