The BBC's East Africa Correspondent Martin Dawes reports from the Nairobi court

Suffolk hotelier, John Ward, has described to the High Court in Nairobi how he flew from the UK to organise a desperate air search for his daughter.

He spoke of his utter bewilderment at finding her car in a remote corner of the Masai Mara game reserve.

The former chief warden of the reserve, Simon Ole Makallah, has denied the murder charge.

John Ward: Stood stiffly

John Ward's voice betrayed emotion only twice during the all-day session.

The first was when he told how he had heard over the radio of a search plane that a body had been found. The second time was when he recalled how a radio message relayed the correction. It was not a body, it was just a leg.

The BBC's East Africa correspondent Martin Dawes said that for the most part Mr Ward stood stiffly with hands behind his back as he recounted his attempts to find his 28-year-old daughter.

After an aircraft spotted a jeep stuck in a gully he went there and helped break a window to get into the locked vehicle but there was no sign of Julie.

Speaking directly to the judge Mr Ward said there was no track leading there, there was no reason for the jeep to be there.

The millionaire hotelier has spent a good part of his business fortune - �500,000 at the last count - trying to bring his daughter's killers to justice. He told the court he had fond memories of his daughter

Simon Ole Makallah: Denies murder

He described her as "a quiet girl" who "avoided trouble where possible" and "had a happy disposition".

Throughout, the man accused of the murder sat directly opposite the witness box taking notes.

Mr Makallah was chief warden at the famous Masai Mara National Reserve at the time of Julie's murder in 1988.

The court was adjourned until the middle of next week when Mr Ward is expected to give evidence about his arrival at the place where Julie's burned remains were found.