Searching for Soldier Dad: 2. Eureka

Summary

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World of Secrets: Searching for Soldier Dad – Episode 2: Eureka

BBC World Service | April 27, 2026

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Episode Overview

This episode, titled "Eureka," continues the BBC's investigation into the untold stories of British soldiers who fathered children in Kenya, then disappeared—leaving mothers and children without support. Host Ivana Davidovich follows the emergent collaboration between lawyers and DNA detectives inspired by U.S. criminal investigations, as they attempt to identify these absent fathers using cutting-edge DNA techniques. The episode weaves together personal stories, legal hurdles, and broader questions about power, justice, and the legacy of colonialism.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Origin of DNA Detective Work in Justice (01:44–05:09)

• The episode opens by recounting the breakthrough arrest in the "Golden State Killer" case, where amateur DNA detective Barbara Ray Venter used commercial DNA databases for genealogy-based criminal tracing.
• The concept: Even if a perpetrator hasn't contributed DNA to any database, matches with distant relatives can allow identification.
  • Quote: “If anyone in your extended family, up to a third cousin, has uploaded their DNA, there could be a match.” – Ivana Davidovich (08:27)

2. Inspiration for a Global Justice Project (05:09–07:51)

• Andrew MacLeod, an Australian lawyer and ex-UN aid worker, sees potential to apply this technology beyond crime—specifically, to trace paternity and demand accountability for fatherless children left in countries like Kenya.
  • Quote: “Now we have a potential mechanism to hold individual fathers to account for deeds overseas.” – Andrew MacLeod (05:09)
• MacLeod's historical perspective is shaped by his experience witnessing abuse by foreign aid workers and the lack of justice for local women and children.

3. The Kenyan Context & Local Legal Challenges (10:05–16:57)

• Introduction to Kelvin Kubay, a Kenyan lawyer raised near Nanyuki, beside the vast British Army Training Unit Kenya (BATUK) base.
• Kelvin shares his journey from admiration of British soldiers to disillusionment at their impunity and the stigmatization faced by children and mothers associated with British soldiers.
  • Quote: “For these women it becomes so easy to ridicule them and judge them…people tend to blame the victims.” – Kelvin Kubay (12:43)
• Kelvin’s legal efforts to seek child support are stymied by jurisdictional barriers: the fathers having left Kenya, making DNA matching and enforcement via local courts seemingly impossible.

4. The “Eureka” Moment & Transnational Teamwork (17:12–21:33)

• Kelvin, frustrated, connects with Andrew MacLeod, who introduces the idea of using commercial DNA databases for paternity tracing.
• Fast-forward to December 2024: a team, including UK lawyer James Neto, assembles in Kenya to collect DNA with the goal of legal action in British courts.
  • Quote: “These are British fathers and the children as of birth, as of right, are British citizens.” – Andrew MacLeod (20:39)
• Their legal strategy aims to secure UK court orders for child maintenance and recognition.

5. Shades of Consent and Power in Soldier–Local Relationships (21:33–25:40)

• The team grapples with defining “abuse,” as not all these relationships were predatory—but all exist within power imbalances.
  • Quote: “If you misuse your power, understanding that a woman is in poverty, that is in my mind abuse.” – Andrew MacLeod (21:43)
• Interviewees, including a man named Peter (24:26), illuminate nuanced perspectives: for some women, relationships with soldiers are seen as possible pathways to a better life, even while local culture may foster gossip and social exclusion.

6. Personal Stories: Stigma, Hope, and Loss (26:55–36:18)

• The narrative spotlights individuals seeking answers:
  • Peter: His mother, aged 17, fell in love with a British soldier but was left pregnant and alone after his departure. She dropped out of school and struggled to provide.
  • Yvonne: A mixed-race 17-year-old orphan in rural Kenya, raised by her grandmother after her soldier father disappeared and her mother died young (31:13).
    • Quote: “You can’t change the past. If she died, I have to accept the facts… Sometimes it’s hard, sometimes it’s normal… If I just cry, it won’t help.” – Yvonne (31:47)
  • Yvonne’s hope is to find distant relatives in the UK, her story emblematic of the deep personal consequences of abandonment.

