The British Prime Minister Mr Tony Blair attended a memorial service in Liverpool for murdered Iraq hostage Ken Bigley this morning.
He and the Foreign Secretary Mr Jack Straw joined Mr Bigley's family, including his mother Lil and his wife Sombat, for the service at the city's Anglican Cathedral.
Mr Blair, who arrived in Liverpool from talks in Washington with US President George Bush, gave a Bible reading from the Book of Corinthians.
He read: "Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not charity, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal.
"And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries, and all knowledge; and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not charity, I am nothing.
"And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, and have not charity, it profiteth me nothing."
Mr Bigley, 62, from Walton, Liverpool, was taken hostage by Muslim extremists in Baghdad on September 16 and beheaded more than three weeks later. His body has never been recovered.
Prayers were said for Mr Bigley's family, the people involved in the current violence in Iraq and Eugene Armstrong and Jack Henley, the American hostages beheaded just days before him.