Overwhelmed: Hostage’s mother collapses after emotional plea

THE Irish-born mother of hostage Kenneth Bigley collapsed and was taken to hospital just hours after making an emotional appeal for her son’s release last night.

“Would you please help my son? He is only a working man who wants to support his family,” Elizabeth Bigley said in an address to the militants who have been holding her son for more than a week. “Please show mercy to Ken and send him home to me alive.”

The 86-year-old, originally from Ticknock, near Stepaside in Dublin, made the televised appeal from a police station in Liverpool. But just after 8pm last night she was taken to hospital.