7. Larger Questions of Responsibility and Intervention (28:54–30:15)

• The group discusses whether men who never knew they had children should be held responsible, and the ethical complexities of intervention:
  • Quote: “The men did know they had unprotected sex…so the consequence…is possibly having a child. It’s almost giving them too much of a free pass to say they didn’t know.” – Andrew MacLeod (29:00)
  • Quote: “We’ve got to disillusion ourselves from some sort of white savior complex…the reason…is trying to do something long standing—something that actually changes the fabric of this horrendous injustice.” – James Neto (29:46)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

| Timestamp | Speaker | Quote/Highlight | |-----------|---------------|------------------------------------------------------| | 05:09 | Andrew MacLeod | “Now we have a potential mechanism to hold individual fathers to account for deeds overseas.” | | 08:27 | Ivana Davidovich | “If anyone in your extended family, up to a third cousin, has uploaded their DNA, there could be a match.” | | 12:43 | Kelvin Kubay | “For these women it becomes so easy to ridicule them and judge them…and so people tend to blame the victims.” | | 16:26 | Kelvin Kubay | “These are people in another country. There was no way of enforcing or even getting their DNA to a Kenyan court...” | | 20:39 | Andrew MacLeod | “These are British fathers and the children as of birth, as of right, are British citizens.” | | 21:43 | Andrew MacLeod | “If you misuse your power, understanding that a woman is in poverty, that is in my mind abuse.” | | 24:26 | Peter | “The Nanyuki girls love white men. They love them a lot. Even they fight over them in the club. Many girls have to go out Friday, Saturday nights to hunt for the white boys.” | | 31:47 | Yvonne | “You can’t change in the past and have to go on with life. It can’t make me stop living. So if she died, I have to accept the facts. I have to move on.” | | 29:00 | Andrew MacLeod | “The men did know they had unprotected sex with a woman. So the consequence of that decision is possibly having a child.” | | 29:46 | James Neto | “We’ve got to disillusion ourselves from some sort of white savior complex. The reason behind all of this and all of our work here is trying to do something long standing…” |

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Key Timestamps

• 01:44 Golden State Killer case and DNA detective inspiration
• 05:09 Andrew MacLeod’s eureka moment
• 10:05 Arrival outside BATUK military base—Kelvin’s childhood memories
• 12:43 Stigma and ridicule for mothers and children
• 16:26 Legal challenges: cross-border paternity and child support
• 20:39 Legal strategy: British citizenship and rightful entitlements
• 21:43 Discussion of abuse, power, and consent
• 24:26 Peter’s story—nightlife and romanticized relationships
• 31:47 Yvonne’s story—loss, hope, resilience
• 29:00 MacLeod on male responsibility
• 29:46 Neto on avoiding a white savior complex

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Episode Tone & Style

The episode features a blend of investigative urgency, empathy for marginalized voices, and candid, sometimes uncomfortable, conversation about colonial legacy, responsibility, and social justice. The hosts and interviewees speak with frankness and emotional resonance, weaving personal narratives with legal and ethical dilemmas.

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Next Steps & Teasers

The episode closes with the team expanding their DNA collection efforts, encountering more cases—including Yvonne, whose story is set to become a central mystery in the subsequent episode.

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Useful for listeners who want an in-depth grasp of the investigation, the human cost, and the pioneering techniques at its core—without having to listen to the complete episode.

Transcript

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[Ivana Davidovich]

It's April 2018. Armed police are staking out a house on a typical suburban suburban street in California. Think well. Manicured lawns and swimming pools. Officers from the sheriff's fugitive apprehension team watch from their truck as an elderly man with wisps of gray hair emerges from the door. This is the moment they've been waiting for. One of the officers approaches and within seconds the old man is on the ground, handcuffed.

[News Reporter]

Tonight, hiding in plain sight, police say one of the most elusive serial killers in American history has been captured outside his suburban hall.

[Ivana Davidovich]

For four decades, detectives had no leads in a series of rapes and murders, mostly in the 70s and 80s.

[News Reporter]

The once married former police officer now under arrest for a violent crime spree that terrorized California.

[Ivana Davidovich]

They believed they had a serial killer on their hands. He was given the name the Golden State Killer. But they had no suspect and no way of finding their man. The only clues were dear samples from crime scenes, but there was no match on the police database. By 2018, the detectives working the case were desperate for a lead. They enlisted the help of an amateur DNA detective called Barbara Ray Venter. She was a retired 70 year old who had become an expert in using commercial DNA databases, which had boomed in popularity during the 2010s. You probably know the ones.

