The British do not use torture. At least, that has always been the official line, but as we square up to the realities of our past in the colonies and beyond, it is becoming an increasingly difficult line to hold.

The case to be brought this week against the British Government for the torture of suspects during Kenya’s Mau Mau rebellion therefore promises to raise yet another set of embarrassing revelations.

The suit by London lawyers Leigh Day, on behalf of the Kenya Human Rights Commission (KHRC), has taken several years to compile. Leigh Day gained prominence in Kenya after winning an out-of-court settlement from the Ministry of Defence, over injuries sustained from unexploded ordinance left on firing ranges by British soldiers.

They have tried the same approach in the Mau Mau reparations case. But whereas the MoD had good reason to capitulate over the firing range injuries, the Foreign and Commonwealth Office will fight the Mau Mau claim every step of the way.

There can be no doubt that torture was used by British forces in the counter-insurgency mounted against the Mau Mau rebels between 1952 and 1960. British tactics were excessive, heavy-handed and frequently brutal. There is plenty of documentary evidence to support this, including accounts of interrogation centres and other illegal forms of detention. Even the records of Britain’s own High Court of East Africa contain judgments that torture was used.

The case may seem strong, but the question remains who is responsible? The British Government will claim that it passed legal responsibility to the government of independent Kenya in 1963. The KHRC will argue that human rights laws in force at the time still apply, regardless of subsequent change in sovereignty.

A further complication is that the teams who carried out torture under the British flag included Kenyans. Any case brought against named torturers would surely have included both British and Kenyan nationals. Such actions might more readily have brought convictions, but without compensation of the kind sought by Leigh Day. The tactics here are driven by politics and money.

Britain does not stand alone in facing such colonial legacies. Despite a public apology made in 2004 and the pledge of increased aid commitments to Namibia, the German Government still faces claims from the Herero peoples over a genocide inflicted in 1904. The Italians, too, are entangled in claims from their occupation of Libya. Silvio Berlusconi has gone further than the Germans, issuing an apology and promising a reparations payment of $5 billion.

The British will look toward the German and not the Italian model in handling the Mau Mau case. An apology should be issued to Kenya, and if it was to be given with a pledge of development assistance, then this might help to lay the ghosts of the past.

This should happen, but is it likely? It would imply an admission that torture had taken place under British rule in Kenya. We are making fools of ourselves by denying this. It is time to face up.

David Anderson is Professor of African Politics in the University of Oxford and author of Histories of the Hanged: The Dirty War in Kenya and the End of Empire:

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