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A man kidnapped, tortured and beaten in Zimbabwe has returned to his congregation in Rochester to tell them he has nothing but love for his enemies.

He revealed the ordeal he suffered as part of President Robert Mugabe’s regime, to an audience at St Justus Church.

Ben, from Borden, near Sittingbourne, and his mother and father-in law, Mike and Angela Campbell, were lying close to death after Mugabe’s thugs attacked them. Ben was savagely attacked after driving to their homestead in a rescue bid.

They took the brave step of taking the case against farm seizure to the South African Development Community tribunal.

And Ben was able to reveal on Wednesday that the tribunal’s first ruling, after massive delays in proceedings, was that the Zimbabwe government is in contempt.

Mugabe’s regime tried to force them to surrender their farm, by stealing their food and generators and slaughtering their animals.

He told the packed church, whose congregation members have prayed for them: “I just had this love for my enemies. It was a miracle, it was not something that comes from man.

“I reached out with my hands that were tied and saw this black leg and the throng was around us.

“I said: 'May Jesus bless you.’”

He described how Mugabe’s henchmen had flung him, Mike and Angela into a station wagon, flanked by gunmen.

They were driven over rough ground, Ben’s fractured skull and beaten body banging painfully against the sides of the truck before being dumped at the roadside.

Mike, whose terrible injuries were life-threatening, Angela, who had been cruelly beaten and whose arm had been broken, and Ben were finally taken to Chegutu Hospital and later transferred to a hospital in Harare. Ben endured an operation lasting over two hours to remove fluid from around his brain.

At the same time as Ben’s ordeal, his wife Laura was attempting to flee to safety in an ancient Ford Laser, with children Joshua, eight, Stephen, five, and Anna, three, in another vehicle with her brother Bruce’s girlfriend.

Ben said: “God has called us to be the light in a dark place. It is something that has got to be fought for.”

The family connection with St Justus stemmed from his uncle John Freeth, who had been a curate at St Mark’s in Gillingham.