Sisters fought to clear identify after being accused of murdering father

Helen and Alexandra Veevers as soon as had a obscure notion that by the point they reached their mid-30s they’d be safe of their careers and married with kids.

Instead, as they watched their pals calm down, the sisters have been pressured to put aside their modest ambitions and spend greater than a decade defending themselves towards a unprecedented declare – patricide.

Helen, now 36, and Alexandra, 34, together with their mom, have been accused of poisoning their property tycoon father Harry Veevers for his £7million fortune.

It was, they are saying, a depraved lie, a fantasy concocted by their older half-brothers Richard, 47, and Philip, 45, from their father’s first marriage, to disclaim them their inheritance. 

The two sisters, from Manchester, insisted their 64-year-old father’s coronary heart assault on Valentine’s Day 2013 in Kenya was resulting from pure causes alone. 

Yet the Kenyan authorities entertained the brothers’ claims of foul play and exhumed Mr Veevers 11 months later.

Analysis of tissue and soil samples produced conflicting outcomes. It could be left to an inquest within the coastal metropolis of Mombasa to determine if he had been poisoned.

To the sisters’ enormous misery, the allegations have been reported around the world. And the story of feuding and homicide amongst rich Kenyan expats has drawn inevitable comparisons with the White Mischief case of 1941, dramatised in a novel and Hollywood film.

At stake was greater than Mr Veevers’ property. Helen and Alexandra, and their mom Azra Parvin Din, 75, have been warned that if the ruling went towards them they may face prison costs – and the terrifying chance of a jail sentence in a rustic the place jail circumstances are mentioned to be among the many worst on the earth.

Beset by delays resulting from a backlog of instances and causes not instantly clear, the inquest dragged interminably. One listening to was deserted when Helen acquired intimidating texts from a person who turned out to be the court docket clerk.

The Mail on Sunday can reveal that solely now, eight years after it opened in a blaze of publicity, has the inquest reached a conclusion.

Oddly, the decision caught either side’ authorized groups without warning – they have been anticipating a routine case administration listening to. By likelihood, Alexandra was in court docket that morning as a result of she and her sister have been determined to seek out out when a ruling was anticipated.

Suddenly Justice of the Peace Charles Ndegwa started studying from a sheet of paper containing his complete evaluation of the long-running case.

Alexandra felt ‘my heart beat out of my chest’. Mr Ndegwa instructed the court docket: ‘Lastly, and most importantly, no concrete evidence has been adduced to show that anyone was criminally responsible for the death of the deceased. In the circumstances, I direct the court file be closed.’

To the sisters, although relieved, ‘it felt a bit of an anti-climax’. Mr Ndegwa’s assertion didn’t even trace on the case’s twisting complexities, far-reaching penalties and the scorched path it left behind.

And the feud is much from over. Senior assistant director of public prosecutions Alexander Muteti is predicted to determine if brothers Richard, a martial arts teacher, and Philip, a former Army medic, must be investigated for fraud and making an attempt to pervert the course of justice. ‘We will push for the police and prosecutors to investigate,’ says Helen.

Then there may be the unresolved query of the Rochdale businessman’s property. Mr Veevers died with out leaving a will. A letter he wrote purportedly outlining his ultimate needs went lacking from a Barclays financial institution security deposit field. Promising to be as rancorous because the inquest, the inheritance battle is on the horizon.

For now, the sisters are numb and battle to make sense of the case that, says Helen, put their ‘lives on hold’ for greater than ten years. Actually, she provides, ‘it’s worse than that – our lives have been ruined by essentially the most ridiculous, depraved, horrible lie’.

Alexandra says: ‘The emotional and psychological impact has been enormous. For all these years we have had to live with the awful fear of being jailed in Kenya for something we haven’t executed. It’s arduous to think about a lot worse than being wrongly accused of murdering our father, a person all of us beloved dearly.

‘The same goes for our mother. It’s been horrendous for her. There has additionally been the knock-on results and the “no smoke without fire” factor. I haven’t dated anyone since Dad died. I name myself Alesha after I meet somebody, as a result of I do know if I give my actual identify they are going to learn the lies about me on the web.

‘And I don’t get parcels delivered to my house as I don’t need neighbours to see my identify.’

Like her sister, Helen is single. Both reside in rented lodging. ‘We can’t get mortgages as all our cash has gone into preventing to clear our names,’ she says.

