Duchess honours honeymoon couple

The newlyweds, from Rhos, near Pontardawe, South Wales, were shot on the last day of the their holiday at the Cocos Hotel and Resort in Antigua on July 27.

Mrs Mullany, 31, a doctor, died instantly in what is believed to have been a botched robbery. Her husband, a trainee physiotherapist who was also 31, died in hospital in Swansea after being flown home in a coma.

They were buried last month in a private ceremony at St John the Evangelist Church in Cilybebyll, South Wales, where they married.

Hundreds of mourners, including the Duchess of York, who met family members as they flew to Antigua following the shootings, were at Llandaff Cathedral, Cardiff, to pay their last respects.

Speaking before the service, the duchess described how she met the family on the aeroplane as she took her own daughters on holiday.

She said: "They got postcards from Ben and Catherine after they had died. I think any mother getting a postcard, they were so in love and so happy, it must have been very difficult. I don't want to think about it."

She said she had agreed to become a patron of the Mullany fund, set up to support prospective medical students and physiotherapists, because she had been so moved by the case, and had told the family she would help in any way.

"I think the nation was so taken by the attack and the world was taken by it.

"They were taken away at such a young age. It was the last day of their honeymoon. They had so much to do, they wanted to be doctors. It is just an extraordinary story. As a mum, and as a parent, I was so touched."