Emotion charged memorial service for murdered schoolgirl

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GUILDFORD, England -- Up to 800 mourners gathered with the family of eight-year-old Sarah Payne to pay tribute to the murdered schoolgirl in an emotion-charged memorial service.

Hundreds of cuddly teddy bears were brought to the Anglican cathedral Saturday in memory of Sarah. The steps leading to the cathedral were lined with floral tributes.

After the service, Sarah's parents, Michael and Sara, flanked by their three surviving children -- Lee, Luke and Charlotte -- released 12 white doves from a basket in the grounds of Guildford Cathedral.

"This young child has become the focus of the nation's grief and sorrow," the Bishop of Dorking Ian Brackley told the 40-minute service. He said: "The very shortness of her life intensifies the preciousness of the gift she was."

During the moving service, Sarah's aunt and uncle, her teacher and a family friend, Jenny Allen, all made emotional tributes to the little girl.

Allen, said: "To me her unerring sense of humour, her ability to make the gloomiest of faces light up with laughter and her total inability to curb the giggles even in mid-sulk were the very essence of Sarah's short life."

The service was broadcast on speakers to those outside who were unable to get into the packed cathedral. The Archbishop of Canterbury sent the Payne family a personal message.

A minute's silence was held beneath a giant portrait of the smiling eight-year-old whose body was found more than two weeks after she was abducted last month.

The bishop told the congregation that the anger and outrage over Sarah's murder must not cloud the service to celebrate her short life.

"There is a great sense of outrage at the appalling murder of a young child, a natural feeling of revulsion and disgust at the manner of her death," he said.

"The innocence of childhood play was violated. In an extraordinary way Sarah's death has touched hundreds of people's lives and become a focus for an outpouring of compassion and public grief.

"As a nation we are not terribly religious most of the time, and generally speaking, we find it difficult to give expression to our deeper emotions.

"But I suspect this particular death has brought to the surface for so many people, who have lost a child for whatever reason or someone else close to them, a sense of mourning afresh, or perhaps for the first time."

Sarah was abducted on July 1 near her grandparents' home at East Preston, near Littlehampton, West Sussex.

Her naked body was found dumped in a field beside the A29 near Pulborough, West Sussex, on 17 July. Detectives suspect that she was strangled or suffocated.

A 41-year-old man, from Littlehampton, has been questioned twice by police in connection with the murder but on both occasions was released without charge.

Reuters contributed to this report.

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