The British media have been adamant that President Obama has revealed his anti-British side in recent weeks over the Gulf Oil Spill, and a new report claims he might have good reason for doing so.

An interview in the Daily Mail with Obama's grandfather's wife reveals how she told him about the way the British tortured his grandfather during the Mau Mau rebellion in the early 1950s.

Sarah Onyango was Hussein Onyango's third wife. At 89 years old, she is still hale and hearty and Obama calls her Granny Sarah.

When Obama visited Kenya, Sarah says she told him of the torture his grandfather, a former cook in the British army who turned against them in the fight for independence, received.

"The African warders were instructed by the white soldiers to whip him every morning and evening till he repented," says Sarah. "

"They would squeeze his private parts (testicles) with parallel metallic rods. They also pierced his nails and buttocks with a sharp pin, with his hands and legs tied together with his head facing down," she says.

"There were beatings and torture. That was the time we realized that the British were actually not friends but, instead, enemies. My husband had worked so diligently for them, only to be arrested and detained. He called the British 'beasts and traitors in human skin'. 'Oe. They say British soldiers used torture in an effort to get him to reveal rebel secrets.

"I narrated the whole story to Barack one evening to help him understand our family's past. He wasn't amused at all. He expressed quite a lot of concern about why the British had to punish his grandfather 'on his own soil'.

"He said the whole act sounded barbaric. He wondered why the British never respected African culture. The arrest, he said, was outrageous."

She said  "Generally, my grandson has never believed the British do anything for a common good, rather than their selfish interests."