The Australian Women's Register

Summary

In 1953, Katharine Hurst became the first woman prosecutor in the British colony of Kenya where she prosecuted members of the Mau Mau secret society who were responsible for many deaths during the 1950s. According to the Sun Herald Hurst was an impressive figure in Court: “a woman barrister strode into the Githunguri Court with a revolver at her hip. Katharine Patricia Hurst, 34, wore a khaki drill skirt, mud
spattered nylons, a man’s white shirt and a cartridge belt holding the gun. Her barrister’s robe went on top of all that as she opened the Crown case against five rows of manacled East African natives in the biggest mass-murder trial in Commonwealth history.”