[DNA Testing Company Narrator]

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[Ivana Davidovich]

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[DNA Testing Company Narrator]

Taking the test is super easy. You simply swap your cheeks, then mail your sample to our lab.

[Ivana Davidovich]

Then all you have to do is wait for your results.

[DNA Testing Company Narrator]

You may end up with surprising new family connections.

[Ivana Davidovich]

These commercial databases contain tens of millions of DNA profiles. Anyone with an account can search for a match. And that's exactly what Barbara Ray Venter did. She scoured these databases to find a match with the DNA found at a crime scene.

[Joseph D'Angelo Suspect/Interviewee]

I'm sitting there at three in the morning, all by my little lonesome, staring at my computer.

[Ivana Davidovich]

I know who you are.

[Joseph D'Angelo Suspect/Interviewee]

You're Joseph d'. Angelo.

[Ivana Davidovich]

Bingo. They have a suspect.

[Kelvin Kubay]

Good morning.

[News Reporter]

Well, Joseph d' Angelo will face a judge here today at the Sacramento County Jail.

[Ivana Davidovich]

And within days, Joseph d' Angelo is behind bars. He pleads guilty to a wave of crimes, including 13 murders and 13 kidnapping related charges and admits dozens of sexual assaults. He's now serving over 20 life sentences.

[News Reporter]

They say cutting edge DNA testing allowed them to make a match.

[Ivana Davidovich]

We were able to get some discarded DNA. Thousands of miles away, on the other side of the world, someone else is watching this news and he's inspired to use the same technique to solve a very different problem.

[Andrew MacLeod]

And then I thought, thankfully, finally, now we have a potential mechanism to hold individual fathers to account for deeds overseas.

[Ivana Davidovich]

This is World of Secrets Season 12, Searching for Soldier Dad A BBC World Service Investigation. I'm Ivana Davidovich, a BBC journalist. For the past two years, I've been following DNA detectives as they attempt to identify and track down British soldiers and who fathered children in Kenya and then disappeared. It's not just a hunt for missing dads. This project will dig deep into the heart of one of Britain's most important institutions. Its army. Episode 2 Eureka. Back in 2021, in the midst of the COVID pandemic, I was a business journalist at the BBC. Hello and welcome to Business Daily, making radio programmes from an ad hoc recording studio in my living room. In today's program, the growing industry of forensic genealogy. I was working on a story about the booming industry in commercial DNA databases. I heard about a man with a plan that sounded like science fiction. It piqued my interest, so I gave him a call. Oh, hi, Andrew, this is ivana from the BBC. I'm just calling to see. Andrew MacLeod is a lawyer who spent many years working overseas in the foreign aid sector, including for the United Nations.

[Andrew MacLeod]

The more senior I became in the UN system, I saw more and more abuse of women and children at the hands of foreign aid workers, both in NGOs and the UN. I quit the UN in disgust at the abuse of women and children, and ever since then have been campaigning to reduce the amount of abuse suffered by women in the developing world at the hands of rich white saviour, white men,

[Ivana Davidovich]

foreign men and local women in relationships which are at best imbalanced and at worst exploitative. But the foreign men weren't soldiers. They were UN and charity workers. The sexual abuse of women and children by staff from the UN and NGOs has been widely documented. And there's something that particularly eats away at Andrew. The children left behind by these relationships. He says that when the fathers relocate, the children and their mothers are often left with no support. Then, in 2018, he sees that TV report about the Golden State Killer.

[News Reporter]

Police say one of the most elusive serial killers in American history has been captured outside his suburban home. They say cutting edge DNA testing allowed them to make a match.

[Ivana Davidovich]

This. This was his eureka moment.

[Andrew MacLeod]

Hang on. If a man has abused a woman or a child overseas and that woman or a child gets pregnant, can you use the DNA of the resulting child, put it through the same process as the Golden State Killer case, and find the father? And the answer is yes.

[Ivana Davidovich]

The clever thing about this method is that it can work even if the person you're looking for has never done a DNA test. You can easily imagine if you're an absentee father or indeed a serial killer. You might not put your DNA on a database that anyone can search. But if anyone in your extended family, up to a third cousin, has uploaded their DNA, there could be a match. And then, just like in the case of the Golden State Killer, some clever DNA detective work can identify the target.

