Families and friends gathered in a Bradford church to pay their respect to loved ones who were victims of murder or violence.

The emotional memorial service was organised by Denise Copley, of Wibsey, whose son Jonathan and his babysitter Rachel Rooney were stabbed to death in February 1995.

Jonathan would have been ten yesterday. And, as a tribute, the service was at St John's Church, Great Horton, where his funeral was held.

In the congregation on Saturday were the parents of Bradford teenager Rachel Barraclough, who was stabbed to death on wasteland in Wakefield last September. And the mother of 15-year-old Nobantu Zani, strangled to death with her own scarf and left at Druid's Altar on Harden Moor, was also there.

Mrs Copley's friends Diane Smith and Sharon Wood lit candles as a tragic roll call of 199 names was read out by Jonathan's former nursery school teacher Hilary Worsman and police officer Terry Keating who worked on the murder case.

Grieving friends and relatives wept as the flames lit up the church and the names kept coming. Among them were 13-year-old Lindsay Jo Rimer from Hebden Bridge, whose body was found in a canal in 1995, Huddersfield school teacher Evelyn Howells, whose teenage sons and husband were convicted of her murder, and Julie Ann Dart who was murdered by Keighley-born Michael Sams.

And finally, a larger candle was lit in memory of those who died in the Dunblane massacre and all the people who could not be named individually.

After the service, Mrs Copley said: "It is possible we'll do it again. I was pleased with the turn out although I had expected more people to come."

Mrs Smith added: "We've been shocked by the amount of interest people have shown. I've taken a lot of phone calls from the general public who have never suffered in this way but rang to say the service was a nice way to remember our loved ones.

"And a lot of people are still suffering. One lady's father was murdered 40 years ago and she wanted his name read out.

Others have said it has been a help to talk to someone who knows what they are going through."

People travelled from as far afield as London and Liverpool to attend the service, conducted by the Reverend Steve Allen.

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