About 1,000 people paid a final tribute to Jenny, 21, whose father had called her "my little summer breeze".

Villagers and friends attended the church of St Barnabas for a funeral service in Warmley, on the edge of Bristol.

Before the service, around 80 mostly young friends of 22-year-old Jenny, walked in a special tribute behind her funeral cortege and alongside her parents.

Her simple coffin was borne into the packed church ahead of a white and red floral display, in the words "Jenny", followed closely behind by her parents Ray and Margaret.

Ray King: "My little summer breeze"

The couple clutched each other for support as they walked ahead of Jenny's brother Andrew, 25, her sister Sarah, 11, to whom Jenny was a "second mother", and boyfriend Steve Daly, 30.

It was her father who captured the spirit of the grief-stricken community in his emotional reading of two poems about Jenny - one written by her mother - and his letter to her to take to her grave.

Mr King repeatedly referred to his daughter as his "darling Jen" and "my Jenny Wren".

Mr King made a television appeal last month with his wife at his side, asking that his missing daughter should be returned safely to her devoted family.

But his plea was followed the next day by the discovery of her in a children's "den" in a copse only several hundred yards from her home.

A local man, Paul Hunt, 22, has since been charged with her murder.