[Andrew MacLeod]

For example, in one of the cases we had Child M. In Child M's case, we took her DNA, put it on the databases and found an uncle. So then we showed that the uncle had two brothers. One of those brothers has to be the father. One had travelled to the country where M lives, one hadn't.

[Ivana Davidovich]

In 2019, Andrew used this method to track down Western sex tourists who had fathered children in the Philippines. He told me it was proof of concept. He knew this technique worked. And he was on the lookout for new locations to apply it. Then in 2024, I got an email from Andrew. He decided to launch a new project with a new focus. Right, where are the battle gates? We're on the main road now, but I can't see it.

[Joseph D'Angelo Suspect/Interviewee]

Where is it?

[Ivana Davidovich]

We're just outside of Nanyuki. On one side of the road are small shops selling souvenirs and carvings.

[Kelvin Kubay]

It's on our left. This is the main entrance, but as

[Ivana Davidovich]

you can see, very, very little. It's just not much is visible from here. On the other side are two layers of tall concrete fences topped with coils of razor wire. The British Army Training Unit Kenya, or Batuk, the UK's biggest military base in Africa, loomed large over Kelvin's early years. Back in the 2000s, Kelvin Kubay grew up not far from here.

[Kelvin Kubay]

When I was young, nearly seven years old, I would see British military trucks in a very long convoy of camouflaged vehicles driving to the far north along the dusty roads.

[Ivana Davidovich]

Along with a group of other local kids, Kelvin would watch the line of trucks head north, kicking up clouds of dust.

[Kelvin Kubay]

And we would stand by and wave at the soldiers and sometimes they would wave back and throw some gift of bread to the kids.

[Ivana Davidovich]

Their convoy is heading up the Great North Road, which was built when Kenya was part of the British empire in the 40s. It stretches through the seemingly endless desert landscapes towards Ethiopia.

[Kelvin Kubay]

I would look at them with lots of admiration. I think that's why most of the kids within Nanyuki grew up wanting to be soldiers, you know.

[Ivana Davidovich]

But as Kelvin grew older, his impression of the British soldiers started to change.

[Kelvin Kubay]

Then growing up a little bigger and seeing the impunity with which they operated and that really shocked me. It's a very beautiful village on the very shoulders of Mount Kenya.

[Ivana Davidovich]

Kelvin's childhood home is in a village in the verdant green hills that surround Nanyuki.

[Kelvin Kubay]

Every morning you wake up to a snow capped mountain up there alongside the equator. It has very cool breezes and the waters here, they are melted glacier waters.

[Ivana Davidovich]

When he's at school, Kelvin first becomes aware that there are kids who are singled out for being different. These are the children of British soldiers.

[Kelvin Kubay]

Some of these kids of mixed race heritage and of course they were pretty much ridiculed.

[Ivana Davidovich]

But it's not just the kids being singled out.

[Kelvin Kubay]

I started even to realize for the mothers, especially the women is even much more harder. It becomes very hard for the mother to explain and it becomes quite evident that probably her child out of wedlock. So for these women it Becomes so easy to ridicule them and judge them. And so people tend to blame the victims, which now, you know, turns the narrative into blaming the women instead of seeking redress for these children.

[Ivana Davidovich]

Today, Kelvin is showing me around. He's 28, but very much an old soul, usually dressed in patterned knitted jumpers even in the midday heat of the equator sun. He's thoughtful and reserved, but underneath he has a steely determination.

[Kelvin Kubay]

Well, I honestly hate injustices and I always want to stand for the small man against the big man.

[Ivana Davidovich]

And a woman. And a woman. In this case, the fight against injustice is in Kelvin's DNA.

[Kelvin Kubay]

There's a very beautiful rose on her grave. I hadn't seen it.

[Ivana Davidovich]

Is it the pink one? Yeah, I can see the pink one. Kelvin has brought me to a place on his family's land where his grandfather is buried.

[Kelvin Kubay]

He was a young man who took up arms to fight for the independence Kenya. I mean, he was a patriot.

[Ivana Davidovich]

As a younger man, Kelvin's grandfather was a high ranking commander of the MAU MAU Rebellion, an armed uprising in the 50s against British colonial rule. The British Army's suppression of the rebellion was one of the bloodiest moments of the British Empire. It's estimated that more than 11,000 Kenyans were killed and many more detained in camps. Kelvin was raised on the stories of his grandfather's struggle.

