Hundreds of mourners lined the streets of a Scottish town on Saturday for the funeral of a six-year-old girl killed on holiday.
Alesha MacPhail went missing on the Isle of Bute in the Firth of Clyde, where she had been staying with her father and grandparents, on 2 July. She was found dead three hours later at the site of a former hotel.
A 16-year-old boy has been charged with her rape and murder.
A piper played as mourners, many of them wearing pink in tribute to Alesha, entered Coats funeral home in Coatbridge, North Lanarkshire. The railings of the building were adorned with bows and cuddly toys lined the wall.
In a eulogy delivered by her uncle, Calum MacPhail, he said Alesha had “a great amount of love for absolutely everyone”.
“Alesha was everything that I wanted to be,” he said. “She was kind, caring, smart. I just cannot believe she is gone. She was the brightest thing.”
Alesha’s mother, Georgina Lochrane, hugged him as he returned to his seat near the girl’s father, Robert MacPhail, her four-year-old sister, Courtney, and other family members.
Emma Gibson, Alesha’s class teacher at Chapelside primary school in nearby Airdrie, described her as bright and bubbly, and said that she had always come to class with a “big beautiful smile”.
“It was an absolute pleasure to have taught Alesha. I’m so grateful to have known this special little girl,” she said.
The school’s headteacher, Wendy Davie, said: “May your smile shine brightly wherever you are. You will always be remembered as our Chapelside star.”
Robert MacPhail’s girlfriend, Toni McLachlan, also gave a tribute. “Sleep tight, little angel,” she said.
Alesha was fascinated by bubbles and had always wanted a bubble party on her birthday, said Fraser MacGregor, the funeral director who conducted the service.
As it ended, a machine blew hundreds of bubbles over the heads of her friends and relatives.
