UK News 01-09-2000 Sarah Payne Finally Laid To Rest who: Eight year-old Sarah Payne what: Mourned by hundreds at funeral where: HERSHAM when: Yesterday snippet: "Four dapple-grey horses drew a tiny white coffin through the streets of Hersham, Surrey, yesterday," writes Caroline Davies in The Telegraph, "as Sarah Payne, the eight-year-old schoolgirl abducted and murdered, was finally laid to rest." "The shiny white box was barely 4ft long," says Steve Boggan in The Independent, "and its size offered a reminder, if one were needed, of how small and how young Sarah Payne was when she was kidnapped and murdered by a paedophile on 1 July." Twenty-five members of the family marched the half mile from their family home to St Peter`s Church to attend a service in front of 400 invited mourners and at least as many standing outside, listening to the service broadcast over loudspeakers. "As the coffin was carried outside, Sarah`s parents followed with their arms around each other and wept as it was placed back in its glass carriage to be taken to a private burial at Burvale cemetery in Hersham," reports Caroline Davies in The Telegraph. "A simple wooden cross marked the spot where she was laid to rest". "Her mother Sara buried her face in her husband Michael`s chest," says The Mirror. "He clutched a single red rose, his body shaking with grief". Beside them, Sarah`s six-year old sister Charlotte "looked with pleading eyes, wanting, but not knowing how, to make her mummy and daddy happy again". "However short and ordinary her life," comments Anna Pukas in The Express, "in death Sarah Payne is a child who has gripped the nation`s heart and made it cry out in a collective sorrow." [... more]

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