Friday, March 9, 2012

Kenyan model questioned after former British public schoolboy boyfriend falls to death - Telegraph

Kenyan model questioned after former British public 

One of Kenya's leading fashion models has been questioned after her boyfriend, a former British public schoolboy, fell to his death during an attempted robbery at her apartment.

Miss Kenya Diana Nekoye Sifuna
Image 1 of 2
Diana Nekoye Sifuna, Miss Kenya  Photo: GETTY
Charlie Grieves-Cook, 37, a photographer and former chef at several of London's Michelin-starred restaurants, died in hospital after falling three floors from Diana Sifuna's balcony.
He had run out of the apartment as armed men forced their way in, and jumped over the balcony but tried to hold on to the railings, police said.
Miss Sifuna, 24, told police that after the men left she grabbed Mr Grieves-Cook's arm to try to save him and then ran inside to fetch a sheet or a towel to help him pull himself back to safety. Miss Sifuna was being questioned as a witness, police said, and was not under suspicion for any criminal involvement in the incident. They plan to question her again.
When she returned, he had fallen to the car-park below.
Mr Grieves-Cook was a former pupil at Hurstpierpoint College in West Sussex, and was the son of a former chairman of the Kenya Tourism Board, Jake Grieves-Cook.
He was a Kenyan citizen who spent most of his education and early 20s in Britain, working as a chef in some of London's leading restaurants.
But he returned to Kenya in 1998 to begin a career in photography.
"I left the kitchen for a greater passion, and made a career out of photography," he wrote on his website.
"I developed a major love for "travel style photography", particularly the African Landscape, and the fascinating people that live here in East Africa."
He was increasingly in demand as an advertising photographer in Nairobi, and had worked in Uganda, Rwanda, Sudan and Ethiopia.
It is understood that guards at the upmarket apartment block in Nairobi's western suburb of Langata let the gunmen in because they thought they were attending a party being held by one of Miss Sifuna's neighbours.
Police recovered three bullet casings from the scene, and are working on identifying the suspects involved in the incident, on Saturday night.
"It appears to us that it was an attempted robbery, and that the unfortunate man simply panicked and tried to run," one officer said.
"That is our assumption, but we have not ruled out the possibility that they were hit men hired to kill the photographer."
Jake Grieves-Cook said: "We are all devastated. Charlie was an extraordinary young man with enormous talent who was loved by all who knew him.
"He was kind-hearted, exceptionally generous to all around him, modest and unassuming with a zest and passion for life so that he lived the equivalent of a lifetime of 80 years in his 36 years."
Miss Sifuna represented Kenya on an continentwide search for new modelling talent, called Face of Africa. She was well known in Nairobi and was one of a group of models in the country beginning to break into increasing advertising work, especially in South Africa. It is understood that she and Mr Grieves-Cook met when he photographed her for a Kenyan magazine.

No comments:

Post a Comment