Give me citizenship: My dad was British and mum was Luhya, man pleads
A Kenyan who claims he was born to a British father alleges that authorities in the UK are frustrating his efforts to get British citizenship, which he believes is his birth right.
Jimmy Whitehouse, 55, says he was born to a Luhya mother, Josephine Murunga, and a Briton father, Sid Shorthouse.
He alleges that his father denounced him and the British government has declined to assist him trace him in Burton, United Kingdom. “I talked to the British Embassy in 1976 when they were based at Bruce House on Muindi Mbingu Street, but I got no assistance. They declined to link me with him, saying their policies did not allow disclosure of such information,” he claims.
Jimmy adds, “My father was born to Herbert Shorthouse who was an ironmonger and Mayan Shorthouse.”
According to Jimmy, his father was a colonial police officer based at Kapsabet Police Station and then later worked for G4S security firm, before leaving Kenya after independence.
The man who is now into herbal medicine business, further claims that his younger sister, Beatrice Margaret Shorthouse, was allegedly taken away by their stepmother and now lives in London with their four stepsiblings.
“They applied divide-and-rule tactic to erase my history and make it difficult for me to trace my roots. The last time I met her was in 1983 in Denmark,” he claims.
He blames the British government of ‘rejecting’ children born and abandoned in Kenya by Britons, yet “it is giving British citizenship to refugees.”
-sde.co.ke