[Kelvin Kubay]

I love to associate with those harmed by greater injustices that I can't fight against. And it is in such scenarios that I think I find my passion and I find my purpose.

[Ivana Davidovich]

Kelvin finishes school and then studies to be a lawyer. When he qualifies, he starts taking on cases against the British Army.

[Kelvin Kubay]

The challenge was that many lawyers were unwilling to take up any cases or client with cases against the British Army.

[Ivana Davidovich]

One time he represents the families of two people killed by unexploded ordnance. He also seeks compensation for a man left injured after he was run over by a British military truck. Then one day, Kelvin receives an email from a woman who says that she has a child whose father has left Kenya, stopped all contact and isn't supporting them. The father Kelvin hears is a British soldier. Soon, Kelvin speaks to another woman. She too has a child with a British soldier who has left the country. And then another, and then another.

[Kelvin Kubay]

I started to document these cases. I went all the way to the north where there are vast training fields.

[Ivana Davidovich]

He drives two hours north of Nanyuki, the same journey made by the military vehicles. He used to stand and watch as a child. But the time for watching is over. This time, Kelvin is here to act.

[Kelvin Kubay]

My initial idea was that I would begin a petition at the High Court of Kenya.

[Ivana Davidovich]

He wants to get court orders to force the fathers to pay child maintenance to the mothers. But he quickly comes up against an obstacle.

[Kelvin Kubay]

These are people in another country. There was no way of enforcing or even getting their DNA to a Kenyan court for the purposes of doing a confirmatory DNA test with the men back in the uk.

[Ivana Davidovich]

The Kenyan court has no authority to make them pay child maintenance.

[Kelvin Kubay]

It was frustrating and disappointing for me seeing all these injustices and there is no any feasible solution. Sometimes in our practice there are moments when you really come to an end.

[Ivana Davidovich]

He feels like he's run out of road. That is until one day he speaks to an Australian lawyer who who has an idea that could change everything. It's of course Andrew McLeod.

[Kelvin Kubay]

So I was at that point where I was so frustrated, disappointed that I was welcome to any slight chance of success.

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[Ivana Davidovich]

Andrew, pleasure. Thanks for such a long time.

[Andrew MacLeod]

So how long have we been talking about this?

[Ivana Davidovich]

Years. Fast forward to December 2024. This is when I meet Andrew and Kelvin in person for the first time. Nice to meet you. Who would have thought that the first time would be like this?

[Andrew MacLeod]

Yeah, exactly.

[Ivana Davidovich]

Couldn't have predicted that one.

[Andrew MacLeod]

Well, and so much of this work has evolved.

[Ivana Davidovich]

We're at that cafe from episode one waiting for people to arrive for the first day of DNA testing

[Local Kenyan Resident]

to believe that our father is a Scottish.

[Ivana Davidovich]

It's here that what seemed like a far fetched plan suddenly gets a lot more real.

[Andrew MacLeod]

So we need to have a quick chat on Law, just the three of us.

[Ivana Davidovich]

And they're joined by another lawyer from the uk. We heard him in the first episode. He's called James Neto and is a crucial part of their plan.

[Andrew MacLeod]

Like when I go to bed at

[James Neto]

night, I am actually thinking about these clients.

[Ivana Davidovich]

If they find the fathers, it's James who will take the case to the High Court in the UK to have them added to his clients birth certificates.

[Andrew MacLeod]

We've always got to keep in mind everything we do. Number one priority is best interested for women and children.

[Ivana Davidovich]

Number two priority is bouncing around the cafe. Andrew is virtually fizzing with energy.

[Andrew MacLeod]

Remember, these are British fathers and the children as of birth, as of right, are British citizens.

[Ivana Davidovich]

Children of members of the armed forces are entitled to British citizenship no matter where they were born.

[Andrew MacLeod]

Which means those children are legally, morally and ethically entitled from the father the exact same things that they would be entitled from the father if they lived in Britain.

[Ivana Davidovich]

Andrew says that in the cases of those under 18 they will try to force the fathers to pay child maintenance. This has never been tested in the UK courts.

