My brother's brutal death

I felt sick with fear. The newsflash on the TV said that four male Britons had been kidnapped in Chechnya.

It was 3 October 1998 and my brother Darren, 26, had been working there for the past six months. I remember telling myself that it couldn't be Darren. After all, why would anyone want to kidnap him? I tried to call the house where Darren was staying but there was no answer.

Half-an-hour later, a woman called from his company and confirmed my worst fears - Darren, along with three other men, had been kidnapped. "There was an ambush at the house where they were staying," she said. I could barely take it in.

The facts were scarce. No one could tell us anything about where he'd been taken or who had taken him. There were pictures on the news of the run-down house where Darren had been living. I shuddered when the camera zoomed in on the fence - it was riddled with bullet holes.

My family has always been very close and it was a struggle to come to terms with what had happened to Darren in a country we knew nothing about. My parents, Maura and Eamonn, ran The Crown pub in Thames Ditton, Surrey, and I grew up there with my older brothers, Darren and Kieron. Darren managed the pub for a few years and then qualified as an electrician. We were all thrilled when he became field sales engineer with local firm Granger Telecom, especially since there was a possibility that he might be able to work abroad.

In fact, after just three weeks he was given his first foreign assignment - to the breakaway former Soviet republic of Chechnya. He enjoyed the work, but the conditions were primitive. Hot water was scarce and there was no electricity in the evenings. He had his own bodyguards as well. While this seemed worrying, I told myself Darren was only an engineer - he wasn't doing anything dangerous.

The day after we learned of the kidnapping, staff from Granger met the close relatives of the kidnapped men and revealed what they knew. Armed rebels had stormed the house Darren shared with his three colleagues during the night. There was a shoot-out, two bodyguards had been injured, then Darren and his three colleagues had been stripped and taken out into the woods.

I still couldn't understand why anyone would want to abduct them. But I soon learned that in Chechnya, Westerners, regardless of their job, meant big money. Kidnappers knew that companies would pay millions of pounds for their employees' return. Newspapers called Chechnya the kidnap capital of the world.

Granger assured us that all Westerners previously abducted there had been freed. But the situation was very frustrating. We could only wait for the kidnappers to make contact, and were warned this might take months, even years. The Foreign Office told us it was doing everything possible to locate Darren. I tried to carry on as normal, but this was extremely difficult. All the time I was thinking about what he must be going through.

Eight weeks passed and then, at the end of November, the kidnappers contacted Granger. They promised that the hostages were alive and well. I was ecstatic and thought it would only be a matter of time before he came home. A few days later, the kidnappers demanded a ransom. The Foreign Office had already told us that it was the British Government's policy not to pay ransoms, but Granger agreed to find the money. Negotiations on the amount and how it would be paid lasted for more than a week. I didn't care how they did it, I just wanted Darren home.

Then, on 4 December, we heard the devastating news that four bodies had been found. As we sat in the pub watching the TV reports, a newsflash came on. The initial reports had been wrong - it wasn't bodies, it was four severed heads. They had been found in a sack by the side of a road close to the Russian border. It was too horrific to take in. I got up and walked out. I told myself that we didn't even know if it was Darren - but then the phone rang. It was the Foreign Office. They confirmed that the heads were those of the hostages. Darren was dead.

Mum collapsed and I felt as if my legs were going to buckle. For months we'd had so much hope, but now that was gone. We had to deal with the fact that Darren was never coming home. Friends took over the running of the pub while we retreated into our own world of grief. A month passed before the bodies were flown back to be identified formally. Finally, in February 1999, we held Darren's funeral. More than a thousand people attended.

It wasn't until the coroner's inquest nine months later that we learned about a Russian man who had been with Darren in the last weeks of his life. Magomed Chaguchiev, 65, had been called to give evidence. His 23-year-old son Rustam had also been abducted in Chechnya, and Magomed and his other son, Raoul, had gone there to find him. They'd been kidnapped too and held with Darren and his colleagues before being released. He was the one person who could tell us how the hostages had been treated.

The next day, the coroner's inquest and the appalling details of the men's ordeal were revealed in the newspapers. We were kept in a scorpion-infested pit, one headline screamed. I cried as I read about the cruelty my brother had suffered in the last weeks of his life.

For 64 days, they were starved - each week they were given just one bucket of drinking water and a loaf of bread to share. They were beaten, tortured and made to watch videos of their captors beheading other hostages. Scorpions, snakes and bugs crawled over them while they tried to sleep, and they were forced to falsely confess on video that they had been sent to Chechnya to spy. Every detail was chilling. The coroner recorded a verdict of unlawful death for all four men.

My grief slowly turned to anger at Granger for sending Darren to what I came to realise was one of the world's most dangerous countries. The company had always claimed the men had been fully aware of the risks and maintained it had provided adequate security. But I knew there was no way Darren could have realised how dangerous Chechnya was. He would never have put his life on the line to lay phone cables for £17,000 a year. The other families felt the same, and we all agreed to take legal action.

We didn't qualify for legal aid, so we had to finance the case ourselves - the costs ran to thousands of pounds. Mum and Dad used all their savings and we borrowed the rest. At times, I felt like giving up. I just wanted to grieve for Darren, away from witness statements. There was no guarantee we would win, and if we lost we would face a huge legal bill. The stress was too much, and I began taking anti-depressants.

Finally, in June this year, after a three-and-a-half-year battle, Granger admitted liability and settled out of court. For legal reasons, I can't disclose the award - but no sum can make up for losing Darren. It's nearly five years since he died and I'm still trying to rebuild my life. I'm now 25, have a new job and have moved in with a friend. But Mum and Dad have both been ill, and last year they left the pub. Their hearts just weren't in it any more.

We've since been told that two Chechen rebel commanders were to blame for the killings, yet no one has ever been brought to trial. It may sound strange, but that doesn't matter. It won't bring Darren back.

I don't think I'll ever fully come to terms with what happened. Instead I focus on remembering him as he was - a kind, generous and loving brother.