He decided against returning to Britain, and stayed to work in Kenya, where he was eventually made finance director of the Delamere beef and dairy farms.
[9] He established a game cropping enterprise on Soysambu Ranch, the vast family estate in Kenya, which ran from 1992 to 2003, and which employed 15 people as well as building a modern abattoir and cold storage facilities.
In 1996 he introduced the first centre pivot irrigation into Naivasha and eventually the scheme covered over 600 acres (2.4 km2) and provided employment for approximately 500 people.
[citation needed] On 19 April 2005, Cholmondeley shot game ranger Samson ole Sisina,[10] who was working undercover for the Kenya Wildlife Service on his ranch in Gilgil division, Nakuru District.
This decision was widely criticised by Kenyan media, with many claiming he walked free due to the influence of class and position.
There was a public outcry in Nairobi, and from the Maasai who wanted to reclaim ancestral land that was unjustly taken during British colonial rule.
Nick Maes, a Sunday Telegraph reporter, years later found a complex man challenged by changing Kenyan conditions, rising criminality in the countryside, and mounting questions about the ethics and legality of colonially derived land in Kenya.
[citation needed] On 10 May 2006, he was taken again into custody for the murder of Robert Njoya Mbugua, an indigenous Kenyan man, looking for food for his family, whom he had discovered on his land with three companions and dogs, carrying the carcass of an antelope.
[citation needed] Cholmondeley told police he had shot at the poachers' dogs, which he claimed to be standard practice under Kenya Wildlife Service guidelines, killing two of them, and that he had not intended to shoot Njoya, whom he saw lying wounded in the hedgerow.
[4] The verdict of April 2009 was largely based on the evidence by rally driver Carl Tundo, who had accompanied Cholmondeley to the scene.
[7] In an interview[9] he expressed his opinions: I've been portrayed as this great monster who goes round shooting black men for sport when my whole life I've striven to move away from racist behaviour ...
Cholmondeley died of cardiac arrest on 17 August 2016 while undergoing hip surgery at MP Shah Hospital in Nairobi.