Searching for Soldier Dad: 6. Update

Summary

Podcast Summary: World of Secrets – Searching for Soldier Dad: Episode 6. Update

BBC World Service | Host: Tristan Redman | Date: August 6, 2026
Bonus episode revisiting the groundbreaking investigation into British soldiers fathering and abandoning children in Kenya – with updates on legal progress, personal stories, and wider political impact.

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Main Theme & Purpose

This special bonus episode provides an update on the investigation into children in Kenya, fathered by British soldiers and left without support. Host Tristan Redman is joined by BBC journalist Ivana Davidovich and lawyer James Netto to revisit the main stories, reveal what’s happened with the families, and discuss the growing-scale legal battle for justice and child support. New legal actions, changing Ministry of Defence responses, and the complex UK–Kenya political context are explored.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Recap of the Investigation’s Premise

• Main story: British servicemen stationed in Kenya fathered children during their deployment but disappeared, forcing the children and mothers to fend for themselves.
• Groundbreaking element: Use of genetic technology and publicly-available DNA databases combined with innovative legal strategy to confirm parentage and seek redress.
  (01:38–03:19)

2. The Three Main Case Studies – Where Are They Now?

a) Kathy:

• Knew her father's identity, but he vanished when she was a baby; her mother Maggie always hoped to reconnect.
• Father Phil embraced reconnecting. Now in touch, helping financially, but have not met in person yet.
  • “All I can do is to do the best that I can... I never make up for the amount of time that I've lost with her.” – Phil (03:55)
  • “They share the same sense of humor... They’re a bit cheeky... They definitely do have mannerisms which are similar.” – Ivana (10:11)

b) Peter:

• Raised on his grandparents’ avocado farm, desperately wanted his father’s love and acceptance.
• Initial contact faded; now the father only sends messages for birthdays and Christmas, causing distress for Peter.
  • “Peter is sadly not doing that well... their last spoke... was last year, and now Peter’s father... wants just messages at Christmases and birthdays. For Peter, that is very hard to deal with.” – Ivana (10:24)

c) Yvonne:

• Raised as an orphan, believed both parents were dead.
• DNA work confirmed her father’s identity, but he refused contact.
• Positive development: British great-aunt “Anthea” found, in close contact and plans to support Yvonne and bring her to the UK.
  • “Anthea says that even if Yvonne’s father doesn’t want to have anything to do with her, she really wants to give her the family that she can...” – Ivana (11:11)

(05:51–12:30)

3. Evolution and Expansion of the Legal Case

• Initial legal action: Focused on 17 children; now, the number of known cases is rising as more come forward.

• Landmark methodology: No other case has used public DNA databases and legal declarations of parentage in this way.

  • “There are no other cases in which genetic testing has been done, put on a publicly available DNA database... [and then] being used in court in support of applications for declarations of parentage.” – James Netto (14:39)

• Financial Claim Developments:

  • Permission granted to pursue child maintenance from the identified fathers for minors and students.
  • “I have invited every single man who is eligible... to provide their suggestions about financial support... not a single response has come back.” – James Netto (17:20)

• Ongoing struggles:

  • Fathers typically evade contact, some confirmed deceased, others in hiding; arrest warrants issued for some.
  • Financial claims face resistance: little to no voluntary cooperation from the men involved.
    (16:16–18:30)

4. The Wider Scope

• Global & systemic issue:

  • BBC and lawyers now receive inquiries worldwide – not just Kenya, but also from people in Honduras, Belize, Nigeria, Ghana, Uganda, Zimbabwe, and more.
  • The “tip of the iceberg”: likely hundreds—or more—of similar cases globally, involving British service members, government workers, charity personnel, etc.
  • Common theme: children longing for knowledge of their heritage and acknowledgment from absent fathers.
    (18:42–19:30)

• Human consequences:

  • Most fathers have opted not to establish relationships, highlighting deep pain and disappointment even as genetic truths are uncovered.

