A FORMER Daily Echo journalist was killed reporting from the front-line in Afghanistan in a “cold blooded killing”, a coroner ruled yesterday.

Sunday Mirror defence correspondent Rupert Hamer, 39, was travelling in a US Marine Corps armoured personnel carrier at the back of a re-supply convoy when it was caught in the explosion on January 9, 2010.

An inquest in Trowbridge, Wiltshire heard that he died despite wearing full standard issue body armour.

A US Marine was also killed and Sunday Mirror photographer Philip Coburn, who was sitting next to Mr Hamer, was seriously injured.

Recording a verdict of unlawful killing, David Ridley, Wiltshire and Swindon Coroner, said: “No matter how much training was given, I don’t think it would have changed the outcome.

“This was not an act of war. It was a cold-blooded killing. The purpose of the device was to maim and kill American service personnel.”

The court heard that the 100lb improvised explosive device (IED) went off underneath the vehicle in the Nawa area of Afghanistan. It was detonated by watching Taliban insurgents.

Mr Hamer and Mr Coburn, 44, were travelling in a Mine Resistant Ambush Protected (MRAP) vehicle at the time.

Mr Hamer had been defence correspondent for the Sunday Mirror since 2004 and was on his sixth assignment in Afghanistan.

He grew up in Norfolk and joined the Echo as senior reporter in 1994 and was chief reporter in the Wimborne office from 1996 to 1997.

He married Helen Garston, who had been a reporter on the Echo and the New Forest Post, and had three children.

Speaking after the inquest, Helen said she hoped her husband’s employer would learn lessons from his death.

“The Mirror's attitude to its journalists going into battle areas before he died was very lax,” she said.

“I hope they tighten up their procedures to minimise the dangers.”

Since the attack, both the Mirror Group Newspapers and the MOD has changed its official policy so that journalists going to war zones undergo hostile environment training courses.