When I read in the papers last week that Kenyan aristocrat Thomas Cholmondeley was convicted of manslaughter for fatally shooting a poacher who had illegally entered his family's ancestral ranch, it didn't surprise me. The shock came after I learned that somehow Cholmondeley, along with other members of the privileged white African community, honestly believed he might be found innocent.
The precise details of the shooting remain a mystery, at least in part. Cholmondeley contests that he was acting in self-defence, adding that the fateful bullet may not actually have been fired from his gun. The representatives and supporters of the victim, on the other hand, claim that the accused's conduct amounts to murder. Whatever the discrepancies, the unalterable fact remains that a poor black man died while under fire from a scion of a prominent white colonial family.
It doesn't take an international-law expert to understand that, after suffering centuries of oppression under British colonists, black Africans living in the Rift Valley would react skeptically to anyone in Cholmondeley's position. And their outrage seems particularly justified when you take into account that, only a year before this particular controversy, Cholmondeley shot and killed another man he mistakenly identified as a poacher on the family estate (the man was actually a Kenyan wildlife official).
Cholmondeley's close friends and allies characterize him as the best kind of guy there is – gracious, caring and free of malicious feelings toward anyone. Personally, I have never met him. From one degree of separation, I can tell you that a woman I know well and trust unfailingly – a regular visitor to Cholmondeley in his Kenyan prison cell – told me she believes he is nothing more than a tragic victim of bad luck.
I myself am certainly not qualified to judge his innocence. But I can say that something odd often happens to aristocrats who spend large amounts of time on isolated family estates. The illusion of mastery over people and events takes hold. Personal eccentricities gain traction. It's not entirely unlike the Grey Gardens phenomenon. Without a strong connection to life beyond the high walls, members of the landed gentry tend to develop a sense of apathy toward the customs governing ordinary social conduct.
Take the legendary photographer Peter Beard, for example. Most people know him for his highly regarded images of African wildlife, but he is also a genuine member of the American upper class, who, after attending a string of the fanciest schools in the northeast, moved to Kenya, where he purchased a ranch of his own. While touring his land in 1967, Beard found a dead antelope that had been caught in an illegal trap. His response to the discovery was unorthodox by any measure. Shortly after the incident, Sports Illustrated published the following account:
"Enraged, he set out to catch the poacher, and when he spotted an African approaching another trap nearby, he jumped him. With the help of his Somali servant, Beard beat the man up, stuffed a glove in his mouth and used wire from the traps to tie his hands to one tree and his feet to another. Then he walked off and left the suspected poacher hanging there."
Eventually, the authorities arrested Beard for seeking such extreme retribution.
Close to a half a century ago, on the finest estate in the community where I was raised – Far Hills, New Jersey – a young woman deliberately set her family's mansion on fire. Nearly everything was torched: artwork, furniture, even dogs and cats. A formal investigation never established exactly what had happened, nor did it officially cast blame on anyone involved. Years later, however, a dormitory at the school where this same troubled youth was enrolled burst into flames. And although a perpetrator was not publicly identified, the young woman was temporarily sent to a mental hospital for treatment. What's most interesting about the entire ordeal is that almost everyone in the neighbourhood dismisses the arson as quaint behaviour from a curious young child. Generations of local residents have witnessed such freakish occurrences so regularly they no longer pay much attention.
Just 48 hours before his final sentencing, this past Thursday, Thomas Cholmondeley offered to pay compensation to his victim's widow in exchange for his freedom. Cholmondeley's barrister announced before a crowded courtroom that the proposed deal would "assuage the pain and suffering by both sides by meeting whatever material and spiritual needs which may arise." The victim's widow has already said that Cholmondeley should escape further imprisonment so that his family doesn't have to suffer like hers has.
On Thursday, the judge disagreed, sentencing Cholmondeley to eight months in jail.
Jamie Johnson is the director of documentaries Born Rich and The One Percent and an heir to the Johnson & Johnson fortune.
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