[Andrew MacLeod]

So let's get them the child support orders. Let's make sure their educations are paid for as they should be. So this is at the very basement of a larger long term project to prove the scale of abuse, get justice for victims of abuse and prevent future abuse.

[Ivana Davidovich]

When you say this is all about abuse, some of these relationships that you are talking about were consensual, weren't they? It's not always a product of abuse.

[Andrew MacLeod]

A child abuse is a spectrum. I think if a man is in a position of power and gets sexual favours because of that position of power, that's abuse. If you misuse your power, understanding that a woman is in poverty, that is in my mind abuse

[Ivana Davidovich]

is Andrew. Right. It's a controversial view. Are relationships between these soldiers and local women really so imbalanced that they're inherently abusive? It's nighttime in Anuki. Saturday night. It's quite busy. It's quite lively. A few bars around. One evening, after they finish collecting the DNA samples, Kelvin takes us to one of the main streets in Nanuki. We pass bar after bar, each with speakers by the doors and colorful lights inside.

[Local Kenyan Resident]

Sometimes they come in groups, and the local girls are usually also looking for opportunities to also come and speak to them. Sometimes they say it's British boys behaving badly.

[Ivana Davidovich]

How do you think these British soldiers view local Kenyan women?

[Local Kenyan Resident]

I think they view them as single plastic use, and the plastic here, sadly, is the women. I mean, it's something you use and dispose.

[Kelvin Kubay]

They do not care much about what happens thereafter.

[Ivana Davidovich]

Nowadays, Nanuki's bars are quieter than they used to be. We've been told that there is now a curfew for British soldiers. When the clock nears midnight, groups of young soldiers down their drinks and head home. But when Kelvin was growing up in the 2000s, things were different. People I've spoken with describe it as kind of a wild West. A former sex worker told me several stories of soldiers fighting, of one who attacked a woman in a bar and another who got into a brawl with a sex worker after refusing to pay. And I also heard about one particular nightclub where downstairs everyone would be drinking and dancing, but upstairs was pitch black. I'm told that this was where some British soldiers would go to have sex with local women right there in the darkness above the dance floor. A few of the relationships that I hear about start in Anyuki's bars and clubs. I meet a man called Peter, who's 33. Like Kathy, he never knew his dad, who was a British soldier. He tells me about how his parents met.

[Peter]

They met in a club because that time in the 90s, Nanuki was booming with parties, you know.

[Ivana Davidovich]

Peter paints me a picture of the scene in Nanyuki.

[Peter]

Many people from the surrounding cities, they come to Nanuki to party, you know, and they also come because they know the army, the British army is there and they have money, you know, so they love them. The Nanyuki girls love white men. They love them a lot. Even they fight over them in the club. Many girls have to go out Friday, Saturday nights to hunt for the white boys.

[Ivana Davidovich]

Hunting for white boys. I hear this phrase from someone else as well. Until now, I'd imagined the soldiers as the hunters, but this adds shades of grey to that picture. One woman I met told me that when a new intake of soldiers arrived, local women would head into town to meet them. They'd call them fresh meat because they

[Peter]

know when you are with a white man, life will change.

[Ivana Davidovich]

For some, meeting a white man is seen as a ticket to a better life.

[Peter]

And most of them too, they don't like the life here. They want to be there in Europe, you know. Many, many Africans dream of living in Europe, you know?

[Ivana Davidovich]

Peter says his mum was only 17 when she met his dad. They dated for three months, she got pregnant, then he left and never came back.

[Peter]

Yeah, she was very in love with my dad a lot. I think my dad just confused her.

[Ivana Davidovich]

It's easy to want to neatly divide these relationships into two groups, those formed out of love and those formed out of a desire for a better life. But in reality, the two are inseparable. Love is not always just about falling for a person, but falling in love with an imagined future. I keep asking people, do you know any Kenyan women who've had relationships with British soldiers where they've had a happy ending, got married, moved to the uk? There's often one success story, sometimes a friend of a friend. It reminds me of stories I've done about migrants crossing the Sahara or the English Channel. Word of a few success stories can generate just enough hope to believe that for you it will be different. For Peter's mum, her vision of a better life far from materialized. She dropped out of school and was left pregnant and alone.

[Peter]

I think my dad touched my mom's heart and she was like, blind, you know?

[Ivana Davidovich]

Peter has also decided to participate in the DNA testing project in the hope of finding his father. We'll catch up with him in the next episode. We spent two days observing DNA samples being taken in a nuclear.

