By ADEN KIPRUTO
A Nairobi court has ordered that the high-profile Sh100 million Karen land forgery case against British lawyer Guy Elms Spencer be mentioned on March 5, 2026.
Milimani Principal Magistrate Caroline Nyaguthi issued the order to confirm the outcome of a High Court application filed by Spencer seeking to bar the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP), Renson Ingonga, from prosecuting him.
Spencer has already obtained temporary relief after the High Court last year issued interim orders suspending his plea-taking.
Justice Martin Muya halted the prosecution from charging Spencer with forgery until his review application is heard and determined.
The case arises from a contentious legal battle over a disputed will, with Spencer facing allegations of forging documents linked to a valuable property in Nairobi’s affluent Karen area.
Spencer moved to the High Court after Milimani Senior Principal Magistrate Benmark Ekhubi rejected a request by the DPP to withdraw the charges against him.
The DPP had sought to terminate the case for reasons not disclosed in court, but Magistrate Ekhubi ruled that the withdrawal could not proceed without prior consultation with the complainant, stressing the need to follow legal procedure.
In his High Court application, Spencer argued that the magistrate’s decision was fundamentally flawed, irrational and contrary to established legal precedent. He said the trial court relied on irrelevant considerations while ignoring key facts, including a previous High Court ruling that had cleared him of similar forgery claims.
He cited a June 19, 2025 judgment in Milimani HCF P&A No. 955 of 2023, where the High Court dismissed the complainant’s claims and upheld the validity of the will at the centre of the dispute.
Spencer further argued that continuing with the forgery charges would amount to double jeopardy, violating his constitutional rights to equality before the law and a fair trial under Articles 27 and 50(1) and (2) of the Constitution.
He maintained that insisting on plea-taking despite the earlier High Court ruling amounted to a misdirection of the law and a miscarriage of justice.
The lower court’s decision to push ahead with the case followed Magistrate Ekhubi’s observation that this was the second attempt by the DPP to withdraw or discontinue the charges against Spencer.
Ekhubi raised concerns about the consistency of the DPP’s approach, noting that the Guidelines on the Decision to Charge (2019) require proper consultation with investigators and victims before such withdrawals. He also ruled that the existence of a civil or succession dispute does not bar criminal proceedings, since both can run concurrently.
The High Court’s interim order has given Spencer temporary reprieve as he awaits the hearing of his review application.
The outcome will determine whether the forgery charges proceed or are permanently withdrawn, a decision likely to influence how courts handle cases involving overlapping civil and criminal disputes over high-value property.