Helen provides that the case ruined friendships and relationships. She had to surrender her job as an property agent, as an alternative taking a a lot decrease profile position with a safety firm.

When their grandmother died, a relative warned them to not attend the funeral. ‘It was crazy,’ she says. ‘Of course we went, but it’s an instance of the suspicions this has sown.’

Toxic in additional methods than one, the case featured lies, fraud and corruption. At its coronary heart was the query of whether or not or not Mr Veevers was poisoned. Kenyan scientists claimed to have discovered traces of the insecticide cyhalothrin after exhuming his physique. But in 2018 a British forensic scientist, Dr Alexander Allan, instructed the inquest {that a} re-analysis of soil and soft-tissue samples, utilizing a extremely delicate approach, had discovered no such hint of the poisonous compound.

In his report, seen by The Mail on Sunday, Dr Allan, who labored for the Home Office for 20 years, famous intriguingly: ‘From the circumstances supplied to me it appears that the most likely scenario for the origin of any confirmed cyhalothrin would have been post-mortem addition.’

Mr Veevers’s stays have been saved at Mombasa hospital since exhumation, however the sisters and their mom now hope to rebury him with dignity. The exhumation, they are saying, was an emotional assault.

Helen fears her brothers now need him cremated in England. ‘This would be against his religion,’ she says.

Her father married his first spouse very younger, and divorced her in 1980 after having three kids, Alison, Richard and Philip. He later met Azra, a lady of Indian heritage who was born in Uganda earlier than transferring to Britain and settling in Rochdale.

They married in an Islamic ceremony and raised Helen and Alexandra as liberal Muslims. Harry later transformed. The Veevers usually visited Kenya throughout Helen and Alexandra’s childhood. Eventually the couple moved to Mombasa, the place they constructed three homes subsequent to 1 one other, dwelling in a single whereas the others stayed empty as investments. Helen and Alexandra, by then adults, remained dwelling in Britain.

Harry later suffered hypertension, angina and an interior ear downside. On the day he died he complained of chest pains, dying as physician arrived at his house.

Helen instructed the inquest of the second she knowledgeable Richard, often known as ‘Dragon Rik’ due to a dragon tattoo the size of his physique. ‘I could tell the news made him happy. He said he’d been ready for today. He mentioned we may begin by sharing the contents of my father’s UK checking account, which had £500,000 in it. He was excited.’

Following the dying, Richard, Philip, Alexandra and Helen flew to Kenya collectively, although it was later claimed, wrongly, that the sisters have been in Kenya when he died.

On touchdown, the primary signal of division emerged. The brothers mentioned Harry was buried with out their information; the sisters say the brothers took half within the funeral.

The brothers claimed there have been unusual marks on the physique and so they have been suggested that they indicated poisoning; Helen says they’ve didn’t current any proof.

She accused Richard of seizing management of the household properties and Harry’s automobile with out settlement, and renting out Harry and Azra’s home with out consent. Alexandra instructed the inquest she noticed Richard and Philip within the mortuary with their father’s physique, carrying latex gloves and ‘holding some sort of instrument’.

Although their father didn’t depart a will, Helen instructed the inquest that it was recognized ‘throughout the family’ that there was a letter in a security deposit field at Barclays financial institution in Mombasa to be opened within the occasion of his dying. Harry’s brother Chris, who had been granted entry, discovered the field empty.

Helen instructed the court docket she believed the letter might need disinherited Richard and he ‘did a deal’ with a financial institution worker to do away with it.

‘My uncle Chris agreed my father was very shrewd with money and would never have paid for a bank box that was empty,’ she mentioned.

‘My uncle warned me that Richard was trying to set us up, accusing us of poisoning my father to get his money. He said, “You girls need to be careful.’’ ’

It was additionally claimed that Mr Veevers had threatened to go away Azra, now dwelling in Hampshire, for an additional lady – however the sisters insist the supposed ‘affair’ is one other twisted fabrication.

All sides are contemplating their subsequent strikes. ‘We will come to court and testify,’ says Helen. ‘We were really scared all the way through. Some days I was so anxious I would wake up with my nails imprinted into the palm of my hand from clenching my fists during the night. But we’re not giving up.’

Neither are their brothers. Richard and Philip, who deny their sisters’ allegations, intend difficult the inquest ruling in Kenya’s High Court. Their lawyer Francis Kinyua mentioned: ‘They are upset but their position hasn’t modified.’