  • “It's a bit of a sad story, isn’t it?... all fathers but one, Phil, have decided not to really have any contact with their children.” – Ivana (19:30)

  • “It is depressing, I agree, but there are good examples... It’s the half brothers, the cousins, the aunts, the uncles who sometimes step up.” – James (20:02)

5. Institutional Response & UK–Kenya Relations

• Ministry of Defence’s (MOD) stance:
  • Initially evasive, offering little on how the UK military would address the “soldier kid” issue.
  • On the day of series broadcast, MOD issued a stronger statement acknowledging responsibility for soldiers who father children abroad – but practical policy changes remain unclear.
• Political tension:
  • British military’s continued presence in Kenya hinges on an overdue Defence and Cooperation agreement.
  • Core sticking point: Kenyan push for jurisdiction over British soldiers who commit offences while stationed locally.
  • Illustrative standoff led to a temporary block on training exercises—a clear sign of shifting power dynamics.
  • “They just definitely feel like there has to be more respect, there has to be different kind of levers in place. Jurisdiction has to change. That’s what they think.” – Ivana (23:23) (21:25–24:41)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “The curiosity of who is my father? It's part of you. Yeah, you can’t escape it. It’s in DNA.”
  – Ivana Davidovich (02:35)

• “We will try as hard as we can... But there is no guarantee we will ever find the father or the fathers involved in these cases.”
  – James Netto (03:05)

• “The judges we've had have been extraordinarily sympathetic... there's also this massive power imbalance... between the UK and Kenya.”
  – James Netto (15:29)

• “These are becoming even more challenging... we have others where we’re still trying to locate them, and they’re going to ground and we have arrest warrants out for them... Kelvin every few weeks gives me a call saying, James, I’ve got another one for you.”
  – James Netto (16:16)

• “All of [the fathers] chose at the moment not to cooperate. It is kind of a sad story about humanity, really, in a way, and parenthood.”
  – Ivana Davidovich (19:54)

• “There are good examples... It’s not necessarily the fathers... but the half brothers, cousins, aunts, and uncles.”
  – James Netto (20:02)

• “We had no idea... we were sending DNA kits out. I remember my suitcase [had] my suit... and 15 or 20 DNA kits... If I got stopped by Kenyan customs, I've got a bit of explaining to do.”
  – James Netto (20:21)

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• Recap of premise & start of update: 01:38–05:51
• Case studies revisited: 05:51–12:30
• Emerging legal developments: 14:12–20:02
• Broader scale, global impact: 18:42–20:02
• MOD and UK–Kenya diplomacy: 21:25–24:41

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Tone & Overall Feel

The episode is emotionally incisive, investigative, and occasionally hopeful while remaining clear-eyed about the human pain and ongoing struggles. Both the BBC team and legal partners are earnest, empathetic, and relentless in seeking accountability in the face of powerful institutions and enduring injustice.

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Conclusion & Future Updates

• The legal process continues, with ongoing court cases and new families seeking help.
• The investigation’s revelations have added tension to UK–Kenya diplomatic relations and prompted (tentative) recognition from the MOD.
• Integrity of the investigative process—combining new technology and legal innovation—points to global ramifications as similar forgotten children reach out from around the world.
• BBC promises further updates in future seasons, with hopes for more positive outcomes for individuals like Yvonne, Peter, and Kathy.

“Thank you for the fantastic work... It’s an incredibly touching series and I enjoyed listening to—well, I was really captured by it.”
– Tristan Redman (25:02)

Transcript

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[Host Tristan Redman]

Welcome to this special bonus episode of World of Secrets Searching for Soul to dad. Before we kick off, I want to let you know we've got a brand new World of Secrets investigation on its way, scheduled to start in September. Follow or subscribe to World of Secrets so you get all the episodes automatically. Earlier this year, World of Secrets brought you Searching for Soldier dad. If you haven't heard the series yet, go and do so fast and then come back to hear the updates to the story. We don't want to give you any spoilers here, and if you listened back when it launched, here's a brief recap. This is the remarkable story of a groundbreaking legal and genetic process to find the missing fathers of children living near a British army training base in Kenya. These children, many of them now adults, say that their fathers were soldiers stationed at the base before they disappeared.

