EDWIN BOORMAN, chairman of the Kent Messenger Group, has been awarded an honorary degree "in recognition of his contribution to business and public life in Kent".

Mr Boorman, 68, received an Honorary Doctorate of Civil Law from Kent University vice-chancellor Prof David Melville during a ceremony at Canterbury Cathedral.

"I am extremely pleased to receive this, it's a huge honour," Mr Boorman said. "It's not every day you are given an honorary degree in Canterbury Cathedral and it's not every day that you are allowed to speak in front of 1,000 people."

Mr Boorman used his acceptance speech as a platform to launch a condemnation of the Iraq war.

It came on the day that the long awaited Butler Report into the intelligence service's weaknesses in the run-up to the US-led invasion was published.

Quoting Martin Luther King, Mr Boorman said told the congregration "we have guided missiles and misguided men".

"That turned out to be quite a prophesy when you think we went to war with Iraq on the pretext of there being weapons of mass destruction," Mr Boorman said.

"Those weapons have yet to be found and probably did not exist. When world leaders can run over international law, then it's a poor account for us."

Aside from taking an interest in world affairs and heading the Kent Messenger Group, Mr Boorman is also deputy president of the Kent Youth Trust. He was also High Sheriff of Kent in 1997, national president of the Newspaper Society in 2001-2 and until June had been chairman of the St John Ambulance in Kent.

Others receiving honorary degrees included historian Antony Beevor, Sunday Times political cartoonist Gerald Scarfe and artist Fred Cuming who all received Honorary Doctorates of Letters.

Sir David Ramsbotham, former chief inspector of prisons, French university professor Daniel Boucher and former vice-chancellor of York University Sir Ron Cooke, who was born in Maidstone, and attended Ashford Grammar School, were awarded Honorary Doctorates of Civil Law.

Scientist Dame Julia Higgins and Jacqueline McGlade, director of the European Environment Ageney, received Honorary Doctorates of Science.