The parents of a student who plunged from the eighth floor of a hotel are still trying to find out why he died a year after his death.

The body of Hamzah Akhtar, 18, was found on the ground by the Britannia Hotel in Birmingham in November 1999, yet there has still not been an inquest into his death.

Parents Rauf and Shahida Akhtar, of Thorn Lane, Heaton, Bradford, say they have held back from criticising the coroner's office in the West Midlands during their "year of torture" but now just want answers.

Fighting back tears, Mrs Akhtar said: "First the inquest was supposed to be last March, then November but when we went down to Birmingham we were told it had been put off until February.

"We had travelled all that way to find out why our son died and no one had even bothered to call us to say the inquest had been cancelled. That's not right."

They relived their nightmare on the first anniversary of his death, November 23 - and still goes on.

Heartbroken Mrs Akhtar said: "It's been a year of torture. You can't imagine how we felt on that day.

"I went through each hour as it passed last month saying now he is alive, now he is shopping, now he is in trouble, and now he is dead.

"Initial Birmingham police investigations looked at the possibility of suicide, but this was the wrong line to follow and valuable time was lost during these early stages."

Hamzah, 18 at the time of his death, was a first year student of mathematical studies and accounting at Coventry University for just two months since leaving St Bede's School after his A-levels.

Mrs Akhtar, who works for Bradford Community Health Trust, said: "There are so many questions which have still not been answered.

"Why was he in Birmingham? Why was a note in Urdu, which said it was from Hamzah, found on him? He could speak the language but he couldn't write or read it. Who was he with?"

She added: "The last time we saw him was on November 6 and when he left he gave me a kiss, hugged me and said 'Chill out, Shahida'.

"He was so happy. There were no problems, why did he die?"

Mr Akhtar said her son could not read or write even his own name in Urdu and yet the note found on his body was written in almost perfect Urdu.

She said: "In the top right hand corner it had the name Ahraz. On the second line there were the words summer holidays and then two lines from popular Asian songs ("We live in your heart" and "We are all together").

"At the bottom their was Hamzah Akhtar in a rectangular box, like a coffin, and then just his name on its own and written in English just below was Angel 2.

"Everything apart from that was written in perfect Urdu which Hamzah could only speak."

She said her son's death had sent shockwaves throughout the community.

Father-of-three, Mr Akhtar, said: "No one seems to be doing anything for us, we are just left to wonder what happened.

"Everyone was really frightened after his death. We know we can't bring our son back but we can do something to try to stop it happening in the future."

A spokesman for the West Midlands Coroner's Office said no possibilities, including suicide, could be ruled out until the inquest which was now provisionally scheduled for February 19 next year.

She said: "The inquest was provisionally for November 3 but was cancelled because the coroner had to attend a meeting, we did leave a message with someone at the family's house beforehand.

"We have been following up a number of questions the family asked us to look into and I have also had to get in touch with students at Mr Akhtar's university who have been away over the summer."

A West Midlands Police spokesman said there had been a thorough investigation on behalf of the Coroner into the circumstances surrounding Mr Akhtar's death.

The spokesman said: "We will keep an open mind but there is nothing to suggest that there is any foul play."