[Kelvin Kubay]

There's a possibility we may have a new client there.

[Ivana Davidovich]

And word starts to get around that there are lawyers and scientists in town. Okay, here we go. Kelvin keeps hearing about more candidates to take part and they are based in increasingly remote areas.

[Local Kenyan Resident]

This area was initially called Remote Road.

[James Neto]

I can see why from the remote

[Ivana Davidovich]

road over the next. In the next three days, we drive for hours around the region, turning up at the houses of people who might be the children of British soldiers.

[Local Kenyan Resident]

Significant population of Maasais who keep the sheep and goats.

[Ivana Davidovich]

Me and the producer Josephine are squeezed in the back with James. Kelvin and Andrew are in the front.

[Andrew MacLeod]

And we're on the edge of the great African Rift Valley.

[Ivana Davidovich]

Grassy shrubland with goats grazing at the roadside gives way to vast desert plains.

[Andrew MacLeod]

Great African Rift Valley that stretches all the way up to Lebanon. It's fantastic here. I love it and it reminds me a lot of Australia. We have very similar geography here. And the eucalyptus trees and the eucalyptus oil and the high blue skies. I love this part of the world.

[Ivana Davidovich]

We spend hours in the car picking over all the thorny issues that this project throws up. If a man doesn't know he has a child, for example, from a one night stand or having sex with a sex worker, should he really be held responsible?

[Andrew MacLeod]

The joke amongst men often is, do you have any children?

[Kelvin Kubay]

Not that I know of.

[Ivana Davidovich]

Yeah.

[Andrew MacLeod]

Some people say the men don't know they have children and that's true. But the men did know they had unprotected sex with a woman. So the consequence of that decision is possibly having a child. So it's almost giving them too much of a free pass to say they didn't know.

[Ivana Davidovich]

And what about contraception? Why don't these guys just use a condom, even if only to protect their own health?

[Local Kenyan Resident]

There's something about men when they are far away from experiment on anything.

[Kelvin Kubay]

When you know you can get away with anything, you know, the more reason you want to win.

[Ivana Davidovich]

I'm also curious about the role of the lawyers. I know how critical Andrew is of what he calls white savior men. What makes them so different?

[James Neto]

We've got to disillusion ourselves from some sort of white savior complex. The reason behind all of this and all of our work here is trying to do something long standing, something that actually changes the fabric of this horrendous injustice that's going on in these towns and in these families.

[Local Kenyan Resident]

And in this context. We have white men coming to follow up on what some white men did with the help of another black man. And it works out.

[Ivana Davidovich]

Our next stop is a village outside Nanyuki. Kelvin has heard about a 17 year old girl. He tells us she's an orphan who lives with her grandmother. Before he died, she believes her dad was a soldier. We go with Kelvin to take a sample of her DNA. We arrive at a metal gate which opens onto a stone small plot of land and we're greeted by a teenage girl. Hello, how are you? What's your name? Yvonne. I'm Ivana. This is amazing. We're almost the same name. Yvonne is mixed race. She has angular features and is wearing a pink hoodie with braided hair pulled back in a ponytail. She welcomes us warmly and starts showing us around.

[Joseph D'Angelo Suspect/Interviewee]

Yeah, this is where I was born. This is where I've been raised up and I'm here and I'll still be here.

[Ivana Davidovich]

Yvonne tells me that when she's not at school, she helps out on the farm.

[Joseph D'Angelo Suspect/Interviewee]

We had some goats and we had to sell them so that we can take some money to the school for school fees.

[Ivana Davidovich]

She takes me over to a mound of earth a few meters from the house.

[Joseph D'Angelo Suspect/Interviewee]

This is my mom's grave.

[Ivana Davidovich]

Is her mother's grave. Yvonne tells me that she died very young.

[Joseph D'Angelo Suspect/Interviewee]

It's 20 years. She was too young.

[Ivana Davidovich]

Although she's quietly spoken, it's clear that Yvonne possesses a real emotional maturity.

[Joseph D'Angelo Suspect/Interviewee]

You can't change in the past and have to go on with life. It can't make me stop living. So if she died, I have to accept the facts. I have to move on. Sometimes it's hard. Sometimes it's also normal because if I just cry, it won't help. So I have to work hard.

