Cholmondeley turns guns on friend

Tom Cholmondeley (pictured), who is being tried for murder in a Nairobi court after allegedly shooting dead a poacher on his family’s 58,000-acre estate in Kenya, pleaded his innocence yesterday, suggesting that it was "probably" one of his friends, Carl “Flash” Tundo, who fired the fatal shot. Cholmondeley, 40, the great-grandson of the third Baron Delamere, who was one of Kenya's most famous white settlers and the founder of the Happy Valley set, told the court that he was giving Tundo a tour of his property when they came across a group of poachers, who unleashed their dogs on the two men.

Cholmondeley said he fired only at the dogs, while Tundo fired a pistol. He claimed that Tundo "probably" fired the shot that killed the poacher, Robert Njoya. He said he found Njoya face down bleeding from a bullet wound in his backside, dozens of yards from where he shot the dogs.

"There was no one in the field of view when I shot those dogs," he said. "Had I shot him, I would have expected him to be lying right where the dogs were." Cholmondeley said he and Tundo drove the injured man to the main road and called for help, but he died later in hospital.

Crucially, Cholmondeley said he didn't tell the police that Tundo had a gun because his friend begged him not to after they were arrested. He said: "That night in the cells, Flash was really upset and tearful. He asked me not to mention it for fear that he would get into trouble." The case continues.