Grieving relatives and friends today paid their last respects to Colchester schoolgirl Amy Burgess.

Amy, a year 11 pupil at Philip Morant School, died a week ago after falling from the NCP car park in Nunns Road, Colchester just hours after exam stress prevented her from taking her first GCSE.

More than 100 of Amy's friends, relatives, classmates and teachers attended the service of thanksgiving for her life at 9.30am today at St Peter and St Paul's Church in West Mersea.

Three teachers from Philip Morant School spoke about 16-year-old Amy.

Her English teacher Peter Johnson described her as "perceptive and a perfectionist who found it difficult to concentrate on written work".

He said: "She desperately wanted to do well but was never satisfied with what she achieved."

He said she was "strong, uncompromising and awkward, but also very vulnerable and lacked confidence in many ways".

He told how he had spoken to Amy on the day she died. She was pleased because she had paired off two of her friends.

"I told her there was something out there for her and she would find it."

Amy, who lived with her parents Kevin and Sue Burgess in West Mersea, and had an elder sister Sophie, would often read or go horse riding to escape her troubles.

Outside the church, as the hearse arrived bearing Amy's coffin, friends stood with two ponies.

Mr Johnson added: "She was a remarkable person and my life is one of those that has been poorer since last Thursday."

The Rev Robin Elphick, who took the service which included a reading and hymns Amazing Grace and All Things Bright and Beautiful, said: "Why did God allow this to happen? Why does Amy's family have to face such grief and be plunged into such despair?

"There is no easy answer. But I do believe there is hope. I do believe our Heavenly Father is one day going to make sense of it all."

Amy Burgess

Converted for the new archive on 19 November 2001. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.