A former Grimsby Telegraph journalist has been shot in Iraq.

Colin Freeman, who worked at the paper between 1994 and 1996, was reporting from Basra when a bullet narrowly missed his spine on Friday.

The freelance told the Evening Standard, who he was working for: “I went to a prayer meeting with the permission of the leading sheikh, but as I was leaving a guy came up behind my translator and fired his pistol.”

He described the feeling as being like “an almighty kick in the backside”, only later finding out a bullet had gone inside him.

He told Standard readers: “For a few terrifying moments I thought I was going to be lynched.”

Colin reported how he was dragged through the streets by Shi’ite militia and repeatedly punched.

He escaped when one of the sheikh’s deputies bundled him into a car. British medics removed the bullet.

Writing in the Sunday Telegraph, he said: “My terror was that I would end up being hung from the nearby canal bridge, as had happened to the bodies of four American security contractors in Fallujah.

“After being dragged and punched through the streets I feel very lucky to be alive.”

A Foreign Office spokeswoman told the Telegraph she was unaware of the incident but would make inquiries.

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