A man whose son is one of five Britons held hostage in Iraq has spoken of his belief that he will eventually be freed.

It is exactly one year since the men, all working as civilian contractors, were kidnapped by armed militants at the Iraqi Ministry of Finance in Baghdad.

Since then, their families have faced an agonising wait to see if they will be freed unharmed.

A man named only as Colin, father of a hostage named Alec, said: "We have to believe that the outcome's going to be positive and we do believe that."

"I think that the initial shock - the first week - was a complete blank.

"To be honest, we were so shocked by the news. Because, like every individual, one often thinks it will never happen to you, it will always happen to someone else."

He continued: "When the reality sets in that it's actually your son, things pale into insignificance for the first three days, shell shock.

"As things develop you sort of live with it, although you never completely get used to it, you've got to live with it, otherwise it will destroy you."

He said as a family, they were staying strong and hoping their son returned sooner rather than later.

One of the hostages has been named as IT consultant Peter Moore, from Lincoln, who was working for BearingPoint, an American management consultancy.

The others, who were employed by Canadian security firm GardaWorld to guard Mr Moore, have not been officially identified, but it is believed two are Welsh and two Scottish.

The kidnappers, calling themselves the Islamic Shiite Resistance in Iraq, have released two videos of the captives in the last 12 months.

On December 4, a film was broadcast on Dubai-based TV station al-Arabiya warning that one hostage would be killed unless British troops were withdrawn from Iraq.

The Foreign and Commonwealth Office has stressed that sensitive discussions are going on behind the scenes but in the run-up to the anniversary their anxious relatives have grown increasingly frustrated at the lack of progress.

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