[Ivana Davidovich]

Yvonne says her grandmother doesn't let her out much. She's terrified that what happened to Yvonne's mum could happen to her. So while her classmates are going to parties, she mainly stays at home doing schoolwork and looking after her younger cousins. We go inside with Kelvin and James. The house has a few rooms under a corrugated iron roof. We sit down in the living room on armchairs, neatly covered in pristine white doily cloth.

[James Neto]

Should we go to the chicken?

[Ivana Davidovich]

As well as some other uninvited guests, which the producer, Josephine and James try to shoo out of the house. I start by asking Yvonne what she knows about her dad beyond him being a soldier. Details are thin on the ground.

[Joseph D'Angelo Suspect/Interviewee]

I had my father worked in a batuk and he loved my mom so much.

[Ivana Davidovich]

Yvonne's grandmother Rose, tells us that her husband, Yvonne's grandfather, worked as a barber, cutting the soldier's hair. He used to take his teenage daughter, Yvonne's mother, Anne, in to work with him. She tells us it's there that Anne met a young soldier who became her boyfriend.

[Kelvin Kubay]

They loved each other much, much.

[Ivana Davidovich]

Were they married? No, they are not married. She says he looked young, probably in his 20s, and slight. That his military uniform almost overwhelmed him. We keep talking, but Yvonne's grandma can't remember many more details. Tell me about how did your daughter tell you she was pregnant? Do you remember that day? What we do know is that at some point Anne fell pregnant. Yvonne's uncle later fills in some of the blanks. He tells us that this young soldier had already left Kenya when Ann realized she was pregnant and that she called him to tell him the news. He soon stopped picking up the phone. He Says that she emailed him but got no reply. Then when Yvonne was still a baby, her mother Anne fell ill. We know from her death certificate that Anne died from complications in another pregnancy. She died age 20. Yvonne's grandma brings out a photograph of Yvonne's mum. She has tightly curled hair tied back in a red bandana and she's looking straight into the camera with a half smile and a cool look in her eye. Do you see yourself in her?

[Joseph D'Angelo Suspect/Interviewee]

Yeah.

[Ivana Davidovich]

You do? What do you think? Is that like the most common?

[Joseph D'Angelo Suspect/Interviewee]

My lips.

[Ivana Davidovich]

Your lips? Yeah, that's why. Yeah, yeah. You have a bit of that, kind of a cheeky smile. Yeah, definitely. Looking at this picture of her mum, only a couple of years older than her age, now overwhelms Yvonne. I'm sorry. I'm sorry.

[Joseph D'Angelo Suspect/Interviewee]

This is so hard.

[Ivana Davidovich]

Done such a great job. After Yvonne's mum died, her grandfather was still working as a barber in the British military camp.

[Kelvin Kubay]

So some of the soldiers who were the client to the grandfather who was a barber, they came with a message that he, Yvonne's dad, had passed away. As they keep on coming in cycles. So the cohort that were friends to Yvonne's father now came with this message that he's not among the cohort this time around because he passed away.

[Ivana Davidovich]

He hadn't come back to Kenya, they said, because he had died. With both her mother and father no longer alive, Yvonne's grandmother raised her and you can feel how proud she is of Yvonne, who she tells me is very bright and excelling in school.

[Joseph D'Angelo Suspect/Interviewee]

What do you want to do? Journalist.

[Ivana Davidovich]

She'll be asking the questions next time. I can see it's happening. This first time that we meet Yvonne feels like a whirlwind. We arrive knowing nothing about her dad and we leave with some small clues. But the picture is incomplete. Yvonne seems confused by Kelvin's visit. Her dad is dead. She's known this for her whole life. Her only hope is that she might discover a cousin or distant family member in the uk. But Yvonne's story will become one of the biggest mysteries of this project. That's next time on World of Secrets. This has been episode 2 or 5 of season 12 of World of Secrets Searching for Soldier dad from the BBC World Service. World of Secrets Searching for Soldier dad is a long form audio production for the BBC World Service. It's presented by me, Ivana Davidovich. The series is produced and written by Josephine Casserly. The series editor is Matt Willis. Our script advisor is Lucy Proctor. Sound design and mix by Tom Brignall. We would like as many people as possible to hear our investigations. So please leave a rating and a review, and do tell others about World of Secrets.

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[Ivana Davidovich]

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