[Journalist Ivana Davidovich]

The curiosity of who is my father? It's part of you. Yeah, it's. You can't escape it.

[Podcast Advertiser]

I can't.

[Journalist Ivana Davidovich]

It's in DNA.

[Lawyer James Netto]

Literally.

[Journalist Ivana Davidovich]

I can't escape it because something in

[Host Tristan Redman]

me is like, get to know him,

[Journalist Ivana Davidovich]

you know, know your roots, know everything. And then there's some part of me which is like, he doesn't care. He was never here for you.

[Host Tristan Redman]

For about a year And a half. The BBC journalist Ivana Davidovich followed the lawyers as they attempted to identify the missing men.

[Lawyer James Netto]

We will try as hard as we can. We will use every tool we can. We will go to court as much as we can. But there is no guarantee we will ever find the father or the fathers involved in these cases.

[Host Tristan Redman]

It's a powerful series that follows three main stories. Kathy and her mum, Maggie. Yvonne, who grew up thinking she was an orphan. And Peter, who yearns for his father and desperately wants to be the father to his own son that he never had growing up. I found my dad. I feel like I have someone. I forgive him for everything. All the pain that I've been carrying all these 30 years, that pain has come out as joy. We spoke to Kathy's dad, Phil, now living in the uk.

[Journalist Ivana Davidovich]

What do you want now, Phil? Do you want to be a dad? Do you want a chance to be a dad? Yeah.

[Podcast Advertiser]

Yeah.

[Host Tristan Redman]

Well, I've had this conversation with Kathy and I told her so it doesn't

[Podcast Advertiser]

matter what I do.

[Host Tristan Redman]

I never make up for the amount of time that I've lost with her. But all I can do is to do the best that I can. But the story hasn't stopped since the final concluding episode. It's kept developing. So today we're bringing you this special bonus episode of Searching for Soldier dad, revisiting some of the key characters from the story and sharing some bigger updates too. I'm Tristan Redman. By day, I'm one of the hosts of the BBC World Service's daily deep dive news podcast, the Global Story. Each episode we present a single story, we where the world and America meet. And when I listened to Searching for Soldier Dad, I was incredibly touched by the whole story, particularly the moments when the three main characters, Kathy, Peter and Yvonne, find out that they have dads. But I was also really struck by the tragedy of the wish come true nature of the. Of the whole story. When you spend so long yearning for something, it can be very hard sometimes to deal with it when it actually happens. So today I'm pleased to be speaking with the BBC journalist behind the story, presenter of the podcast, Ivana Davidovich.

[Journalist Ivana Davidovich]

Nice.

[Lawyer James Netto]

Hello.

[Host Tristan Redman]

Nice to see you, Ivana.

[Journalist Ivana Davidovich]

Nice to see you too.

[Host Tristan Redman]

And by James Netto, the lawyer from the podcast whose legal action in the British family courts we followed through the show.

[Lawyer James Netto]

Hi, it's good to be back.

[Journalist Ivana Davidovich]

We're excited about all the questions. We can't wait.

[Host Tristan Redman]

This is World of Secrets. Searching for Soldier Dad a BBC World Service Investigation. Episode six updates. Ivana Let me start with you. At the heart of this series are our three main characters, Kathy, Yvonne and Peter. Ivana, can you give us a quick reminder about their stories?

[Journalist Ivana Davidovich]

Yes. So Kathy, she was, you know, just turned basically 18 when I first met her in 2024 and she was a really eloquent young woman, very thoughtful and incredibly close with her mum, Maggie. So Maggie had known from the start who the father of her child was because they were in a serious relationship and they were even engaged. But then when Kathy was only seven months old, he just disappeared, he vanished and she just could not find him and, or despite trying for many, many years. So when we met, it was an interesting one. They kind of knew who he was, name, surname, you know, age, but couldn't reach him, couldn't do anything with it. So, you know, there were high hopes that they could be sort of located but they didn't know what would ever come out of it. Right. And it was a fascinating journey to see her sort of keep her usual cool, you know, not get too excited, not get too emotional about all these steps. When James told her, you're definitely British, oh, we wrote to your father for the first time, the first phone call. She's kind of keeping her cool, she's keeping her kind of cards close to her chest, I think. Probably doesn't want to get hurt again.

