Last Monday more than 400 tribespeople were arrested at a bus stop in the remote town of Rumuruti. They were apparently detained to prevent them attending the first hearing of the case at the High Court in Nairobi.The case was adjourned and Judge Alnashir Visram ordered a fresh hearing as a matter of urgency.. There is weeping in the City. But the real pain caused by Robert Maxwell hurts most behind lace curtains in bungalows up and down the land, such as the one where Dennis Stroud lives with his wife Priscilla

There is weeping in the City. But the real pain caused by Robert Maxwell hurts most behind lace curtains in bungalows up and down the land, such as the one where Dennis Stroud lives with his wife Priscilla.
The hefty orange report issued by the Department of Trade and Industry last week does not describe what it is like to work for decades, then reach retirement to find that the boss has stolen your pension.

The Strouds now live as simply as they can, together by the sea in Bexhill, Sussex ­ on a monthly income that must be much less than Robert Maxwell used to spend on his cigars every day.”I don’t know how much money I have lost,” says Mr Stroud “It would be too depressing to add up. I am bitter about it.”The former accountant speaks quietly and with care. He looks frail, and has been on medication for his nerves ever since it emerged that his pension would be less than half that expected. The crucial payments in the last five years of his working life, when he was putting more away in anticipation, were totally wiped out as part of the Maxwell affair.”It makes my blood boil,” he says with the same restraint he uses to describe his days as a prisoner of war.

Mr Stroud was a young infantryman when the enemy caught him in North Africa. He escaped in Italy but was captured again and transported to Germany “I got beaten up very badly there,” he says The memories linger. “That doesn’t help me.”Captain Maxwell won a medal in the same war. People knew he was a showman but they thought he could be trusted.

The DTI report revealed the extent to which he fooled or bullied everyone, from the biggest financial institutions to his own family. The sins of the son, Kevin, were almost as great as those of the father, according to the report.”No one can say that he didn’t know what was going on,” says Mr Stroud “I just don’t believe it. He should have been made to put a lot more money back into the pensioners’ trust fund. He has got away with it.”Dennis Stroud was an accountant with the printing firm Gale and Polden in Aldershot during the late 1970s, when a distant deal brought it into the Maxwell empire.

“It was a family firm, running at a profit with full order books,” he says, still dismayed at what happened.The company had moved from printing military papers to such glossy magazines as The Field when it caught the eye of Maxwell. The managing director was summoned to London but was kept waiting for hours before being sent away again. Then, just before Christmas 1981, Maxwell suddenly turned up in Aldershot with an entourage and swept into the main office. He left 15 minutes later, having delivered a killer blow: the company had to close immediately “The boss was shaking afterwards,” remembers Mr Stroud. “I phoned my wife up, and said, ‘The firm’s gone.’ It came out of the blue.”More than 200 people were out of work. The printworks were in the centre of town, and there was talk that Maxwell had shut it to build a hotel on the site.