An inquest will open today into the death of a former Wye College student and Kent journalist killed in an explosion in Afghanistan.

Sunday Mirror defence correspondent Rupert Hamer died from a blast caused by an improvised explosive device last Saturday.

The 39-year-old spent time at the Kentish Express in Ashford in the 1980s.

He was on his fifth trip to the war-torn country and embedded with US Marines in Helmand Province when he died.

Photographer Phil Coburn suffered serious injuries.