[Host Tristan Redman]

Right, yeah, she does come across that way as a very cool customer. What about Peter? Remind us of his situation.

[Journalist Ivana Davidovich]

So Peter, oh my God, Peter is a completely different character to Kathy, so. Oh, he's older. I mean when I met him he was 33, he's 35 now, so he lived on his grandparents farm.

[Host Tristan Redman]

Avocado Farm.

[Journalist Ivana Davidovich]

Yeah, avocados and other things. It's quite a big farm, but quite amazing. Amazing produce. Right. And you could tell how much he yearned for the love of his father, for the acceptance. For him, this process seemed like it was everything to him. You know, he was not like holding back at all. He was the complete opposite.

[Host Tristan Redman]

How about Yvonne? Yvonne, I mean all of these stories are incredibly touching but Yvonne was the one that really knocked me over. Remind us what her situation is.

[Journalist Ivana Davidovich]

So Yvonne was 17 when I first met her, raised as an orphan because she didn't have a mum. Her mum died when she was about year and a half thereabouts and she was raised by her grandparents. And so the news came that the soldier, the father is dead. And that's what Yvonne grew up believing, that her father was a soldier who died and her mum also died before Yvonne was Able to meet her properly, and that was that, you know, and she always. She really. She was such a sweet, intelligent, kind of shy girl, but always kept saying she wanted to be a journalist, which I thought was really cute.

[Host Tristan Redman]

Well, I mean, if you tell a journalist you want to be a journalist, you're always gonna get some of their heart, aren't you?

[Journalist Ivana Davidovich]

Yeah.

[Lawyer James Netto]

Instant favorite.

[Journalist Ivana Davidovich]

I don't think it was calculated, though. Yvonne is not like that. But, yeah, it was very sweet how she wanted to sort of investigate and help other people, considering that, you know, her situation was so tough.

[Host Tristan Redman]

Update us on where our three main characters are now. How are they?

[Journalist Ivana Davidovich]

How are they? They're still in a state of flux, I would say all of them, some better than others. So with Kathy, for people who've heard the podcast, Phil, her father, was the only one who actually embraced this whole process of all the fathers and decided immediately to not only say, yes, I'm the father of this young woman, but I also want to have a relationship with her. And they are still in contact all the time. That's my understanding. They speak regularly. She's got, like, a new job, a slightly better job, and I think her dad has helped her a little bit financially in terms of just the housing situation recently, but she's still kind of in a relatively similar position that she was when I saw her last about six, seven months ago in person.

[Host Tristan Redman]

Kathy and Phil have not yet met in person, is that right?

[Journalist Ivana Davidovich]

That is correct.

[Host Tristan Redman]

But on video call, yes. Yeah. Okay.

[Journalist Ivana Davidovich]

And they say they share the same sense of humor? Yes, they both actually confirmed that. I can kind of see it now.

[Host Tristan Redman]

Well, you've met.

[Journalist Ivana Davidovich]

They're a bit cheeky, kind of.

[Host Tristan Redman]

Do they have mannerisms which are similar?

[Journalist Ivana Davidovich]

They definitely do, 100%, yeah.

[Host Tristan Redman]

Okay. And how is Peter doing?

[Journalist Ivana Davidovich]

Peter is sadly not doing that well. Like I said, he was so keen to have a relationship with his dad. And although, like we hear on the podcast, the relationship started and the dad really wanted to speak with him, I think my understanding is that their last spoke, like, actually spoke was last year, and that now Peter's father has decided that their relationship is going to be just messages at Christmases and birthdays, and that's it. And I think for Peter, that is very hard to deal with because he really wanted the love and acceptance of his dad.

