Peter Poole

Peter Harold Richard Poole (1931 – 18 August 1960) was a British-born Kenyan engineer and shop owner. He was the first white person in Kenya to be executed for killing an indigenous African, and the only one as of 2009.

On 12 October 1959, Poole was charged with killing Kamawe Musunge, his houseboy, in Gordon Road, Nairobi. Musunge had been riding a bicycle when Poole's two dogs stopped him. Musunge threw stones at one dog, for which Poole shot him dead with a Luger pistol. On 10 December 1959, Poole was found guilty of murder by an all-white jury. The case took two trials. The first trial ended in a hung jury after one juror stood up and declared that he had a conscientious objection to any guilty verdict. Poole was sentenced to death by hanging, the mandatory sentence for murder in British Kenya.

At the time, Kenya was still under British rule, and the verdict was received negatively by many white settlers in the region. In Nairobi, Poole's parents circulated petitions for clemency, collecting over 25,000 signatures. According to Tom Mboya, European employers pressured their African workers to sign the petition. The case drew the attention of big-game hunter Robert C. Ruark, who said Poole was part of a bigger problem.

Poole had emigrated to Kenya from Essex, England, in 1953, after which he immediately joined the Kenyan police reserves to fight the Mau Mau during the Mau Mau rebellion. He later joined the military, and served in Germany, before returning to Kenya in 1956. He owned an electrical shop on Nairobi's Government Road (now Moi Avenue).

Poole had a history of violence and violent incidents. He once drew his gun and threatened an Asian shopkeeper for refusing to give him a discount on a flashlight. On another occasion, he shot a plainclothes African police officer in the legs when the officer was defending himself from Poole's dogs.

Poole was not the first white person to be convicted of murdering an African in British Kenya. In 1955, Leo Hoyle, a 25-year-old Northern Irish soldier of the Royal Irish Fusiliers, was sentenced to death for murdering an African woman after his insanity defense was rejected. However, the jury made a recommendation for mercy in his case. On appeal, Hoyle was declared insane.