Friends and family this week paid tribute to a "quiet, gentle" teenager who was killed in a tragic road accident in Gubbins Lane on Friday morning.

Eighteen-year-old Chris Speller, of Hutton, was returning home on his moped after spending the night at a friend's house in Ardleigh Green, when he was involved in a collision with a grey Nissan Primera at the junction with Arundel Road.

A doctor pronounced him dead at the scene of the accident.

Now his grieving family say he will be buried at the same church that his brother John is planning to get married in next year, so he won't miss the wedding.

The funeral will take place tomorrow afternoon at All Saints Church in Hutton. The former Shenfield High School student will be laid to rest in the shirt of his beloved Arsenal FC, with the inside of the coffin also decked out in the club's colours.

Chris, who grew up in Harold Wood and attended Harold Wood Primary School in Recreation Avenue, still had many friends in the area.

His brothers and sisters - John, 27, Alex, 9, Vicki, 30 and 22-year-old Kay - said he was a quiet person, but with an adventurous spirit which made him want to try everything. "He had no fear at all," said John, an estate agent.

His mother, Brenda, said: "He was such a generous, sweet-natured child, and he was just in the wrong place at the wrong time."

TEENAGE TRAGEDY: Chris Speller

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