[Host Tristan Redman]

And how is Yvonne? Because at the end of the series, he. She is the character who has the most. Still hanging and waiting, Most questions still to be answered.

[Journalist Ivana Davidovich]

Yeah. So, I mean, her father, who we called Kieran in the show he obviously had to accept parentage. I mean, that was the declaration issued. But he has refused to have any contact with Yvonne since. Good news for Yvonne is, as we know, her great aunt was found. I mean, it's actually she was the link, she was the one found on ancestor who we called Anthea. And Anthea has really worked on her relationship with Yvonne. They've been in contact, video contact, audio contact. Anthea is helping financially to sort out some of Yvonne's documents that she needs so she can in the first instance come and hopefully visit either in December or January for the first time to the UK and meet Anthea and her children and her grandchildren. And you know, Anthea says that even if, you know, Yvonne's father doesn't want to have anything to do with her, you know, she really wants to give her the family that she can, that family life. And she wants to see, we don't know it's too early, but to see in which way she could possibly support her in further education as well. Because Yvonne is actually graduating high school in November. So let's see what happens. I mean, the plan is I should hopefully be around when they meet and it will be fantastic. It will be just brilliant.

[Host Tristan Redman]

Well, I hope that works out for Yvonne, I really do. And I hope that works out for you and selfishly for myself, because I'd be really fascinated to hear how that goes. And if you're able to meet with Yvonne and record any of it, it would be wonderful. For listeners who followed the series well, obviously this story is bigger than these three characters who you followed in the series.

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[Journalist Ivana Davidovich]

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[Host Tristan Redman]

We hear about in the series legal action that includes 17 children. But since then, the number has continued to grow. James, you're one of the main characters in the series. You're a lawyer. And as we hear, you are a dogged lawyer.

[Lawyer James Netto]

Remind us, I take that as a compliment to be a pain in the backside. That's what all lawyers.

[Host Tristan Redman]

That's what you're supposed to be. Yeah, yeah. Explain how this has been such a landmark case.

[Lawyer James Netto]

I don't know of any other. Well, there are no other cases in which genetic testing has been done, put on a publicly available DNA database, that evidence being used in court in support of applications for declarations of parentage.

[Host Tristan Redman]

And do you see this usage actually expanding and becoming much more prevalent?

[Lawyer James Netto]

Absolutely. There is no other way that I know of or that Denise, our geneticist knows of, where you can have zero idea about who your father is. And there may be, and this may is the word I stress in this, there may be a way of you finding out who your father is, what your identity is made up of.

[Host Tristan Redman]

Does it boil down to the court recognizes that. The law recognizes that everybody has a right to know who their parents are and the law is prepared to back that right.

[Lawyer James Netto]

I think that is a large portion of it. I think the judges we've had have been extraordinarily sympathetic and very human about this because alongside the sort of overarching principles of who's your identity, what's your heritage, do you have a right to know this? There's also this massive power imbalance and financial imbalance that's occurring between the UK and Kenya. And this is rural Kenya. This is rural Kenya where people do struggle on a day to day basis. Yvonne's family live in extraordinarily humble circumstances. Their homestead is a powerful image to go and see their homestead.

[Host Tristan Redman]

What's happened since, since the show went out? Have you been back in court? Give us a. Give us a brief, Pressy.

[Lawyer James Netto]

Well, the cases are still ongoing. They're still. We're in court tomorrow as it happens. So tomorrow morning we're back in front of the president of the Family Division and he is dealing with six cases that remain ongoing. These are becoming even more challenging. In several of those cases, we know the men to have been to have passed away. We know that the men have passed away. We have others where we're still trying to locate them and they're going to ground and we have arrest warrants out for them and we're still trying to track them. Down. They're not making it easy for themselves or indeed for the court. That's what's going on at the moment. And Kelvin every few weeks gives me a call saying, james, I've got another one for you. So from a Kenyan perspective, it's still trundling on, we're still fighting hard for them, but there's also another dimension which is that we've also been given permission to start financial claims against the men involved. Now, financial claims are being made against men where the children involved are under 18 or just over 18 and in full time education. It's child maintenance.

