CASTING a warm glow across their faces, friends and family of murdered Jayden Parkinson set free lanterns marking a year to the day since she disappeared.

They gathered at land off Foxhall Road, Didcot, to pay tribute to the former Didcot Girls’ School pupil on Wednesday night.

Her mother Samantha Shrewsbury, 47, organised the event to remember the Didcot teenager, who was killed by ex-boyfriend Ben Blakeley.

About 30 people attended and the event finished with them in a circle as the Rev Karen Beck read the Lord’s Prayer.

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Mrs Shrewsbury said: “I felt sad, but happy as well to know that people came out in the cold. It was really good.

“Wednesday was hard at times. I thought of her. That time last year we didn’t know she had died. So, for me, it was a bit heartbreaking.”

Jayden met Blakeley at Oxford railway station on December 3 last year. They then went to Didcot Parkway and took a taxi to Park Road on the edge of town. It is thought she met him to tell him she was pregnant and try to persuade him he was the father.

She died after he put his hands around her throat in open countryside and her body was hidden in the grave of Blakeley’s uncle, Alan Kennedy, in the churchyard of All Saint’s Church in Didcot. The body was found on December 18.

Blakeley was found guilty of murder at Oxford Crown Court in July and sentenced to life in prison, with a minimum term of 20 years.