LONDON: There was dancing in the streets of Nairobi earlier this month when three elderly Kenyans won an unexpected legal victory in London. They had been granted the right to sue the British government over the horrific ordeals they suffered during the Mau Mau insurgency, although the abuses had been inflicted more than half a century earlier.

Even before the judgment had been formally handed down, however, the UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office had decided to appeal the decision, to the dismay of many who had been observing the case. The FCO’s lawyers had already conceded that the accounts of castration, rape and savage beatings had been honest, and that British and colonial officials had been aware of the ugly truth about life in the prison camps of 1950s Kenya. So why was the government continuing to resist their claim for compensation, and an apology?

Some wondered whether the FCO was, with supreme cynicism, simply dragging out the process, waiting for these troublesome litigants to die. A fairer explanation is to be found in the FCO’s own statements. While stressing that they “understand the pain and grievance” felt, the FCO described the ruling as disappointing. “The normal time limit for bringing a civil action is three to six years. In this case, that period has been extended to over 50 years despite the fact that the key decision-makers are dead ... Since this is an important legal issue, we have taken the decision to appeal.”

But having already conceded the use of torture during the seven-year counter-insurgency operation in Kenya, what would the FCO have to fear from the legal implications of a ruling that has allowed a claim for compensation from Britain’s recent colonial past?

The three Mau Mau veterans won their case, in part, because their claim exposed the existence of the Foreign Office’s secret annals of the end of empire, an archive stuffed with many of the documents that recorded how bloody the withdrawal had been (but not all, as some of the most damning colonial-era papers were destroyed).

The foreign minister, himself a historian, has to his great credit pledged that every surviving document will be transferred to the National Archives. But could it be that FCO officials have reason to believe that this archive may contain more evidence of abuses? Is there a realisation at the FCO that the tortures inflicted on the Mau Mau then migrated to Cyprus during the Eoka insurgency? Or that they then travelled to Aden, where they were used during the four years of conflict that preceded British withdrawal in 1967?

Perhaps there is an awareness that further evidence of British torture in Cyprus can be found in the archives of the International Committee of the Red Cross in Geneva? Or that evidence of British abuses at Aden has already been deposited at the National Archives?

What other claims could be out there, lurking in the memories of ageing rebels, and within documents that have been concealed for a generation? And is it possible that such claims could challenge not only the government and its lawyers, but also the British people’s carefully nurtured narrative of their imperial mission?

Already, several historians have begun assembling evidence that demonstrates what a brutal time it was, as the British sought to cling on to empire, or sought to withdraw, but at a far slower pace than the local population wished.

Perhaps the most far-reaching implication of the high court’s decision could be not that it will result in more claims for damages; but that those claims will throw such harsh light upon a period of Britain’s recent history that that history will need to be rewritten.

By arrangement with the Guardian