[Host Tristan Redman]

Yes, child maintenance, child support, anything you

[Lawyer James Netto]

want to call it like that.

[Host Tristan Redman]

In the United States it would be called alimony.

[Lawyer James Netto]

Alimony, something like that. Exactly that. So alimony, because these, I mean, they're the fathers, right? You need to pay for your kids. It doesn't matter whether they live in Nanuki or whether they live in Newcastle, you still have to pay for your kid.

[Host Tristan Redman]

Right. Just to be clear, there is no retrospective child maintenance or alimony to be paid. If Your child is 20, say, and is not in full time education, but you never paid any at the time, can that be claimed retrospectively?

[Lawyer James Netto]

We are considering that point. I think it might be a bit of a tall order to claim it retrospectively. What we're focusing on is anything, just any pound, a single penny, a single Kenyan shilling, needs to land in the pockets of these children because they are struggling here. I have invited every single man who is eligible in this pool, you know, where they've got children under 18, to provide their suggestions about financial support for their children, for their own children, and not a single response has come back, not a single one. So we have to take them to court. I'm hoping once the court process starts, they will be far more amenable to reaching an agreement, but so far they aren't.

[Host Tristan Redman]

Do you know how many children in Kenya might fit this description of fathered by a British service member while on deployment to Kenya and with an absent father?

[Lawyer James Netto]

Good question. We firmly believe that this cohort of cases we have is just the tip of the iceberg. It's a drop in the ocean. And since the cases came out in the media, we've had an enormous amount of inquiries from all over the world. And it's not always, but the common theme for most of the cases is, my father was a soldier, my father was in the raf, my father was in the navy, my father was a charity worker, My father was a British national, I think. And name a country and it's happened. I've had inquiries from Honduras, from Belize, from Nigeria, from Ghana, from Uganda, from Zimbabwe. I've had everything from. We've had inquiries from people who say, oh, my dad was in a construction company, my dad was in a mining company.

[Journalist Ivana Davidovich]

It is a bit of a sad story, isn't it? Overall, it's positive in terms of, you know, maybe future possibilities. But in terms of relationships, what does it tell us? All fathers but one Phil, have decided not to really have any contact with their children. And even those there are supposed to at least. At least pay some child maintenance. And if their child was living in the uk, they would have had to anyway. They would have no choice.

[Lawyer James Netto]

Well, they would have their earnings garnished.

[Journalist Ivana Davidovich]

All of them chose at the moment not to cooperate. I mean, it is kind of a sad story about humanity, really, in a way, and parenthood.

[Lawyer James Netto]

It is depressing, I agree, but there are good examples as well where it's not necessarily the fathers who've embraced these Kenyan children or Kenyan family members, but it's the half brothers, the cousins, the aunts, the uncles.

[Host Tristan Redman]

James, when you started out on this project, did you have any conception that it could take on such scale?

[Lawyer James Netto]

Absolutely not. We had no idea what we were getting. I mean, we were sending DNA kits out. I went to Kenya River, I remember my dub, my suitcase, this double suitcase had my suit, my shirt, my tie. And then I realized when I got to Kenya and how humid it was, I was like, there's no way that suit is coming out of the suitcase. And then on the other hand was. I think I had 15 or 20 DNA kits. I remember thinking, if I get stopped by Kenyan customs, I've got a bit of explanation of explaining to do. But now there is change. And it's not just declarations of parentage, it's not just child maintenance, it's not just the British citizenship. It's, this is my dad, this is who I am.

[Host Tristan Redman]

I mean, it's an incredibly personal story, but it's also a military and strategic one. Ivana, you spoke in the series with a British army brigadier at a British army training base in the south of England, and you interviewed this brigadier about the duty of care that the Ministry of Defence has to Kenyans who live near the base. Tell us about that.

