Mourners told of tragic waste of promising life (From The Wiltshire Gazette and Herald)

Mourners told of tragic waste of promising life

Mourners stand in tribute as the coffin arrives at The Church of the Holy Cross (16416/4/NS)Nearly 300 family and friends attended the funeral service of 16-year-old Emma Outlaw to give thanks for her life.

The vivacious and pretty Malmesbury School student lived every day to the full, and mourners recalled a teenager full of potential during the service at the Church of the Holy Cross, Sherston, on Monday.

Emma died after being struck by a Royal Mail Transit van as she walked home with friends on the A429 between Malmesbury and Corston, around 4.30am on May 28.

Hours earlier, the teenager, who dreamed of getting a job so she could buy a moped, had been celebrating leaving Malmesbury School.

The tragedy has devastated her grandparents Ken and Eunice, of Knockdown Road, Sherston, with whom Emma had been living for the last 18 months. Also among the mourners was Emma's cousin Vanessa Outlaw.

Her 17-year-old cousin had been walking back towards her home in Corston with Emma and two teenage boys when the tragedy happened but, because she was walking ahead, she only learned about Emma's death from police a few hours later.

Emma was a popular girl with many friends. Teenagers from Sherston and Malmesbury School comforted each other during the service.

Malcolm Trobe, headteacher of Malmesbury School, attended the funeral as did Malmesbury youth worker Hayley Brown, who runs the town youth club, of which Emma was an active member.

The Rev Malcolm Ross, vicar of the Church of the Holy Cross, told mourners that Emma had been granted eternal life with God.

He said: "It was a tragic waste of a promising life.

"It is sad to have to bear the tragedy and consider the loss of such a young and beautiful girl who had everything before her. We pray that she may rest in peace and rise in glory to God's new beginning."

He added that while everyone was grieving some had feelings of inadequacy which they couldn't help.

Building on the theme that death is not the end, but merely the beginning of eternal life, mourners sung the hymns The Lord is My Shepherd and All Things Bright and Beautiful.

The service ended with the Robbie Williams hit song Angels, and I'll Be Missing You.

Emma was buried in the church cemetery afterwards.

Emma's father Mark died in 1991 and she was then brought up by her aunt Sarah in Wolverhampton.

She would regularly visit her grandparents during the holidays and they said she decided to live with them because she loved the friendly people and community spirit of Sherston.

Last month the Outlaw family suffered a setback when a blaze ripped through the home of Vanessa's family in Rodbourne Road, Corston, leaving them to live in a caravan next door.

Police have appealed for anyone who may have seen Emma walking on the towards Corston between 3am and 4.30am on May 28 to contact Sgt Craig Hardy on (01373) 827689.