On this day in Yorkshire

March 22, 1949

Nairobi, Monday

Peter Jeffrey Riley, 20-year-old Lupset (Wakefield) aircraftman, charged with the murder of an elderly African woman, was today found guilty of manslaughter and sentenced to eight months’ imprisonment with hard labour.

The Judge, saying lie agreed with the jury’s verdict, hoped the sentence would mean that Riley could return to the RAF and eventually forget “this deplorable event.”

To Riley he said: “You have come to Kenya, a land where we have mixed communities, and should realise there can be no discrimination in the application of the law or the sentence as between various races.

“There must be one and the same law for European, African and Asian, and one and the same standard of punishment. I find it impossible to bind you over because I fear such a step would lead some to suppose that homicide can be easily overlooked.”

The Judge said that some might consider the sentence lenient, but it was passed because if Riley had not been given a gun he would not have been on trial. He was a young man with a good record.

When the sentence was passed, Riley’s father, who had flown out to attend the trial, slumped forward in his seat, his head between his hands. The Solicitor-General, speaking of the father, said: “We have all been impressed by the dignity and courageous manner in which he went into the witness box to tell of his son’s past.”

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