[Journalist Ivana Davidovich]

Yeah, it was an interesting interview. So the brigadier was very keen to emphasize the policies that the British army has about use of sex workers, child exploitation, sexual exploitation. But we circled a lot around the issues of soldiers fathering children. And when I tried to find out if they had any policies or any plans to address this issue. There were no concrete steps that he ever talked about in the interview. Interestingly, on the last day, on the day when we actually broadcast, we were doing a lot of promotion. I was doing lots of live interviews and radio, TV appearances, packages. And they issued a statement then on that day, a stronger statement, which said that soldiers, if they do father a child, they have certain responsibilities. So that statement was much stronger, but it came sort of after our interview. I mean, it's an interesting political moment in Kenya, in the relations between the UK and Kenya at the moment, because Batuk has been around for decades and there is an overdue Defense and Cooperation agreement that Kenya and the UK need to sign for the British army to continue training regularly there. So we've had a little issue with one of the training exercises just in the last week, for example. It just shows what the problems are with these negotiations, what's happened. So the British army said about a week ago they decided they wouldn't or no, they didn't decide, but they wouldn't be able to train and run their usual training exercise, which was due to start in September, because they didn't get the usual permissions to do so. Because if you don't have an agreement signed, you need to get a permission for every single training exercise, which is complicated. And basically what the issue was with that training exercise was that the, the Kenyans put their foot down and apparently said, when we are negotiating this new Defense and Cooperation agreement, what's really important to us is jurisdiction. If a British soldier does something wrong in the country in Kenya, we want to have jurisdiction over them. And my understanding is that that is something that the British authorities are not happy with. And that is the main contentious point, point in this negotiation. When the Brits realized that the Kenyans were not going to agree to that, they said, well, we're not going to run our next training exercise in September. So what I heard last week was that there was a lot of pressure from various groups, business groups, local authorities in the province where Nanyuki is. They were very concerned financially about the implications if thousands of troops don't come as they usually come for their training exercises. And the Kenyan authorities decided to give them the permission for this particular training exercise. So now it will go ahead. And I think there is this push, pull between. This is an important relationship for Kenya, this is a financially and politically important relationship for Kenya. But they just definitely feel like there has to be more respect, there has to be different kind of levers in place. Jurisdiction has to change. That's what they think. So let's see what happens. Right.

[Host Tristan Redman]

Well, James, Ivana, it's been wonderful to talk all this through with you. I hope you'll come and update us later down the line when you have more news from Kathy, from Peter and from Yvonne. Maybe after Christmas.

[Journalist Ivana Davidovich]

Yeah. Thanks so much for being so excited about the series. I'm excited that you're excited.

[Host Tristan Redman]

It's a, it's incredibly touching series and yeah, I enjoyed listening to. It is not the word to use, but I was, I was really captured by it. So thank you for the fantastic work.

[Journalist Ivana Davidovich]

Thank you, thank you.

[Host Tristan Redman]

And to all of our listeners, thank you for listening to the BBC's investigations podcast, World of Secrets. If you haven't discovered them yet, there are 11 other investigations already available to listen to on the stream. And not only that, there are three new World of Secrets investigations currently underway. In September, we're planning to launch Season 13, a five part World Service investigation from Southeast Asia. In a story about friendship, love and who you can really trust will follow a group of young people as they dare to challenge the powerful, speaking up and taking on a deeply respected national institution. And in the meantime, we'll share more updates from previous seasons. So follow or subscribe to get all the automatic updates. Until then, bye for now.

[Journalist Ivana Davidovich]

Grainger knows. When you're a procurement manager for an office park, you're not managing one building, you're managing all of them. And to stay ahead, you need to see through walls and around corners. Lights about to fail, filters ready to clog. HVAC on its last leg. If you wait until something breaks, you're already behind. Count on Granger for quality products, easy reordering and 24.

[Lawyer James Netto]

7 support.

[Journalist Ivana Davidovich]

Call 1-800-granger click granger.com or just stop by Granger for the ones who get it done.